It's About Time For The "Incident"

August 1964 -- The war hawks were conducting business as usual. Covert operations against North Vietnam had been ongoing for quite some time -- attacks on radio transmitters and radar sites in coastal areas by South Vietnamese Navy patrol boats -- planned, equipped and financed by the Pentagon, and supported by the US Navy. The war hawks got what they wanted on August 2nd when the destroyer USS Maddox, on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin, came under fire in international waters from three North Vietnamese gunboats. No real damage was done to the Maddox. The torpedoes missed, and one machine gun bullet lodged in one of the boat's stacks. The gunboats were driven off by return fire from the Maddox and planes launched from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. President Johnson decided not to retaliate just yet, but warned Hanoi against "any further unprovoked offensive military action against United States forces". Unprovoked? Yeah right. Both sides knew the score. Hanoi had already lodged a formal protest over the attacks on its territory by American "puppet" forces. They knew the Maddox was involved in an operation attacking the islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu just the day before, their mission being to sniff out fresh targets by monitoring the spike in radar and radio signals just after the attacks. The gunboat attack on the Maddox was a personal message to Johnson. Not to be out-hawked, Johnson ordered another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy, to accompany the Maddox on further patrols in the same area, ratcheting up the tension another notch. He had shown restraint to the American public, but now he was itching for a fight.

Two days later, "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing his ship's own propeller beat" caused a panic aboard the Maddox and the Turner Joy. The infamous "Gulf Of Tonkin Incident" had begun. For two and a half hours the sailors evaded ghost torpedoes, called in air strikes from the Ticonderoga, and fired wildly at boats that probably never existed -- all the while sending frantic "Flash Priority" messages to Washington, reporting on the progress of the ongoing "engagement". When the smoke cleared, Captain John J. Herrick issued this message:

"Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken."

Any sane, prudent leader would order that complete evaluation before taking further action, but not a war hawk like Lyndon B. Johnson. He ordered immediate "retaliatory" airstrikes against targets in North Vietnam. Old Lyndon later confided: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

The rest is sad, shameful history. The press immediately started cheerleading. Congress didn't ask any questions. Johnson got his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The military-industrial complex got their billions of taxpayer dollars. The American people got over 58,000 deaths and 350,000 casualties, and the Vietnamese deaths numbered in the millions. Quite a legacy for old Lyndon the bad-ass Texas war hawk.

October 2007 -- The war hawks are conducting business as usual. Forget the fact that Iraq is an unmitigated clusterfuck. That doesn't matter to a bad-ass Texas war hawk like George W. Bush or a hell-bent psycho like Dick Cheney. They aren't up for re-election, and the Republicans are screwed next time anyway. The Democrats are going to have to clean up the mess. Besides, everything is going great for the all-important cronies in the military-industrial complex. They're raking in billions and ready to go for more. Forget our nation's future, and the future of the world for that matter. Strap on your pig snout and think like a heartless, greed-driven warmonger for a minute. The next target is Iran, and we almost have them surrounded.

To the east -- Afghanistan is occupied and Pakistan is our ally. Well, Musharraf is anyway. To the west -- Iraq is occupied and Kuwait is practically our own private military base. The Saudis to the south are allied with us and certainly no friends of Shiite-led Iran. But what about that pesky Strait of Hormuz? If Iran could disrupt shipping there, they would immediately cut off 20% of the world's oil supply. It's imperative that it be kept open. Three U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike groups operating in the Persian Gulf should do the trick. The USS Enterprise strike group has been there for a while, and the USS Nimitz and USS Truman groups just arrived at the end of September. All of the pieces are in place to keep the strait open while also raining a heap of good old "shock and awe" down on the heads of those uppity Iranians. The propaganda campaign has been pretty successful so far. Nobody fell for Iran as an imminent nuclear threat, but the "Iran meddling in our business in Iraq" campaign seems to be getting some traction. We got our Kyl Amendment from Congress, didn't we? Hell, that's almost as good as a preemptive Gulf of Tonkin Resolution! The plans are all drawn up. Now all we need is the "incident".

So what will the "incident" be? An "unprovoked" attack on our Navy in the Persian Gulf, just like in 1964? An "engagement" on the Iran-Iraq border? A "terrorist attack" blamed on the Iranians? The possibilities are just about endless, but the "incident" is inevitable, and no matter what it is, the "reaction" is predictable. The "retaliatory" bombing will immediately begin. The press will start cheerleading, and Congress won't ask any questions. The cronies will get more billions, and the corpses will pile up. As usual, the long-term consequences haven't been planned for, or even considered. The next president will have to deal with them, and Bush will leave us three wars as a parting gift. Quite a legacy for old George the bad-ass Texas war hawk.

Update: October 6, 2007 -- Today, White House mouthpiece General David Petraeus, speaking at a US military base 20 miles from the Iranian border, escalated the accusations of Iran's interference in Iraq and accused Tehran's ambassador to Baghdad of being a member of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds force. According to Petraeus: "They are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and in some cases the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers".

The drumbeat grows louder.

Meet Ray Hunt - Shameless War Profiteer

Ray is a cheerful guy -- and he should be. His company recently signed the biggest oil exploration contract to come out of Iraq since the war began. Much to the chagrin of the Iraqi parliament, while they were trying to reach an agreement on their much-touted oil revenue sharing law, Ray cut his deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, contributing to the collapse of the negotiations in Baghdad. Yet another benchmark missed, as if they were ever legitimate goals in the first place. Was there any flappy-jowled howling outrage from the Republicans in Congress? Any bellowing accusations of undermining the mission of our troops from right-wing loudmouths like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh? Nope! Not a peep. Why? Ray is golden. Ray is untouchable. Ray is a "Loyal Bushie".

Ray Hunt is your typical George W. Bush "fox in the henhouse" government appointee. You know the kind. His father, the late Texas oil man H. L. Hunt, started the company that Ray now owns and passed it on to him, so he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He subsequently did quite well for himself, getting on the board of directors for Dresser Industries, EDS, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Pepsi, and (of course) Halliburton. He's also on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying organization for the oil and natural gas industry. He donates plenty of money to the Republican party; so much money that he got himself appointed finance chairman of the Republican National Committee’s "Victory 2000" Committee. Why, he's such a good friend to the Bush family that he's even on the board of trustees for Poppy Bush's Presidential Library Foundation!

In October 2001 (one month after 9/11) all of those contributions paid off in a big way for our pal Ray, when George W. Bush appointed him to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to the White House website:

"The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, of counterintelligence, and of other intelligence activities. The PFIAB, through its Intelligence Oversight Board, also advises the President on the legality of foreign intelligence activities."

"Through meetings with intelligence principals, substantive briefings, and visits to intelligence installations, the PFIAB seeks to identify deficiencies in the collection, analysis, and reporting of intelligence; to eliminate unnecessary duplication and functional overlap; and to ensure that major programs are responsive to clearly perceived needs and that the technology employed represents the product of the best minds and technical capabilities available in the nation."

"In carrying out their mandate, the members of the PFIAB enjoy the confidence of the President and have access to all the information related to foreign intelligence that they need to fulfill their vital advisory role."

A billionaire Texas oil man who also sits on the board of Halliburton, advising the President on foreign intelligence collection? I wonder what kind of "vital" advice he was giving during the run-up to the Iraq war, considering all those no-bid contracts Halliburton got. I wonder what sort of relevant expertise he brought to such an important advisory board. I wonder if, as a member of this board, he might be privy to certain secret information long before it became public knowledge -- such as the fact that negotiations on the Iraqi oil revenue sharing law weren't going well, or that the Kurds were getting ready to pass their own law. A shrewd businessman with that type of insider information would know to get his people up to Kurdistan and cut a deal ahead of the competition; to "strike while the iron is hot", as the saying goes. I wonder who is really benefiting from Ray's position on the PFIAB -- the President, the intelligence community, the American people, or Ray?

One thing we do know -- Ray appreciated his appointment so much that in November 2005 he donated $35 million for a land purchase to build the George W. Bush Presidential Library! If you ask me, that's too much to pay when a woodshed behind old Poppy Bush's library would do just fine. I mean, how many books could this guy have?

It's an old cliche that war has no winners, but it isn't true. The winners are people like Ray Hunt and the other Loyal Bushies. You won't see their sons and daughters going to war. They'll just use their wealth to influence politicians and loot your treasury; putting your nation in ever-increasing debt; sending your sons and daughters off to do the killing and dying necessary for them to secure those lucrative contracts. It's basically legal bribery, plain and simple, going on in plain view -- right in your face. They will also use that wealth to buy ownership in, and commercial time on television networks, so they can influence the content of the so-called "news" being piped into your living room every night, designed to convince you that the war is a just cause -- that you're going after WMD, fighting terrorists, spreading democracy, etc. And the propaganda works! Hey, Bush got re-elected, didn't he? Now you know why Ray is such a cheerful guy. He's laughing at you!

Edwards To Congress - Grow A Pair

At least one Democrat is reminding his colleagues what their duty to the American people is:



No, this is not an endorsement of John Edwards for President. Let's not forget -- this dipshit voted to authorize the war in the first place. But every once in a while, one of these stuffed suits accidentally gets the right idea. He's trying to get Congress to exercise the war powers granted to them under the Constitution. Imagine that! Congress as a coequal branch of government! Yes, the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, but he is not a dictator -- not yet anyway. Congress controls war spending for a very good reason. The founders foresaw a president like George W. Bush; one who would prosecute a war against the will of the people. When 70 percent of the American people disagree with the way the President is handling the war, and he completely ignores them (like a dictator), it is up to the Congress to reign him in by refusing to finance his future war plans. This can be accomplished in a responsible way without endangering our troops. So far the Democrats have failed to do this, even though they were given a mandate by the people. In case they've forgotten, it is the people they represent, not their own self interest. They don't need a two-thirds majority to do it either. Sure, they could try to be statesmen and come up with some kind of compromise with the congressional Republicans on how to proceed that reflects the will of the people, but when was the last time the Republicans compromised on anything? They will simply use the same tactics they used the last time this debate came up -- accuse the Democrats of undermining the troops. What the Democrats need is legislation that ties gradual troop withdrawals to any future war funding, and the backbone to keep sending the same legislation back to the toddler-in-chief unchanged, every time he vetoes it. It wouldn't be the first time it's been done. It was exactly how Congress forced an end to the Vietnam war.

Now that they are faced with the prospect of having Bush's clusterfuck dumped in their laps come 2009, maybe the Democrats will realize it's time to make him take responsibility for cleaning up his mess, instead of wasting yet another year on his ludicrous policies, designed not to produce results, but only to prolong the war.

Nah. It'll never happen.

The Truth Behind The "Surge" Strategy

AP Photo

Now that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have delivered their report to Congress on the "troop surge" in Iraq, an assessment of the overall situation seems to be in order. What are the implications of the surge strategy? What have we achieved, and where do we stand in comparison to how we stood before the surge was implemented? Let's ask, shall we?

General Petraeus, how's that surge going?

"As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met."

Outstanding! That means we bought the Iraqi government some time to achieve its political objectives, which was the stated purpose of the surge. What were those objectives again, President Bush?

"Those objectives are a nation that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself.”

Those are important things for any nation to achieve. But how are we to measure their progress toward those objectives?

"We continue to encourage and press them to achieve the established benchmarks, since we believe that those efforts will contribute to Iraq’s stability, its ability to provide for its own security, and to the international effort to counter violent extremism."

So, how much progress have the Iraqis made toward achieving those benchmarks, Comptroller General David Walker of the GAO?

"The Iraqi government met 3, partially met 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks. Overall, key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds."

Oh my! Only 3 of the 18 benchmarks achieved? That's terrible! Ambassador Crocker, this sounds like it might be your area of expertise. Do you have any comments?

"I do believe that Iraq's leaders have the will to tackle the country's pressing problems, although it will take longer than we originally anticipated because of the environment and the gravity of the issues before them."

You want more time? Every time we talk to you it's more time! Our troops are dying while this joke of an Iraqi government fails, time and time again, to take charge of their own country! What's that, General Petraeus? You have something to add?

"I believe we will be able to reduce forces to a pre-surge level by next summer without jeopardizing the security gains we've fought so hard to achieve."

And there it is, folks. We are still failing to accomplish our strategic objectives, but by next summer, Petraeus believes we can return troop levels to what they were before the surge started. By the way, this grandly-announced drawdown of troops is not due to the success of the surge. It is a military necessity. Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the president's nominee for head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked about it in his July 31 confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He stressed the need to "plan for an eventual drawdown" due to the strain the war was putting on our military. Are you smelling the bullshit yet? Could it be that the White House had planned to pull these troops out by next summer all along?

By sheer coincidence, next summer just happens to be the run-up to the 2008 elections! So basically, we will be in almost the same situation we were in when the Republicans got their "thumping" in 2006. The difference? This time the Republicans will be able to say they've brought some troops home -- even though there will still be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were in 2006. It's just "stay the course" by a different name! It's nothing but a cynical political ploy aimed at the Republican base, to give the congressional Republicans some cover so they won't jump ship and start voting with Democrats to end the war. Politics, like Chess, is a game of long-term strategies and cut-throat tactics. In Chess, pieces are sometimes sacrificed to achieve the more important objectives of the overall strategy. The heartless politics of war are no different, except the pieces being sacrificed are real, living, breathing human beings. The next president will most likely be a Democrat, and the Republicans know this. The real strategy behind the "surge" is, and always was, to drag the war out until the end of Bush's term so it can be dumped into the lap of his successor. When (or if) the Democrats finally end this fiasco, the Republican strategy will then be to blame them for losing the war, even though it was never winnable in the first place. This deception has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it. When I think about all the lives they are cruelly sacrificing for this crude, transparent ruse, it truly sickens me. The Republicans should be made to pay for this crass and despicable gambit.

Your move, Democrats.

Some Advice For The "Commander Guy"

Dear Commander Guy,

While reading the accounts of your recent surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, I noticed a couple of photographs by Charles Dharapak of the Associated Press which regularly appeared in several of the articles. Frankly, I must say that I was very disappointed in the production quality of your photo op. It appears to me that your recently departed chief political advisor, Karl Rove, is sorely missed. If I may be so bold, how do you expect to sell your completely unnecessary, massively unpopular, hopelessly unwinnable war for profit with such shoddy presentations as this?

Being the Commander Guy, you can order these people to stand anywhere you like, and you indeed have them well placed under that sign, with yourself casually dressed and centrally located in the shot -- your hand warmly extended, exuding a friendly demeanor. Nice touch there. But in case you haven't noticed, those three troops on the left don't exactly look thrilled to be shaking your hand. Then there's that gal in the middle. She doesn't look very happy to me. In fact, she appears to be giving you a rather contemptuous look. What's up with that? You might also want to take a second look at that fellow on the right. Is that a smile, or a smirk? Is he laughing at you? I wonder.

When you send these brave men and women off to be killed and maimed in a war, first to find weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, then to capture Saddam Hussein, then to create a democracy, and now for... whatever justification you're using this month so your cronies can continue their war profiteering, the troops naturally tend to develop morale problems. When you go before the nation and mouth platitudes about "supporting the troops" while you oppose their pay raises and widow's benefits, their resentment of you tends to grow, and it shows on their faces. This ruins the desired effect of that all-important photo op. If you're going to continue to use these people as meat puppets for your press productions, then you need to start doing it in a more professional manner. Since Karl Rove isn't around to help you any more, I thought I might step up and give you a few pointers on how to put on a better show.

1) Bring your own photographer

Don't let the Associated Press take the photographs! Bring somebody from Fox News or the Republican National Committee and keep the press away from these events. That way you can order those bullet sponges to smile on cue, over and over again if necessary, until you get that perfect shot for later release to the press. Those liberal-biased A/P photographers tend to take candid shots. You want photographs that capture the spirit of undying love and devotion your troops have for you, the Commander Guy. Here's a great example from somebody I think you might know.

Now that guy knew how to stage a professional photo op! Of course his troops had an actual mission, and they went home when it was accomplished. That always helps to keep the morale of the troops up.

2) Lots of soldiers -- no faces

If you don't have the stomach to order those grunts to smile, you might try this approach. Who cares if they smile? You don't need their faces anyway! Not enough troops? Give Halliburton a no-bid contract for mannequins to use as stand-ins. All you need for the desired effect is lots of helmets and backpacks!

This very impressive technique was perfected by a fellow named Goebbels back in the 30s and 40s. He was a master of this type of shot. You may have heard of him. If not, give Karl Rove a call. I'll bet Karl can tell you all about him. Just think how patriotic you'll feel as you stand up there on that podium and exalt the troops on to victory after victory in defense of the "Homeland".

3) Paint Shop is your friend

Say you've got a pesky A/P photographer with an ominously unAmerican sounding name like Charles Dharapak hanging around with a camera, snapping unflattering pictures of you with the troops. No problem. Just have his camera confiscated, download the photographs, and with the magic of Paint Shop or some similar software ... presto!

Look at those smiling shrapnel magnets! I did a crappy job of it but hey, you're the Commander Guy! You have the CIA at your disposal. Those guys have been doing jobs like this since before computers were around. They'll have the doctored photos e-mailed back to you before the folks over at Abu Ghraib are finished giving that asshole Dharapak his waterboarding! He'll be more than happy to send the new, improved versions of the pictures down the A/P wire when he gets back. Just remind him that if he doesn't keep his terrorist-loving yapper shut that you'll be forced to exercise your new powers under the Military Commissions Act and declare him an enemy combatant.

4) Spend more time with the brass

Let's face it. Those four-star generals make for a much more impressive production than hanging out with the enlisted personnel. They are experts at things like photo ops.They know exactly when to smile for the cameras, and they go out of their way to make you look good. They've spent their whole careers sucking up and kissing ass. They wouldn't have all of those stars otherwise. They sleep in comfortable quarters, eat good food, and don't have to worry about things like getting shot, so their morale is normally pretty good.

These are your people. They are fellow Commander Guys like you -- until they retire of course. Then they become pundits and write books ridiculing you. Oh well, it's lonely at the top.