Urban renewal project in beautiful downtown Baghdad

Chris Matthews‘ substitute host, McCain enthusiast Mike Barnicle, reacted incredulously Wednesday to a comment by Iraq war vet Jon Soltz, co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, that the so-called “surge” has not been a success. Pressed by Barnicle, who refelcts the corporatist media’s official narrative of the surge, Soltz made a number of arguments:

America is less secure as a result of our invasion of Iraq, the surge being just the latest chapter in a failed war and occupation.

Al Qaeda, identified by many including the Obama campaign as America’s top national security threat, is more powerful than any time since 9/11, having reconstituted itself in the Afghan-Pakistan hinterlands. (Lest we forget, AQ didn’t even exist in Iraq before the invasion.)

The US military, tied up on two war fronts, is overstretched and at the breaking point.

The ostensible goal of the surge, Iraqi political reconciliation, is nowhere near a reality, especially in the Kurdish regions.

An overall oil law and revenue sharing law still hasn’t been passed, highlighted by the intensifying ethnic fighting over oil-rich Kirkuk.

Soltz concludes that the problem isn’t overall troop levels but “regional strategic diplomacy”, one of those nuanced Obama concepts that escapes our corporatist media’s obsession with dumbed down narratives for the infantilized American voter. (For which we can thank an educational system that substitutes  dubious testing paradigms for critical thinking skills.)

Additionally, there are a number of other arguments that Soltz didn’t (presumably have time to) make.

Iran has been dramatically strengthened rather than weakened as the region’s presumptive hegemon.

The Turkish military has intensified its incursions into Iraqi sovereign territory.

Regional elections have once again been delayed.

A national oil law has not been signed.

There’s the huge problem of what to do about the 4 million Iraqis that have been forced from their homes, including the vast majority of the educated classes vital to rebuilding the country.

The decision by the political and military wings of Baghdad’s Shia (Mahdi) militias to lay low. Surprising what a couple of hundred high explosive missiles and bombs can accomplish when targeted at your military and civilian base.

The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, courtesy of US financed death squads, for which former Iraq Ambassador John Negroponte of El Salvadoran death squads fame probably deserves some credit. That and the installation of 12 ‘ concrete blast walls has turned the city into a fortified warren of sectarian enclaves.

The decision by the Sunnis, made many months before the surge was even announced, to vanquish foreign fighters from their midst, the so-called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Comes a time when the “enemies of my enemies” strategy becomes more a liability than an asset. Especially when our mutual enemy offers to put you on the dole of the American taxpayer, a perverse permutation of what we call in my neck of the woods– protection money.

Analogy wise, I live in Los Angeles where we have as many heavily armed gang members as the US has troops in Iraq. [Read more →]

McClatchy News Services reports:

Cheney on Wednesday told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that “oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida.”

“We’re not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government.”

”Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply,” he added. “Yet Congress has said … ‘no’ to drilling off Florida.”

The claim was immediately repudiated by U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., an independent congressional report, industry experts and other observers, who said there is zero evidence that China is drilling in Cuban waters.

China doesn’t even hold a lease to drill offshore…

With both parties squabbling over what to do about rising gasoline prices, Democrats had seized on the remarks to bash the GOP, accusing it of spreading the Cuba-China rumor as a “scare tactic” to force Congress to lift a ban that prevents drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Same old scare tactics Darth Cheney and his his oil buddies used to launch the Iraq war and drive up the price of oil 600% since 2002.

The fetish word of authority is a fear-inspiring doctrine,
the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men.
A doctrinal fetish will lead people to betray themselves
into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition,
intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties.
—The Urantia Papers

IT’S A QUAINT BUT POPULAR NOTION for some Americans to say they hate the idea of religion in politics. Let religion be a word that identifies what you love the most. What really matters then, is not the idea of religion in politics, but the depth— the sincerity— at which it is held.

That said, real religion hasn’t been the hallmark of any previous Christian president.

Every politician in the presidential race is someone whom adheres, at some depth— at some level of sincerity— to the ideas and ideals of religion; the Christian religion. Since the actual depth of their religious beliefs and ideals remains essentially unknown to us, Americans have an obligation to wonder just how much they each might entertain a fetishistic belief in an inerrant Bible, (with the exception of Obama, who declares he does not), and accept the beliefs and predictions of many of the various stripes of Christianity in a coming Armageddon, will dictate the nature of our “foreign policy as these predictions impact our nation’s security.

The debate over national security needs to recognize that the ideal nominee would be adhering to policies and doing things which would do for the nations of the world, just what they do for the citizens of our country: unite us. Do we have a presidential candidate with the necessary vision to construct a foreign policy that makes sense in the 21st century? Which nominee will continue to undermine our relationships with other nations, making them for or against us, either partners in our wars, or the targets of our wars.

“Many. . . are even now packing their roller luggage for the Rapture, systematically pouring their liquid toiletries into 3 oz. containers for the long flight to Paradise.”

The nations of the world today are run by men who haves many ideas, but their ideals suck. In America, we have political parties and elected leaders who tolerate the plight of our poorest and neediest citizens, ignore the plight of our eldest citizens, cultivate racial and religious hatred of other citizens, whether of our nation or the other nations of the world, and pursue a policy of self-appointed world policing— but only where it suits our political interest— sometimes bothering with half-assed coalitions of nations, sometimes using the outdated constitution of the United Nations as an excuse to pursue a unilateral policy of hegemony over nations it considers our enemies. Surprise! These nations are predominantly Muslim nations, and the first thing to be demonized about them is their damnable non-Christian religion.

Do you reasonably suppose then, the separation of church and state is somehow impervious to the religious beliefs of these various Christians? And that our policy towards other nations can continue to be one of, our sovereignty is more sovereign than your sovereignty, and we’ll kick your ass for a hundred, or a thousand years, your choice— until you see the wisdom of living according to our deepest values. Those being Christian values, as more or less defined by the sect of the current president’s choice.

Remember that our current president has been called by God to carry out the values of the Methodist tradition of Christianity, as is VP Cheney, which has led us into a dangerous and chaotic world ‘o terror, the solution of which remains unresolved, but is only a few hundred years of war away. “So?”

Modern respect for wisdom and truth is a relatively recent escape from the fetish-making tendency of humans, up to slightly higher levels of thinking and reasoning. But not everyone has been loosed from the self-imposed doctrinal shackles of their respective inerrant religious tomes and it’s associated dogma. Consequently there are still plenty of adherents for the Christian Armageddon fetish of the end of the world, many of whom are even now packing their roller luggage for the Rapture, systematically pouring their liquid toiletries into 3 oz. containers for the long flight to Paradise.

Is there a way to free these enslaved religionists from their own self-imposed, fear-inspiring doctrines? Yes, we should bother— because they’re not going anywhere. The increasingly dangerous ramifications of such an incoherent, fantasy interpretation of reality holds real harm for all of us, when our president embraces such nonsense, as Bush has, and as a President McCain almost certainly will be pressured to by those religious leaders who delivered their flocks to the polls.

Take for example, the confused and backward theology of just one sect of Christianity, the one who recently endorsed our warpimp hero John McCain, who solicited and is “. . .proud to have pastor John Hagee’s support.” Think of Reverend Hagee and his 18,000 member Christian militia as the gross equivalent of a warlord of Afghanistan or an Iraqi Muqtada al-Sadr and his “paramilitary force.” A force bought and paid for to the tune of $330 million for “Oops, we-destroyed-your-city reconstruction fees,” and another 1.7 million for weapons, by the American Government.

Hagee interprets the Bible to predict Russia and the Islamic states will invade Israel and be destroyed by God. Pause to consider that Haggee believes God will physically show up to take care of this bit of Divine nation building, or un-building. . . and his minions here on earth have been given this tasty but bloody bit of Divine vengeance to carry out, using the services of the United States military more or less exclusively. One wonders when and to whom God will speak the order to “Bring’m on!”— war on his own least favorite and beloved creatures.

Like so many pieces of Christian apocrapha, there’s a miniscule kernel of truth involved, just enough to sink a dull #666 hook deep into the pasty white lobes of the willfully ignurnt. In this instance, the little kernel is the promise of Jesus to sometime return to this world, associated with his remarks regarding the destruction of Jerusalem.

Makes sense that the Son of God, having previously been treated with such warmth and respect by the natives, would want to return post-haste for a cordial sit-down to go over the few remaining problem areas of our planetary theology by abandoning all those not towing the Christian party line, and putting the chosen few on the jumbo-rapture-jetliner to Pearly Gate International. (Yeah I know that’s like kicking a puppy. But I digress.)

What if, say, during the second century after Christ, a Jew by the name of Selta attached to the court of the Emperor Caligula, wrote an apocalyptic about the Messiah that was subsequently copied into the Matthew Gospel and subsequently added (in part) to the Mark and Luke records. (It was in these writings of Selta that the parable of the ten virgins appeared.) Would it still be the inspired, inerrant word ‘o God?

But that’s all moot to the monkeys who take a two thousand year old document and place it on a pedestal of infallibility. If the part about the world being flat hadn’t been edited out of the Bible, Hagee and the rest of the sheeple would all belong to the FLAT EARTH SOCIETY OF CHRIST.

If he’ll be coming back, and I do believe he will— he’ll be coming back when he chooses— not when it’s convenient for apocalyptic-believing politicians to herd a flock of sheep with suffrage into a slaughter pen of stupidity, only to assemble on the rapture tarmac to. . . remain there.

In a March 13th videoconference call, President Bush surprised U.S. military and civilian personnel as well as recently returning veterans of the Afghanistan War with his wistful responses.

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helpin’ this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, ya know, confronting danger. Yur really makin’ history, and thanks,” Bush said.

Bush sat at the head of a White House conference table that included a powered-down Dick Cheney, and lap dogs Robert Gates and John Negroponte. A Reuters reporter was actually allowed to observe the proceeding.

Bush, articulate as always, told U. S. Ambassador William Wood, “You’re looking beautiful but you’re not sounding too good.” Bush was allowed to have the remote control for this conference, and he masterfully increased and lowered the volume at will.

Sigh.

I’m not worried. . . I’m not worried at all;
I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all. . . I don’t worry. . .
I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all. . .
I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all. . .
I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all; I’m not worried at all. . .

So long, George. See you on down the trail, pardner.
Your time at the helm of our ship of state has proven to most fully sentient Americans that a well-oiled clownboy and a seething, villainous sidekick who have governed by fear, war, and terror (Wake the fuck up— torture IS terror) you were not the captain we were looking for.

If and when you leave office, a great burden will lift off the shoulders of the planet. No, it will not allow the nation to regain its once proud posture as the beacon of genuine freedom in the world. For some time we will stumble ahead, crippled by the catastrophe your malevolent and murderous idiocy as The Decider has wrought. Despite your ludicrous assertion that Jesus is your “favorite philosopher”— a lie that may have eternal consequences for you, bro— the sheer criminal insanity of your days in public office as the leader of our nation has rendered us all but permanently deformed in the eyes of all nations, both good and bad.

Undoubtedly, the lessons we will learn from your rampage in office will ultimately make us a stronger, wiser nation. But now is not the time to savor that ultimate moment of triumph over evil. Now is the time to galvanize our nation with a healing balm of hope, and the promise of brighter, truer days that re-align us with the flow of truth, beauty, and goodness in the universe.

May the Ancients of Days judge you divinely.