Who Says Bush CheneyHas No Plan B for Iraq?

Plan B:

Putin's Had Enough:This Is Not Your Mother's Cold War

Three weeks ago at the Munich Security Conference, before the assembled heads of state of Western Europe and the US Secretary of Defense, Vladimir Putin let it all hang out. He's had more than enough and told the world in no uncertain terms that US aggression and military adventurism in the Caucaucus basin and the Middle East is provoking a new Cold War.

Sec'y Gates and other administration mouthpieces laughed off Putin's remarks, but it is simply extraordinary that this highly intelligent, ex-KGB head would give such a blunt warning in such a prominent setting. Putin knows something, and the US has pushed his hand.

So what's going on? What gave Putin the confidence to send such a major shot across the bow of the USS Cheney? Essentially, Russia's on the rise and the US is going down. Russia is now the world's number one producer of oil, and after nearly being dismantled with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the country under Putin has quietly rebuilt and consolidated its power.

At the same time the US is spiraling out of control. Staggering debt and staggering balance of payments deficits are sinking the American economy. The unenviable pillars of our supposed prosperity are debt, debt & more debt; a rapidly deflating housing bubble; and an inflated stock market that is about to collapse. And our sources of oil are not secure. The US wars in the Middle East are an act of desperation, an oil grab--the US is securing for itself Iraq's oil and Afghanistan to build pipelines that would allow the US to bring the oil from the Caucaucus basin to Pakistan and the Arabian Sea. The US is also trying to dislodge the former Soviet republics--the crescent of unpronouncible -stans ringing Russia's southeastern borders--from Russian influence, eager to base missiles there pointed at Russia and to lock in their oil reserves as well.

Putin is speaking up now because of Iran. He's drawing a line in the sand. And he's in a surprisingly solid position on the global chessboard.

And here's why: the SS-N-25 Super Sunburn, a missile so potent the US Navy tried to purchase its predecessor from the Russians. A few vital stats: it flies at Mach 2.5+ with a cruising altitude of 45 feet and a range of over 150 miles.

Okay, Putin's got a cool missile; what's the big deal? This missile flies so low and so fast that it is undetectable by radar, and has such an impact velocity that, even mounted with a conventional warhead, it could easily sink a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Putin has quietly offered them to Iran and Syria. Not only are the US carrier groups in Persian Gulf at grave risk from the Sunburn, but Israel's major population centers as well.

This is obviously known to the Pentagon, witness the current strife between the career military and the administration over Iran, with even Joint Chiefs Chairman General Pace undercutting White House disinformation about Iran's supposedly supplying advanced IEDs to Iraqi insurgents.

Simply put, the Pentagon knows it will pay a staggering and unacceptable price for unleashing an attack on Iran. Those huge carriers are now obsolete, at least against Russia and its allies.

Global chess. Watch out, the Russians are the Grandmasters.

Walter Reed: Karmic Payback

I hesitated to comment on the Walter Reed Veteran's Hospital scandal, as it is so obvious what this is all about.

The Cheney administration and Commander Codpiece couldn't give the time of day to the wounded and broken soldiers coming back from the Iraq/Afghanistan killing fields and are only interested in sending more to be killed and maimed in their insane global chess game.

Walter Reed Hospital, once a leading government facility, was privatized by the neocons and the contractors bled it for profit instead of carrying out even the most basic maintenance. The hospital is now, according to the WaPo, a "dank structure besieged by mold, leaks and rot."

There's a low-level war going on right now between the White House and the Pentagon, and I believe there's no coincidence that this story surfaced right now, in the run-up to the Iran war. This is sabotage, and I think the military was willing to take the hit on this one because they know the ultimate responsibility rests with the administration and they'd get tarred with the blame. Apparently there are still a lot of real patriots in our armed forces and they're making their stand now.

As for Cheney and his Cheerleader and the neocon court, they can fire all the Army Secretaries and scapegoat colonels they want, but that will not redeem their utter disregard for the most basic responsibility of government to care for sick and wounded soldiers--most barely beyond adolescence--that it has sent to fight and die for it.

The karmic payback: veterans groups are rightly outraged, weakening one of the few remaining pillars of popular support for the Bush regime.

Unconscionable.

NY Times: Loose Nukes Echo Chamber

The tempo of apocalyptic fear-mongering has kicked into overdrive: the MSM is literally awash with portentious articles of new terror attacks involving loose nukes.

Let's be very clear about this: the 9/11 drug is wearing off, the wheels are coming off that lie, and they're hustling "the next big thing" to market as fast as they can. These madmen are doubling down on terror, just as they're about to do the same with Iraq.

I can barely keep up with the sowing-the-ground articles, and I focus almost exclusively on the top tier NYT, WaPo & BBC--and THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING.

The NY Times' second "we're-gonna-get-nuked-soon" article this week, via the Huffington Post, behind the NYT firewall:

"Frank Rich: Experts Warn Al Qaeda "To Detonate Nuclear Device" In US, But Bush Punts on Threat."

In an op-ed in the New York Times, columnist Frank Rich argues that
over five years after the events of September 11, 2001, President George
W. Bush is still ignoring serious terrorist threats to the United
States. Faced with warnings from terrorism experts and a White House
seemingly more focused on Iraq, Rich begs readers to ask, "Haven't we
been here before?"

Yes Frank, on the same pages just this past Sunday in fact. And that's what really scares the Hell out of me.

Imperium Americanum: History Repeating

Here we are deep in the last third of Gibbon.

Almost 45 years ago, Ceasar died in Dallas, the long knives replaced by a hail of bullets, with the devolution of honor being such that the conspirators hid behind contract killers bought from the mafia rather than looking their prince in the eye as they betrayed him and murdered their republic.

Wars and foreign intrigues followed, as the conspirators, now the rulers of empire, fed at the trough of money and power. In Rome, uneasy parents, witness to the unspeakable, soon enough gave way to sons and daughters who reveled in wealth and decadence.

The rich were never richer, the poor never more despised. The outward forms and structures were maintained, from familiarity and convenience, but all Romans knew that democracy had been supplanted by dictatorship, that Rome had sacrificed its soul to grasp at the delirious prize of world domination.

The pathetic spectacle of the current Senate's inability to pass a non-binding resolution censuring the conduct of the Iraq war should have been played out in togas.

The craven politics, posturing and rank hypocrisy of the past weeks' maneuverings have reached new lows even for Congress--a profoundly saddening and shameless display that reveals an institution that is impotent, dysfunctional and frankly irrelevant. The stink of rotten decadence hangs over the farce: Congress is defunct as a viable, let alone co-equal, branch of government.

Enter Nero, playing air guitar.

Dept. of It Takes One to Know One

Via today's White House Briefing by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post, and CNN's Situation Room, via Crooks & Liars, the BBC reports:

Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC's Newsnight programme.

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion. "Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, the official said. . . .

"We thought it was a very propitious moment to do that," Lawrence Wilkerson told Newsnight.

"But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil' . . . reasserted itself.

You'd almost think President Vader wants confrontation with Iran, wouldn't you?

Iraq: Frogs in a Pot

From Digby at Hullabaloo, the realization that US Special Forces may be fomenting violence in Iraq, just as was done in El Salvador (and in Egypt, Iran, Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela...). Deja vu all over again.

I have only the greatest respect for Digby--he writes wonderfully and goes further than most mainstream bloggers in challenging the conventional wisdom--but even he holds an obdurate, rationalist naivete about just what makes this world go round.

Of course the US government is spreading chaos in Iraq, but even if they are not actively doing so, the entire way in which the war was conceived and executed to date is incontrovertible proof that there was never any real US interest in fostering stability in Iraq. Once they were ignited, the fires would fan and spread on their own. We should recognize that it's in the interest of those really in power to stay. Just look at those bases they've built. As long as Iraq is dysfunctional, we can't pull out. That's the point.

Digby came to his conclusion of suspicion after Googling the subject of special forces in Iraq. I would encourage everyone to also Google these phrases: "false-flag terrorism" and "ordo ab chao (order from chaos)."

We need to wake up. We're deep through the looking glass here, and Iran and Syria are next. We need only refer to the administration's handy atlas to the Middle East, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," what I call the PNAC agenda, for the roadmap. ( And no, it's not from Rand-MacNally.)

In a nutshell, here's the route we're on: you take a sharp right turn at the WTC, then keep going straight until you reach Armageddon.

Digby concludes his post by saying, "I wish I didn't believe this could be true..."

The first thing we've got to do is stop acting like jilted lovers when we ponder the US government.

We are all rational, sensible people. We go to work, we love our families, we respect the law and our fellow human beings, we pay our bills and taxes. We hope for a better, fairer world and a brighter future.

Well, pardon my French but those in real positions of power are the most corrupt and cynical of bastards and believe they are above the laws, and use our well-meaning, blinkered belief system to their advantage. Simply because we cannot conceive that they would do such things doesn't mean they don't actually do them.

Sorry to rant here, but it's this "normal" mindset that has allowed us to have been pushed this far. We are the proverbial frogs in the pot on the stove.

Again, we need to wake up. Google is a great alarm clock.