Royally Kranked

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Katrina-Political Failure & Corruption Of The Louisiana Delegation

First off, thanks to all who have taken part in this effort, and thanks to Melissa for keeping track of everyone who joined in

For a thorough timeline, check out the post at Think Progress


And another great batch of links-Not all the links still work, but most of those I checked out did come up when called

When focusing on the failures of Governmental responses to Hurricane Katrina, one thing becomes quickly apparent

The scope of the failures matches the bleakness of the carnage, and without the failures, fewer people die, fewer lives are ruined & scattered, less property destroyed

It’s daunting, futile actually, to even attempt the most cursory of overview analysis with these separate threads of misery & sorrow, pain the one common element the living suffer, the survivors endure

Clearly, the failure lies with the Governments at all levels, from the local to the Federal, corruption and neglect of the most malign, lethal sort.

The political failure wasn’t Bush’s alone, it must indeed be shared with others, such as Representative William Jefferson, whose district includes New Orleans, and whose story sounds extremely suspicious in light of the corruption scandals ensnaring him at the moment, a bribery imbroglio that’s seen both his home and his Congressional office searched as a result

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News that during the tour, Jefferson asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street, in the affluent uptown neighborhood in his congressional district. According to Schneider, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.

Jefferson defended the expedition, saying he set out to see how residents were coping at the Superdome and in his neighborhood. He also insisted that he did not ask the National Guard to transport him.

"I did not seek the use of military assets to help me get around my city," Jefferson told ABC News. "There was shooting going on. There was sniping going on. They thought I should be escorted by some military guards, both to the convention center, the Superdome and uptown."

“Nightline” filmed and broadcast the sorry episode, and it was truly infuriating to watch Jefferson take advantage of his political status to take care of himself first, at the clear expense of his constituents

Jefferson symbolizes Katrina’s shredded political mythologies as surely as President Bush Jr does, and besides Bush & former FEMA Director Michael Brown is most associated with Katrina’s toll of death, exodus and destruction

Michael Brown, former FEMA Director, came under sustained fire for his stewardship of a formerly First Rate Federal Agency, his main entry to the job being the former college roommate of major Bush Jr Crony Joe Allbaugh,

Of all the decisions Brown made, the most infuriating were also the most likely to have resulted in lost lives

FEMA failed to accept Katrina help, documents say


Federal emergency officials failed to accept offers of possibly life-saving aid from the Department of Interior immediately after Hurricane Katrina, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The Interior Department offered the Federal Emergency Management Agency the use of personnel who were experienced in water rescues and also offered boats, helicopters, heavy equipment and rooms, the documents say.

***************

The Interior Department offered FEMA 500 rooms, 119 pieces of heavy equipment, 300 dump trucks and other vehicles, 300 boats, 11 aircraft and 400 law enforcement officers, according to a questionnaire answered by a department official.

Interior law enforcement officers included special agents and refuge officers from the department's Fish and Wildlife Service.

"Although we attempted to provide these assets, we were unable to efficiently integrate and deploy these resources," an Interior Department official wrote the Senate committee investigating the government's response to Katrina.

***************

The Senate committee released e-mails that document FEMA's decision to ground its search-and-rescue teams three days after Katrina because of security concerns.

Before then, the Interior Department had offered FEMA hundreds of law enforcement officers trained in search-and-rescue, emergency medical services and evacuation, according to the documents.

"The Department of the Interior was not called upon to assist until late September," the Interior official writes.

One of the main criticisms of the Administration’s non-immediate response was that there was no sense of urgency about the storm bearing down on New Orleans & the Gulf Coast, an assessment borne out by the very last paragraph in the story

A FEMA document provided to the Senate committee indicates that many of the Interior Department's resources.

That paragraph shows how inept Brown truly was-there should have already been an integrated disaster-relief plan showcasing “transportation, communications & engineering” from every Agency & Dept in the Administration

Brown’s clear incompetence resulted in lost lives and uncoordinated rescue & relief efforts that benefitted not the victims, but the private contractors providing the trucks & drivers

Meanwhile, truck drivers carrying tens of thousands of tons of ice and driving water have been sent on a cross-country tour, from city to city, only then to be told to wait for up to a week in a parking lot in Memphis, with their engines, as well as their tabs as drivers running.

"It is a sad experience," said Frank Link,, who was sent from to Missouri, then to Mississippi, then to Alabama and then to Tennessee - all with the same load of 41,580 pounds of ice that he had loaded in Chicago. "I went down there to help. All I did was get the runaround from FEMA."

Chronology of errors: how a disaster spread

Brown, the FEMA director who would bear the brunt of the criticism for his agency's performance in Katrina, arrived in the state capital of Baton Rouge at 11 a.m. He did not ask the authority to dispatch FEMA personnel to the region until five hours after the storm had passed.

In a memo to Chertoff that Monday afternoon, Brown requested that 1,000 employees be dispatched to the region. The resulting order, however, said they had two full days to report to Louisiana Homeland Security headquarters.

That did not change even after the 17th Street levee in New Orleans gave way Monday afternoon as well, flooding 20 percent of New Orleans. FEMA stuck to the book, delaying the arrival of outside help. Brown issued a statement urging federal, state, and local first-responders to remain where they were, until they could be better organized.

''The response to Hurricane Katrina must be well coordinated between federal, state, and local officials, to most effectively protect life and property," Brown said.

The US Fire Administration, which is part of FEMA, also asked that fire and emergency services personnel stay put. ''It is critical," said the US fire administrator, R. David Paulison, ''that fire and emergency departments across the country remain in their jurisdictions until such time as the affected states request assistance."

Among the reasons: State officials had to request the units first, under ''mutual aid agreements." This was among a series of bureaucratic hurdles and government red tape that would bedevil the rescue efforts for days.

It was not until a day later -- after another levee broke overnight that Monday -- that Brown activated the National Response Plan allowing him to fully mobilize the government's resources.

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Bureaucratic glitches slowed progress from the beginning. On Sunday, the day before the storm, the Louisiana National Guard asked FEMA for 700 buses to evacuate people. It received only 100.

The real world failures that resulted in such massive destruction and heartbreak also lay with Louisiana Gov Kathleen Blanco, as she had her moments of inaction as well, instances where her failings more than very likely cost lives

From the same article

Arriving at her office on Sunday morning, two days after she declared a state of emergency and a day before the hurricane's landfall, Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, had her staff write a letter to President Bush.

''Based on predictions we have received from the National Weather Service and other sources, I have determined that [Hurricane Katrina] will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the state and the affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary," she told the president in a three-page memo on the letterhead of the State of Louisiana Military Department.

But the request did not include what the residents of the Gulf Coast would need most in the coming days: food, water, transportation to higher ground, and thousands of National Guard troops to ferry life-saving supplies and medical personnel and to restore order.

There were other problems relating to the La. National Guard as well, namely, a lack of 40%, absent from the state due to serving in Iraq

There were obstacles to amassing that sort of force. Almost 40 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is on active duty in Iraq; this left the governor with only 4,000 members to muster over the weekend, and a total of 5,700 by Monday.

Aware of this problem, other governors, including New Mexico's Bill Richardson, offered to help. On Sunday afternoon, Richardson called Blanco offering his own state militia, and Blanco readily accepted.

That did not solve the problem.

Because of legal guidelines, Richardson could not send a single soldier until approval came from Washington, specifically the National Guard Bureau. Washington, meanwhile, could not give such approval without a formal request from Blanco.

That request was made Tuesday, after New Orleans was almost completely under water. It would be two more days, until late Thursday, before that authority would come from Washington. And by then, almost four days had passed since Katrina hit the coast. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were dead.

And it was the ever more Hellish conditions that struck the survivors of the storm that were most vividly seared into memories, the desperation most noticed at the Superdome and the Convention Center with thirst, hunger, filth, heat, squalor and, most vicious of all, a growing sense of despair

Blanco’s actions, inactions and blunders contributed to the misery and death that quickly settled onto New Orleans after Katrina hit

Not calling for food, water, efficient large-scale evacuees’ transportation, and medical supplies is so mind-boggling as to be unfathomable on Blanco’s part.

Ray Nagin also has plenty of bad decisions and unnecessary suffering to account for as well

For starters, there were Nagin’s orders which included forcibly disarming Katrina victims who rode the storm out in their homes and apts, and forcibly evicting property owners as well

The suit says that during and after the Aug. 29 storm, "Mayor Nagin ordered the New Orleans police and other law enforcement entities under his authority to evict persons from their homes and to confiscate the lawfully possessed firearms."

In a setting where looting was occurring, and rumors about roving, armed gangs were repeated without first verifying the information, the idea that private citizens could be forcibly disarmed was both terrifying and absurd

And yet it happened, even though at the same time poor people were being forcibly disarmed, private mercenaries/contractors were allowed to prowl about New Orleans with fully automatic weapons and they didn’t have to worry about being physically disarmed either

Such a blatant double standard is impossible to square with Nagin's often impassioned pleas on behalf of his wounded city

And there’s an even nastier card Nagin threw at those who made their way to the Superdome for an orderly evacuation, the same sense of preference for the welfare of one group of storm victims over a far larger set of storm victims, and in this case, it’s amazing those at the Superdome didn’t riot when it happened

Evacuation at Superdome halted; 5,000 remain inside


Buses taking Hurricane Katrina victims far from the squalor of the Superdome stopped rolling early Saturday. As many as 5,000 people remained in the stadium and could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard.

Officials had hoped to evacuate the last of the crowd before dawn Saturday. Guard members said they were told only that the buses had stopped coming and to shut down the area where the vehicles were being loaded.

"We were rolling," Capt. Jean Clark said. "If the buses had kept coming, we would have this whole place cleaned out already or pretty close to it."

Those left behind early Saturday were orderly, sitting down after hearing news that evacuations were temporarily stalled.

Guard members reported that the massive evacuation operation for the most part had gone smoothly Friday, coming after days of uncertainty, violence and despair.

Capt. John Pollard of the Texas Air Force National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when evacuation efforts began. That number swelled as people poured into the Superdome because they believed it was the best place to get a ride out of town.

He estimated Saturday morning that between 2,000 and 5,000 people were left at the Superdome. But it remained a mystery why the buses stopped coming to pick up refugees and shuttle them away.

***********************

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.

Mayor Ray Nagin has used the hotel as a base since it sits across the street from city hall, and there were reports the hotel was cleared with priority to make room for police, firefighters and other officials.

Nagin also issued a call for New Orleans residents to evacuate the city, but made no provisions for those unable to heed the order, and that’s why the poor headed to the Superdome and the Convention Center, because they were of the belief that they’d be evacuated to shelters outside the storms fury and horrifically contaminated floodwaters

There should have been supplies of clean water and MRE’s pre-positioned at the Superdome & Convention Center when it became apparent how big the storm was and how many would be unable to evacuate the city without transportation, cash or physical assistance.

In addition, there should have been an interoperable communications system for the city’s first responders, cops, firefighters & EMT’s, and as Mayor, that responsibility primarily lies with Nagin to uphold

As Mayor, Nagin should absolutely be most knowledgeable politician about the city, and that includes all rescue & relief efforts in the event of either a natural disaster, or man-made catastrophe, including pre-positioning of critical supplies of food, water & medicine, interoperable communications for everyone involved in R & R efforts, and mass evacuations in an orderly manner

And we now arrive at the last of the La politicians who blew their initial response to Katrina’s aftermath, and in this case, actually used the disaster as a way to further their own economic interests-excerpts from a lengthy article

Lobbyists Advise Katrina Relief

Lobbyists representing transportation, energy and other special interests dominated panels that advised Louisiana's U.S. senators crafting legislation to rebuild the storm-damaged Gulf Coast, records and interviews show.

The Louisiana Katrina Reconstruction Act — introduced last month by Louisiana Sens. Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican — included billions of dollars' worth of business for clients of those lobbyists and a total price tag estimated as high as $250 billion.

One advisory panel member who discovered that most of his fellow panelists were lobbyists called the resulting legislation "a huge injustice" to the state.

"I was basically shocked," said Ivor van Heerden, director of a hurricane public health research center at Louisiana State University. "What do lobbyists know about a plan for the reconstruction and restoration of Louisiana?"

Van Heerden was the first participant of any of the senators' working groups to provide such a detailed and scathing account of the process and its outcome. He said he was shut out after he voiced his concerns.

How touching, a bipartisan pocket-lining at the expense of those who had survived the high winds and toxic flood-waters

To let lobbyists have any influence in writing desperately needed laws that directly affect people in the most sudden, dire of circumstances is nothing short of obscene profiteering, no different ethically from scamming someone terminally ill with a supposed “cure”

Among the lobby-supported interests with a stake in the relief and recovery bill:

• Energy utilities. Entergy Corp. and Cleco Corp. lobbyists consulted with the senators' staffs. Five days before the bill was introduced, Cleco retained the lobbying services of Lynnel B. Ruckert, Vitter's former deputy campaign manager and the wife of his chief of staff.

In an unusual assist to private utilities, the recovery bill includes $2.5 billion to help Louisiana companies such as Entergy of New Orleans and Cleco of Pineville restore and rebuild their electricity systems and recover losses from sustained power outages.

• Supporters of a controversial industrial canal project serving the Port of New Orleans. Among those serving on advisory panels were two officials of Jones Walker, a New Orleans-based firm that lobbies in Washington for the canal project. One of those officials was Paul F. Cambon, an ex-aide to former House Speaker Bob Livingston (R-La.), whose Livingston Group also is a lobbyist for the canal.

The recovery bill asks Congress to give "priority consideration" to the Army Corps of Engineers project, which would build a lock along the canal at a cost of $748 million.

• Highway advocates. Among those on a transportation working group were lobbyists for highway projects seeking funds, including a lobbyist from a firm headed by former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.).

In the bill, four Louisiana highways considered evacuation and energy supply routes would receive construction, maintenance and repair work worth $7 billion. At least two of those projects were represented by lobbyists on the working group.

The bill already has been widely criticized as excessive and opportunistic. Its price tag exceeds the high end of estimated costs of the storm and does not include the $60 billion in emergency aid already approved.

Landrieu and Vitter defend the bill as a necessary response to the region's devastation. The bill's supporters say that Louisiana is crucial to America's energy industry and that the state's ports handle 20% of all U.S. imports and exports each day.

"Key economic sectors took a big hit from the storm," said Landrieu spokesman Adam Sharp. "Standing up the region's economy will help stand up the American economy."

Sharp also said the recovery bill's final cost would be closer to $200 billion, not the estimated high of $250 billion.

Aides said the lobbyists were among those who made recommendations but did not draft the legislation. Lawmakers also consulted with local and state officials, and community and business leaders in the Gulf Coast region, the aides said.

"The lobbyists and the entities they represent tend to be among the most experienced experts available who have direct real-world knowledge of the situation," Sharp said. "They are advocating for a position and for a client, but usually from a vantage point of expertise that can be very beneficial to us."

Vitter's office did not return numerous calls seeking comment.

Johnston, the former senator whose clients include hard-hit New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, said the participation of lobbyists in the working groups was appropriate.

"There is no conflict of interest," said Johnston, a former Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman. "We represent areas that were impacted, and the needs of those areas need to be brought to the fore."

And one group in particular benefitted VERY nicely from this legislation

The $2.5 billion for private utilities would benefit Entergy, Cleco and Southern Co. of Atlanta. Curt Hebert Jr., Entergy's executive vice president, told a Senate committee last week that more than 1.8 million of the company's customers had lost service because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and he urged "an immediate federal response."

Cleco reported catastrophic damage to its lower-voltage power lines north of New Orleans and has estimated the storm will cost the company $100 million to $125 million. Customers who have to rebuild their homes could suffer "a double whammy" of higher rates as well, said Kathleen Nolen, Cleco's senior vice president and chief financial officer.

But the Senate bill's provision has prompted concern because it requires waiving the Federal Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act that prohibits such aid to for-profit companies.

There’s a rhetorical sleight-of-hand with the possibility that those who rebuild will be hit with “double whammy” of higher rates

The implication is that by overturning legislation prohibiting aid aimed at for-profit companies, the rates will stay low enough for the hoped for widespread rebuilding

As stated at the start, the problem when writing about the numerous Katrina related failures is choosing which few to focus on, equivalent to picking a few specific drops out of an ocean

That’s why I’ve gone with multiple posts on the Katrina fiasco, too much info for just one or two posts

So, the next links will end every post, the true cost of the failed, bumbled and baffling rescue & relief efforts

The Human Toll, In It’s Most Basic Forms:

HERE & HERE


Next Post:

Katrina-The Administration’s Malign Neglect

Friday, August 25, 2006

An Open Call For Remembrance And Accountability

First off, Thanks to Melissa for being incredibly helpful since I've started blogging, and even more thanks for helping me with this Katrina Blogswarm

With the first anniversary of Katrina approaching, the media's glare is sure to fall on the Hellish conditions that afflicted the storm's survivors in it’s immediate and continuing aftermath

The failures of Govt on ALL levels leading up to, and after, Katrina’s wrath were the easy-to-see end result of institutional, political and social policies & procedures largely absent from our everyday gaze

How does one not grow angry at the waste and inefficiency piling up at the truly needy'’s expense, how can people stay calm instead of irate at the unnecessary destruction and death that an attitude of “corruption as usual” has come to so shamefully symbolize with our Federal Government?

We feel the Government’s purpose is, surprise, to serve the people, and the more weak the citizens-politically, socially, physically, economically-the more vital it is for our Govt to competently and efficiently serve them IF this society'’s belief in it’s stated goodness is to have any real-world meaning

We focus our outrage and sorrow on the stories of those harmed, physically or materially-by the actions and policies of others-those who, for whatever reason could not evacuate themselves, their families or friends voluntarily, be it lack of money, adequate transportation, or those with health problems severe enough to render them immobile

These were the people most harmed by an ineffective federal response to multiple levels of Katrina-related failure, and their lives DO count, their existence DOES have merit, no matter how lonely or unlamented their death or complete the destruction of their lives. To see the lonely dead floating in dirty, desolate waters is heart-wrenching, a ghastly finish to such monumental political and real-world failures as this Administration inflicts on a constant basis

Those who died, those scattered from their homes, they deserve at least the attention their stories highlight, no matter how inconvenient for the Administration'’s and GOP'’s political objectives for the approaching 9-11 5th anniversary. They bear witness to, and show the results of, the most shameful failure of those charged with protecting the public. The failure of the politicians must not be allowed to sweep away the results of their deliberate actions and inactions, the deaths, destroyed property, and shattered, uprooted lives we’ve seen uncorrected since then

There has been far too much sympathy for the idea that those who were negatively affected by Katrina, those who were stranded in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast were somehow deserving of the misery they went through, a hateful joy aimed at those in already wretched circumstances

Such an attitude is obscene, such beliefs are incompatible with anyone calling themselves civilized and should be vigorously attacked when encountered

On the anniversary of Katrina, we also note this Administration’'s overarching-and false-claims regarding National Security, an ugly, dishonest attitude which states only the President’s political party can and does keep the US public safe from terrorist attacks, while at the same time claiming that the opposing political party not only is harmful to the US public, but actually sympathizes with, and enables, the same mentality that struck the US on September 11

In case after case, with either missed deadlines for tightening various holes in national security, or refusing to fund, competently, if at all-budgets relating to port security, nuclear weapons inventories, developing universal communications systems for first responders that would allow all involved to communicate with each other, developing chemical & radiological detection systems for use with every piece of cargo that comes into the US-this Administration and it’s political party have put the corrupt interests of cronies and campaign contributing entities far ahead of serving the national interest, to the point of actually endangering people and material national interests

And the result is that this Administration, as shown by it’s clearly ineffectual short-term response to Katrina, is even less likely to efficiently deal with a terrorist attack now than it was on September 11

This Administration’'s allegiance to an entrenched GOP Culture Of Corruption is taking place at exactly the same time it’s brutal foreign policies are inflaming ever-growing numbers of people, and in the same violent areas the corruption most richly profits the Administration’s financial backers

Indeed, the problem when focusing on Administrative or GOP malfeasance, wrongdoing or malign neglect is the sheer volume of examples that can be presented, a constantly expanding array of corrupt Matryoshkas, one scandal engulfing the next

It’s long past time for legislative and judicial branch oversight of the Executive Branch

With both Katrina and the September 11 attacks showcasing the Administration'’s lack of patience, will, desire or results in terms of actually protecting the US public, there'’s no better time to bring as many of this Administrations failures regarding national security and disaster relief to the fore as possible

If these articles/posts/stories lead to badly needed attention, or votes for executive branch oversight in November, then the lives and deaths of those betrayed at the deepest level by this Administration may have borne positive results from the most unnecessary of waste

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Afghanistan Slides Towards The Taliban Abyss

Every day the news gets worse regarding the Administration's response to the 9-11 attacks

The Iraq horror show claims more victims each successive month than the one previous

The Administration's strategy of battling supposed "Islamic Fascists" has done nothing but embolden and increase the political power of those derided by W's inflammatory and false label

In combating the theological extremism W finds problematic across the middle east, the President replaced a formerly US-backed secular tyrant, shifting the political power structure to favor those Iraqi Mullahs seeking deeper ties with their Iranian clerical brethren

And then, W pushes Israel into over-reacting to Hezbollah's deliberate provocation of capturing two soldiers in a military raid that left one other dead

It was yet another glaring military & political failure by an Administration that has achieved none of it's stated objectives regarding the projection of US military power in an increasingly intense part of an already unsettled globe: By Israel's inability to do publicly noticeable damage to Hezbollah's ability to rain down an ever-growing bloom of rockets deeper into Israel than had happened before, Hezbollah has been the first group of armed hostiles that Israel didn't clearly dominate overwhelmingly

Hezbollah's ability to survive, and efficiently combat, Israel's obvious military superiority has given it something this Administration's hawkish & bellicose foreign policies have lacked since dropping the first US bomb on Iraq in 2003

Legitimacy

A legitimacy that won't easily be given up by, or wrenched away from, Hezbollah

Clearly, the most disastrous aspect of the US-backed campaign was Israel's belief that by hitting Lebanese civilians and infrastructure hard enough, the Lebanese public would turn on Hezbollah with major denunciations resulting in an immediate loss of political & military power for Hezbollah, to the point that the Katyushas would stop raining down on Israel

Why anyone thinks "collective punishment" would work the same with an entire country as it does during basic military training is a mystery, a conundrum unsolved by the fact that, instead of turning on Hezbollah, even those civilians in Lebanon who had been outspoken against Hezbollah ended up backing the group instead of attacking it

When our President huffily declared Hezbollah "defeated" in this round of armed conflict, some of his mental organizations inadvertently displayed themselves

President Bush Jr shows a clear inability to deal, logically, with hard, unpleasant realities, someone who can never, ever let anyone else be correct, hence his insistence on seeing his illogical and completely counterproductive policies and strategies as obvious successes when in fact they're the most glaring, blinding, overwhelming of failures

That W-someone who, in order to reassure himself about the rightness of his decisions, refuses to, or even more worrisome, CAN'T, ever concede unpleasant realities which make his leadership look other than all-powerful AND benign-is in charge of our military is a dangerous reality that others can, do and have easily manipulate for political gain, most notably the incredibly sweet deal India got from the W Adminstration regarding a nuclear-based military program completely off-limits to any inspection or oversight

A Commander In Chief increasingly susceptible to easy and overt manipulation from those he states we're at war with, from those he states we must oppose at every possible opportunity if we are to survive as a nation, while simultaneously avoiding another large-scale terrorist attack on US soil, that's who has the final say in the US

And now, perhaps the most-infuriating aspect of W's publicly stated 9-11 response, the deposing of the Taliban in Afghanistan-Why that's infuraiting is that they're quickly re-establishing themselves throughout growing areas of the country, and even more rapidly returning to their bloodthirsty ways

Mea Culpa here: I completely agreed with the military strikes on Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9-11 attacks, clearly it was stupid for any country that housed al-Qaeda to think the US wouldn't strike back, hard, for the carnage of that date

To not hit back was NOT an option, politically, realistically, militarily or logically

That said, the civilian command structure of the US military has the same cavalier outlook on Afghanistan civilians wrongly killed by US forces, and there's no way to spin the Afghanistan dead, maimed & traumatized wrongly by that same US civilian command structure as somehow less undeserving of their fate as the 9-11 victims were of theirs

Since I absolutely despise fanatics, I always thought we owed it to the Afghanistan people to take out the Taliban monster our anti-Soviet polices in that region helped create after the Soviet military left Afghanistan in disgrace and ruin

Any group that so joyfully executes civilians as a warning to others is an abomination that should be crushed just as ruthlessly, same goes for any group that joyfully destroys it's own amazing cultural heritage as the Taliban did when it destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas about 6 months before the US invasion

There's another aspect of W's mentality that must be brought into the issue

He despises his father, make no doubt of that, he didn't want revenge against Saddam Hussein because of Hussein's assassination plot against Bush Sr. No, Bush Jr wanted to do what his father couldn't, depose Saddam Hussein

What W stayed willfully ignorant about, but what his father knew, was that the problem was NOT deposing Saddam Hussein from power, although that was as deep as W allowed himself to see actual military objective

The problem was that Bush Jr didn't care, or think about, what happened to Iraq AFTER Saddam was removed from power

And in not planning for anything that occured after Saddam's deposal, the Administration has taken it's focus off Afghanistan, which is now resulting an ever stregthening resurgence of the Taliban in areas they'd been pushed from in just the recent past

And here's what that Administrative policy is bringing about in Afghanistan

Taliban's terror tactics reconquer Afghanistan

If we die, we are martyrs - if we live, we are victors," say the Taliban in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. They have taken control of the area in less than two weeks. For, with ever accelerating speed, the Taliban are reconquering south-west Afghanistan from the government, American and Nato forces sent to fight them.

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Besmillah - many Afghans only have one name - says that the Taliban search everyone on the road. "I went through three Taliban checkpoints and one government checkpoint by the time I made it to Kandahar. The Taliban were in control right up to Solahan, about 25 km west of Kandahar. They look for papers and check the mobile phones. If a number stored in the phone seems suspicious, they call it. And if the voice answers in English, they immediately kill the owner of the mobile. They don't let anyone from outside the villages go into the area."

Because of the Administration's numerous and overwhelming failures in Iraq, we miss the ever-grimmer picture developing in Afghanistan, including a resurgent Taliban we had-prematurely as it turned out-hoped crushed

That unsightly visual is a formerly vanquished group of joyously hateful theological thugs, happiest when dealing misery, pain, anguish and death to those lacking fervent enough faith in a God dispensing the most righteous & harshest of sanctions for the most minute of supposed heresies

In Helmand province, where the Taliban also control most of the area - except for the municipality - despite the presence of 4,000 British troops, a 70-year-old woman and her son were hanged by the Taliban on charges of spying for the government.

The complete and utter failure of every Administrative foreign policy is most shameful regarding Afghanistan, the inability to see the US long-term interests-when we funded & armed the mujahedin, then just broke off all relations after the Soviet army withdrew-is what led to the evntual creation of the Taliban, a group at first welcomed by the Afghanistan citizens themselves, as the Taliban proved to be the only ones capable of stopping the nonstop violence dealt out by the numerous warlords & militias battling amongst each other after collapse of the Soviet's puppet Govt

Unfortunately, the Taliban came to be far worse than those they deposed, and a group so extreme that even the Mullahs in Iran refused to recognize it as the legitimate Afghan Govt

This is a group that undoubtedly enjoyed the terror they inflicted on their victims immediately before their public murders/executions

Make no mistake, if the resources devoted to Iraq had instead been appropriated for the Afghanistan campaign-while recognizing how much harder those same Iraq efforts are due to the Administration's deliberate sanctioning of rampant corporate corruption with no-bid, no-oversight contracts for the Iraq occupation-the chances the Taliban successfully claw their way ever quicker to political power again are far less likely

Perhaps the best way to try and achieve even the slightest modicum of success, or reduce the mass hatred of the US across the world by even a smidgen, would be to target those resources and troops withdrawn from Iraq through Afghanistan where logically possible and real-world applicable

To allow the Taliban to come back to life after we had them scattered and running seems the very height of an ultimately wasteful, squandered mission, a military and political collapse all the worse because it wouldn't have happened but for the radical neocons expansionist agenda that neatly dovetailed with a massive campaign of corporate corruption in Iraq

"Mission Accomplished" Indeed

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Rove's Iraq-Terrorism Link Is Doomed To Fail, So Is His National Security Strategy

And the best part is that the public's own incorrect information that Karl Rove no doubt approves of isn’t working the way he intended

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, recent polls have shown that at least half of all respondents believe that either Iraq actually had WsMD, or a connection between al-Qaeda and/or the September 11 attacks

Further, the public is spared the overwhelming majority of the ugly images and harsh realities from life in Iraq today, especially the rapidly-growing free-fire zone known as Baghdad

The images of flag-draped coffins are kept to a minimum of media exposure, and the images of large numbers of maimed, wounded & traumatized troops returning home to the US are virtually invisible to those without a personal connection

And yet

The US Public is overwhelmingly tired of the Iraq occupation, the loss of lives, limbs, minds & treasure are showing NO real reductions in either the actual violence in Iraq, or the terrorism the Administration keeps threatening will inevitably occur should the levers of political power be pulled from their hands

Even though those people believe WsMD were found, they favor pulling the US troops from Iraq, they do NOT back W's Iraq occupation strategy

No matter, with no other possibilities open for the GOP to consider, this “stay the course” strategy will no doubt be hyped leading up to the 5th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, but there's another anniversary that's going to make that a much harder mission to accomplish

Just add that to the multiple political balls Rove's got to juggle successfully, without missing a one, if the GOP is to hold on to the House & Senate

The 1st Anniversary of Katrina, more specifically, the absolutely shameful and reprehenisble moment of both this Administration and this President's life

When strong decisive leadership was most needed, W instead stayed on a fund-raising vacation for an additional three days, leaving New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to drown and people died in the most appalling of circumstances and squalid, lonely of ways while surrounded by desperate multitudes who needed their Government's effective efforts immediately, not on a delayed basis

Something Digby covered yesterday, and I think he's dead on target about Rove's strategy of trying to racebait, but do it in as an inoffensive, under-the-media's-radar-glare kind of way

Unfortunately for Karl Rove's efforts to rebuild W's heroic image from the WTC rubble, we'll be seeing more replays of what happened with Katrina last year, like this

AP: Video Contradicts Bush Katrina Statements


Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

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Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility - and Bush was worried too.

How is Rove going to make everyone forget about the President's flat-out lying about not anticipating the levees failure?

How will he spin that BIG W Lie into something positive to try and link the wider war on terrorism to Iraq and the 9-11 strikes specifically, and how effective can such a strategy be when W's own House & Senate GOP politicians are trying to distance themselves as far from his Iraq policy-or absence of one-as possible?

And adding further steepness to the political hill Karl Rove will have to traverse for the GOP to retain it's Executive Branch non-oversight from the GOP held Legislative branch, much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still look exactly the same today as they did immediately after W swore to rebuild the shattered areas back in September of last year

How, logically, could the Administration fail it's citizens so miserably when it had days of warning that a major storm was on the way?

How, logically, did such a shameful response increase anyone's confidence that this Administration was far more qualified than any other entity to protect the US public from terrorist attacks or natural disasters?

Going back to the Administration's false bravado as it relates to the patriotism of those who criticize it or campaign's against it's "stay the course".....err...."adapting to win" strategy, most evident in the GOP's seeming glee about being able to use the Administration's latest legal setback to it's claims of Imperial, unchecked Presidential powers, Judge Taylor's slapping down of W's NSA Warrantless Spying program on the US public

Should Rove think that the US populace can be riled up by the President's being slapped down regarding his NSA's warrantless spying on us, in the delusional strategy that spying on the US public is keeping us safer from another terrorist attack on US soil, all that has to be pointed out is that W shut down the CIA's bin Laden unit devoted to catching/killing the theological thug who was responsible for the murders of almost 3000 people on US soil, 9-11.

Point out that the warrantless spying on US citizens doesn't seem to have reduced the level of violence occuring around the world, if the Iraq occupation is pointed to as part of the "War On Terrorism", then the Administration should have NO problems showing where it's warrantless spying has made the US troops mission in Iraq easier to accomplish

All the Administration's major legal victories regarding the disruption of alleged plots of terrorist cells have either been overturned or almost completely discredited even before any kind of legal proceedings, so it appears that warrantlessly spying on the US public hasn't been anywhere near the panacea the Administration has claimed up to this point

It appears that actually disrupting al-Qaeda is far more difficult for this Administration than smearing it's critics and launching a too-little, too-late grab for absolute power, a mission that would have been far easier to accomplish immediately after September 11

And here's where to play this card, showing how, when it comes to actually increasing Homeland Security, the Administration's rhetoric is far loftier than it's actual "we're keeping the American People safe" priorities

From October of last year, and last I checked, these reports and budgets still hadn't been funded, established or actually been carried out by now either

Government misses dozens of security deadlines since Sept. 11

The Bush administration has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect airplanes, ships and railways from attacks.

Here's a perfect example, and one that Rove just can't spin away to put W in a positive light leading into the elections

A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, set a July 1, 2004, deadline for ships and ports to tighten security amid fears that nuclear weapons might be smuggled in a cargo container.

The Coast Guard largely accomplished the undertaking. But much still remains undone: A report on how a grant program for shippers and ports would work is more than a year late; a report on cargo container security is eight months overdue; a national security plan for marine transportation is well past its April 1 due date.

Instead, because Karl Rove got sidetracked with his part in deliberately outing Valerie Plame, his formerly sharp-sense of pure politics was knocked off track, hence one reason the GOP and Administration are both floundering about in a political panic that's growing in the party's national leadership by the hour

There are also far too many legal problems and ethical scandals hitting the GOP at the state and national levels for Karl Rove to realistically or logically counteract in a way that's positive for the party or Administration

Rising gas prices while the price of oil itself is decreasing, an unGodly pension for Exxon's CEO, an increasingly harsh & bitterly extreme theological GOP base fearful it's hold on political power is coming to an end, thereby ending it's attempts to legally elevate itself among all other religions and theologies, a fervent desire to insert the political process into the most personal decisions regarding end of life issues-as in the case of the public's overwhelming rejection of those who wanted to force the feeding tube back into Terri Schiavo in spite of numerous court rulings and her husband's acting in his wife's best, stated interest

With all the GOP's stalwarts who have stepped down-Tom DeLay, Bob Ney-or are convicted felons-Jack Abramoff, Randy Cunningham-Karl Rove's efforts become even more unlikely to succeed than before

Because the US military is bogged down in Iraq, and only because this Administration lied us into this conflict, the US appetite for any other military hostilities is virtually nonexistent except among the blood-fueled fantasies of the the dwindling number of radical neocons still backing this Administration

There are NO large numbers of US ground troops that can be spared for an Iran & Syria campaign, not without a draft there's not.

And Congress itself would have to pull the plug on financing such a venture even if W decided to declare war on his own, there's absolutely no way the public would allow it to go on for one single second.

The Administration could disprove this idea with public opinion polls, so the silence in not doing so is truly deafening

And the closer to election day we get with any terrorist strikes, the more likely such a strike will be seen as yet another dirty political trick rather than a real attack-The terrorist bombings in the Madrid Train stations last year didn't rally the public around the elected Govt, as they were booted from power within days of the attacks

That's how you counter Karl Rove's Homeland Security strategy, the only card the GOP's got to play is NOT going to work come November

That's why the GOP is so worried, Rove is so aggravated, and W is so discombobulated, because the majority of the voters aren't buying into their extremist agenda of sowing misery and discord while transferring as much of the public treasury to their campaign contributors and corrupt cronies any more

The time for the radical neocons and GOP operatives starts coming to an end in November, and that's a reality they just won't be able to change

Sunday, August 13, 2006

W's Iraq Strategy Doesn't Translate To Lebanon Any More Successfully Either

So even though this blog doesn't have a large readership, I do apologize for the tardiness between the last post and this one-Health problems, and trying to deal with the worst flooding El Paso's seen in over 50 years

Even worse on that front, it looks like El Paso is getting the New Orleans/Gulf Coast treatment courtesy of the feds and FEMA-but that's for another post

This one deals with yet more blood-drenched carnage that disproportionately affects innocent civilians, a strategy W thought would decisively tilt the balance of power towards Israel, and the US by extension, regarding Israel's bombing the Hell out of Lebanon in the now exposed as pathetic-hopes that Hezbollah could either be killed off or so seriously damaged as to not be any kind of a threat to Israel

So forget all the blather about the agreement put forth by the US & France, as long as the fighting drags on, it can only make the Bush Jr Administration's unquestioning backing of Israel's collective punishment of Lebanese civilians even more intolerable than the ongoing Iraq occupation

Apparently, the logic for the Administration was that it needed Israel to knock the Hell out of Hezbollah, in an attempt to pave the way for an attack on Iran, and by extension Syria, by the Administration

In fact, Israel had apparently been agitating for some time about the desire to hit Hezbollah, and wanted the Bush Jr Administration to sign off on such an attack, a strategy that W & Cheney thought to be a smart means to an end that would, in their view, establish US military ability as being so strong that the merest glare from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave would instantly cause all anti-US sentiment to cease to exist

WATCHING LEBANON

“It’s a moment of clarification,” President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. “It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.”

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

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The Middle East expert said that the Administration had several reasons for supporting the Israeli bombing campaign. Within the State Department, it was seen as a way to strengthen the Lebanese government so that it could assert its authority over the south of the country, much of which is controlled by Hezbollah. He went on, “The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”

What's hurting the Administration in knowing about Iran's real-world nuclear capabilities is that no one, other than Iran's ruling Mullahs, know the true abilities in that respect. Of course, perhaps if Valerie Plame hadn't been deliberately outed by the Administration-seeing as how her assignment was Iran at the time of her treasonous outing-we would have a much more clear vision of Iran's true nuclear accomplishments now when it mattered most

“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”

A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.” (As this article went to press, the United Nations Security Council passed a ceasefire resolution, although it was unclear if it would change the situation on the ground.)

Both Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a cease fire starting tomorrow, 8-14-06, but are still warring right up until the last second

Unfortunately for Israel, if they couldn't wipe out Hezbollah, or even disrupt it severely enough to put a major dent in the Hezbollah rocketings into Israel-a truly intolerable situation-in the weeks since the conflict went white hot, chances are not good for that Israeli aim to be accomplished.

“If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”

And that last sentence sums it up-The Bush Jr Administration made another military strategy fiasco by thinking Israel's collective punishment of the Lebanese civilians would somehow cause them to turn against Hezbollah

A truly stupid move, as the reason Hezbollah is influential in Lebanon's politics is that they're providing badly needed social services, like education, food and health care, for those on the bottom rung of Lebanon's economic ladder

Of course that's not altruism on the part of Hezbollah to provide those social services, it's literally buying goodwill from people who have nothing to lose by going along with such a transparent ploy, but since Hezbollah's the ONLY entity that's helped so many of the Lebanese, why would anyone think those physically helped by the terrorist group would suddenly turn on Hezbollah?

Unfortunately, by Israel's bombing the living hell out of Lebanon's infrastructure and civilians in places where there was actually a majority opinion against Hezbollah-with the full and unblinking support of the Bush jr Administration-just the opposite effect occured: Those who were against Hezbollah before the bombings have now rallied around the group and it's missions

The initial plan, as outlined by the Israelis, called for a major bombing campaign in response to the next Hezbollah provocation, according to the Middle East expert with knowledge of U.S. and Israeli thinking. Israel believed that, by targeting Lebanon’s infrastructure, including highways, fuel depots, and even the civilian runways at the main Beirut airport, it could persuade Lebanon’s large Christian and Sunni populations to turn against Hezbollah, according to the former senior intelligence official. The airport, highways, and bridges, among other things, have been hit in the bombing campaign. The Israeli Air Force had flown almost nine thousand missions as of last week. (David Siegel, the Israeli spokesman, said that Israel had targeted only sites connected to Hezbollah; the bombing of bridges and roads was meant to prevent the transport of weapons.)

Hersh also points out that the Bush Jr Administration was hoping that a successful Israeli aerial campaign could also be applied to a US air-attack against Iran. At this point, it seems obvious that the Bush Jr Administration is desirous of hitting Iran and Syria, although it seems obvious that launching aggressive military airstrikes and actions against innocent civilians don't cause a drop in public support of the Govt being attacked, rather, itusually causes a clearly disaffected populace into rallying around leaders they'd otherwise be trying to depose or vote out of office

Cheney’s office supported the Israeli plan, as did Elliott Abrams, a deputy national-security adviser, according to several former and current officials. (A spokesman for the N.S.C. denied that Abrams had done so.) They believed that Israel should move quickly in its air war against Hezbollah. A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later—the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.’ ”

Cheney’s point, the former senior intelligence official said, was “What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it’s really successful? It’d be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.”

A great plan, but unfortunately, one that broke the military dictum of "hope for the best, plan for the worst", but in an especially ridiculously easy way to predict when the Lebanese civilians started getting blown to pieces and crushed in wave after wave of Israeli bombings. The US counted on it's public allies in the middle east-Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq-to publicly support the Israelis no matter what

However, with the gruesome images of mangled civilians-ESPECIALLY children-started running throughout the Arab & Muslim world, there was no way those allies could stay out of their citizens ire, so being publicly upbraided by it's own allies is yet another misstep by this clueless Administration

The long-term Administration goal was to help set up a Sunni Arab coalition—including countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—that would join the United States and Europe to pressure the ruling Shiite mullahs in Iran. “But the thought behind that plan was that Israel would defeat Hezbollah, not lose to it,” the consultant with close ties to Israel said. Some officials in Cheney’s office and at the N.S.C. had become convinced, on the basis of private talks, that those nations would moderate their public criticism of Israel and blame Hezbollah for creating the crisis that led to war. Although they did so at first, they shifted their position in the wake of public protests in their countries about the Israeli bombing. The White House was clearly disappointed when, late last month, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, came to Washington and, at a meeting with Bush, called for the President to intervene immediately to end the war. The Washington Post reported that Washington had hoped to enlist moderate Arab states “in an effort to pressure Syria and Iran to rein in Hezbollah, but the Saudi move . . . seemed to cloud that initiative.”

The surprising strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and its continuing ability to fire rockets into northern Israel in the face of the constant Israeli bombing, the Middle East expert told me, “is a massive setback for those in the White House who want to use force in Iran. And those who argue that the bombing will create internal dissent and revolt in Iran are also set back.”

And yet, in spite of the clear and overwhelming evidence that Israel's air & ground offensives against Lebanon and it's infrastructure has had the exact opposite intended effect by rallying the populace around Hezbollah, this Administration seems bound and determined to remain willfully ignorant by thinking it's got the key to success to bring Iran to heel, a key that's eluded the Bush Jr Administration's Iraq quagmire-But there are some real world problems that W just can't get around, problems that trump the neocons call for outright genocide of as many Muslims as possible

The Pentagon consultant told me that intelligence about Hezbollah and Iran is being mishandled by the White House the same way intelligence had been when, in 2002 and early 2003, the Administration was making the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “The big complaint now in the intelligence community is that all of the important stuff is being sent directly to the top—at the insistence of the White House—and not being analyzed at all, or scarcely,” he said. “It’s an awful policy and violates all of the N.S.A.’s strictures, and if you complain about it you’re out,” he said. “Cheney had a strong hand in this.”

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Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should, the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”

That plan is now dead, definitely before the November elections, and more than likely afterwards as well

The most obvious problem with any US attack on Iran is the same one the Israelis faced with this most recent military campaign-Bombing alone does not usually achieve the desired military and political objectives sought, and almost always leads to the option that's least popular with the populace

Ground Troops

First, how will the needed ground troops be supplied for any Iran campaign, seeing as how heavy the US is bogged down in Iraq?

Second, since an attack on Iran will draw a military response from Syria as well-it's widely believed that both countries entered into a mutual defense pact, so an attack on one will draw a military response from the other-Just where will the troops needed to occupy both Iran and Syria come from, short of reinstituting the draft-and even the GOP knows just how toxic that concept is, as a draft is almost political suicide for the politician that proposes it and the party that backs it?

And if we were to draw Iran and Syria into a military conflict, their easiet targets to retaliate against are those US troops pinned down in Iraq, in effect, those US troops-armed hostages in this vile scenario-would have to battle insurgents, death squads, militias, terrorists in training, and then two more militaries as well

There is absolutely NO way the US public would ever go along with making the Troops even bigger pieces of bait than this Administration has already made of them

And considering how much domestic fire the Bush Jr Administration is taking on account of the Oil industry's record profits and price-gouging, there are also other unpleasant realities that even the most fervent Administrative acolytes couldn't spin in a more positive, favorable way

A high-level American military planner told me, “We have a lot of vulnerability in the region, and we’ve talked about some of the effects of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack on the Saudi regime and on the oil infrastructure.” There is special concern inside the Pentagon, he added, about the oil-producing nations north of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to anticipate the unintended consequences,” he told me. “Will we be able to absorb a barrel of oil at one hundred dollars? There is this almost comical thinking that you can do it all from the air, even when you’re up against an irregular enemy with a dug-in capability. You’re not going to be successful unless you have a ground presence, but the political leadership never considers the worst case. These guys only want to hear the best case.”

Unfortunately for the Administration, while they may wish to hear only the good news, there's no logical way to positively spin the negatives this latest round of hostilities have inflicted on the President and his few remaining public allies in the middle east and around the world

What the Administration was pushing for here was Israel expanding it's military offensive against Iran and Syria, with the US jumping in after that step was accomplished

Apparently, even the Israelis weren't all too keen on expanding their conflict into Iran or Syria, which really knocked the Administration on its heels, as without Israel's military taking on Iran & Syria, the Administration is left with exactly ZERO military cards to play now

And as it is, if things get to the point of a four-way struggle in Iraq, the Administration will have it's hands even more full than before. Turkey is making noise about invading Northern Iraq to battle the Kurds. The Shia, being the largest number of Iraqis, could very well decide to attack the Kurds as well in the North, and the Sunni down in the South at the same time

If the US has troops in Iraq should such a four-way dance break out, W will have no choice but to finally admit just what a disaster his Iraq invasion and occupation have become to anyone not willfully ignorant enough to pretend otherwise, which means a total and humiliating withdrawal from Iraq, one that will inflict even more damage on the US psyche than Vietnam did

So, let's review

Hezbollah, instead of being fatally weakened, is firing more rockets than ever into Israel, and will emerge stronger than before, for being the first army or fighting force of any kind to withstand a direct and punishing Israeli assault

Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah is riding a huge tidal wave of support, and, ridiculous as I find this comparison, is being mentioned as "Another Nasser"

And once again, the President's "Go It Alone" style undercuts him when he needs the rest of the world to bail him out of yet another fine mess he's made of things

That Israel will not be warring directly with Iran and Syria is good news for all but the radical neocons who constantly push this Administration to expand it's military occupations, a blood-fueled fantasy that by military power alone the US can intimidate any and all other countries with untold physical ruin

Of course, stopping that card from going Nuclear are Russia and China, two superpowers that have the ability to instantly rain down the same nuclear ruin on the US that we do on everyone else. Now W may be an idiot, but he's clearly not suicidal, and that alone ensures no nuclear options will be pursued in the least

Basically, the Israelis decided that throwing in the towel at this point is far more preferable than going to war for the radical neocons who make up Bush Jr's Administration, which means the US will NOT be attacking Syria and Iran

Once again, W's decision to invade and occupy Iraq has blown up in W's face, and rightly so