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| Question: | Is The President of the USA is doing a good job?
| Yes | |    0 (0%) |
| No | | 5 (100%) |
| Don't care | | 0 (0%) |
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Topic: The President of The United States. (Read 1766 times) |
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Bass
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #15 on: 2007-07-21 00:17:07 » |
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Hermit, it's not that I agree with the Iraq war, but rather that the fact that it has happened, and the fact that everything which has happened as a result, i.e the removal of Saddam, means that we cannot just "get up and go". We have entered beyond the point of no return; we have destroyed that country, and now that this has all happened we need to put things right. We need to aid in the rebuilding of that country. And we need to support the ones who are out there trying to do this.
Troops can't just leave, not with Iraq in the state that its in. What do you think would happen to the country if they did leave? What do you think the current radical-Islamic presence in Iraq would do to/with the country if we left?
Do you think the children would have better education? Do you think they would begin attending school again? Do you think the overall quality of life would improve? Do you think the country would be better off to be left alone and pick up the peices to their country? What benefits would come from us leaving (other than the obvious ones) I know there would be less violence, which of course would be welcomed, but I'm looking more at the bigger picture. If we left, how much better off would the country be? I'm not giving an opinion, I'm asking you.
You know the Government would not be in control of Iraq if we left. The terrorists are more organized in that country than the newly appointed government is. The country would just decend into even more chaos then it already is. The American presence is by no means ideal, no. But if we just left, then what little order our troops provide there now would surely crumble. The war was illegal, yes. The government lied to us, yes. The war itself was not a mistake, but was the maleviolent and selfish intentions of a corrupt government, drunk on its own power; yes. But that is all in the past. What we should be most concerned with now is the present and the future. It may not have been our right to remove Saddam from power, but the Iraqi people are happy he is gone. He abused his power, was a dictator and nullified (if not destroyed) what ever political right he once had to his country with what he did to his people. Being politically correct and leaving him in power would not have been ethical I feel, but then neither was the war. If anyone it should have been the UN who intervened, not us - although some still argue 9/11 as a justification for our actions (at lest to begin with). He should have been removed, but not to the degree (and to the cost) it has transpired to today.
But now that our soldiers are there we need to support them until they come home. It won't be a cut and run, it can't be - on the British or American front. I don't agree with why they're there, but I don't think it's something I could hold against them.
The point I made earlier was that they, the soldiers, are effectively the property of the Army. Their only real job is to do as they're told, and now they're just doing what their jobs demand.
I do not support war (unless its provoked and your defending yourself against attack). I support its victims, be they crying children or suffering soldiers. We may not be able to win this war, but we can at lest try and make up for what we've done.
My point here is: It's something that shouldn't have been done in the first place, but now that we are in it, we stay untill we make sure everything's ok. Not just cut and run.
Regards
Bass
PS Thank you for your detailed posts. To be completely honest, you sound as if your military intelligence. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #16 on: 2007-07-24 12:42:00 » |
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Bass,
you are quite right that we are "in it". This however does not justify the current leadership for anything, other than to be impeached over it. Indeed even if we stay in it, we are remiss if we do not seek to replace current leadership through impeachment. We can start with Cheney if you would rather and then move up the ladder, but I endorse no replacements this administration would nominate for him until the process is complete.
Sure listen to General Petraeus, give him the funding he wants, and the best way to actually support him and back him up with the credibility he needs is to start the impeachment proceedings against the administration that got us there in the first place. If we are going to give the infant Iraqi government political directives, the best way to say we are serious is to give similarly drastic prescriptions to our own political establishment. Reform NOW or fail. If it is good enough for Iraqi's, its good enough for us. Though I nominally remain a Democrat, I'm embarrassed that my party lacks the vision for this most common sense solution. Simple votes on war funding are not going anywhere except for failure all around. Impeach Cheney and Bush now and we stand a chance at success. Anything less is simply a negotiated failure. I'm not sure Cindy Sheehan is the person to implement this, but she is a sufficient political messager of the moment.
BTW, since you want us to credit the current incompetant administration with something nice, here it is. I support Bush's no-call list. The only problem with it is that Bush put the entire electorate (sans the religious right) on his no-call list. Certainly as a private citizen he should have the right to do this, but as the political leader of the "free world" it is a recipe for fascistic political disaster and incompetance.
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Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #17 on: 2007-07-24 13:07:12 » |
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The solution for this problem can come from no less than the grassroots. Perhaps you are a conservative, perhaps you are a liberal, perhaps a libertarian or a green, but unless you as a grassroots entity wherever you may be stand up, call your representative's, senators, even president if you think it would make any more difference at this point . . . unless you take a simple few minutes to do so, and perhaps a few minutes afterwards to fax or snail mail the same, you have voted yourself irrellevant to the process.
It stands as a testament to our apathy that our elected officials of whatever party couldn't find the vision to save their own hide to do this for everyone American. And if they refuse you still have access to the streets, commerce, transportation, public places, and shared recreation to give them the message that you simply want the same accountability that we seek to impose on the rest of the American-occupied world. It could be a beautiful day, or it could be the begining of the end . . . its all in your hands. link up and make a difference, or share in the apathy of failure . . . we have a choice. Please make it. You know the fascist zeitgeist, and you know I'm willing to help you make the right choice if you simply contact me or this church of humanity. We see the crisis, and we want to help. Please share with us in an abundent and diverse future.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #18 on: 2007-07-24 21:07:07 » |
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Again something I have written repeatedly. And lost repeatedly. Annoying. But you benefit. You get the short version.
[Bass] Hermit, it's not that I agree with the Iraq war, but rather that the fact that it has happened, and the fact that everything which has happened as a result, i.e the removal of Saddam, means that we cannot just "get up and go". We have entered beyond the point of no return; we have destroyed that country, and now that this has all happened we need to put things right. We need to aid in the rebuilding of that country. And we need to support the ones who are out there trying to do this.
[Hermit] We didn't just fuck Iraq up. We illegally and unprovokedly attacked a country that posed no credible threat to us, and never would have, engaging in deliberate lies to gin up justifications for a war of provocation. This is what we executed people for after Nuremberg. Were we lying hypocrites then when we said it was a crime worthy of the death penalty, or are we lying hypocrites now when we attempt to justify our own engagement in this behavior?
[Hermit] Despite wasting money at a rate of the equivalent of four aircraft carriers per month, we have proven completely incompetent to fix our fuck-ups. Every month of our brutal occupation more people are killed and the destruction widens. These are the only things increasing. There is less food, less purified water, less electricity, less infrastructure, less possibility of a reasonably peaceful ending and a whole lot less compassion. Our presence in Iraq acts as a point of focus, not for "insurgents", because insurgents battle a legitimate government, but for a resistance movement against an illegal occupation and their quisling representatives.
[Hermit] Would you attempt to argue that in 1942 Germany had damaged occupied Europe (a sight less than the British and Americans did in reality, and much less traumatically on a per capita basis than what we have done in Iraq) and thus it was their responsibility to continue to occupy it in order to repair it? If not, then your lame argument against this analogous situation must be seen for what it is. Inequitable hypocritical bluster.
[Hermit] In the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s should we have supported the Soviet puppets in Afghanistan (that we have now recycled as our own puppets), rather than implanting "radical Islam" (which really was an American supported idea) in the region and sponsoring and supplying terrorists to attack both the puppets and their masters? That wasn't what conservative Republicans of the day advocated. If we didn't support somebody else's Vichy substitute, why on earth should anybody see our's as any different.
[Bass] Troops can't just leave, not with Iraq in the state that its in. What do you think would happen to the country if they did leave? What do you think the current radical-Islamic presence in Iraq would do to/with the country if we left?
[Hermit] As we did in the Iran-Iraq Gulf war, we are arming both sides to the great detriment of everyone. Even worse, this time we are engaged in the indiscriminate killing (aerial bombardments cannot discriminate) of all present. When we leave Iraq, the fight will continue until either the parties eventually exhaust themselves when all surviving parties will go to the table or, us having made a laughing stock of the UN which prevented this, perhaps they will be invaded by one or more of Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia at which point war will continue till all surviving parties go to the table. But if we stay in Iraq, exactly the same things will occur. The big difference is that as the occupying force we have a duty to succor the population. Oh, you do know that we have failed at that duty too. We executed German and Japanese Generals for this failure - even when they presented evidence that they had issued orders to provide aid to civilians and to protect prisoners. Were we hypocritical liars then when we said that intentions did not matter, that the results spoke for themselves? Or are we hypocritical liars today when we try to argue that it isn't our fault, that we are trying to help. When we finally leave, we will have admitted our role in this disaster. Do we want to do so as early or, as late, as possible?
[Hermit] We have destroyed Iraq as a secular state. No matter how long our occupation lasts (and we couldn't afford it to date, never mind into the future), we won't make it a non-radical Islamic culture. That is because religions, all religions, adapt to their environments. When the environment is nasty and brutal, the religions are too. My daughter can give you lessons in this:
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the kings horses and all the kings men,
had scrambled egg, for breakfast again.
[Bass] Do you think the children would have better education? Do you think they would begin attending school again? Do you think the overall quality of life would improve? Do you think the country would be better off to be left alone and pick up the peices to their country? What benefits would come from us leaving (other than the obvious ones) I know there would be less violence, which of course would be welcomed, but I'm looking more at the bigger picture. If we left, how much better off would the country be? I'm not giving an opinion, I'm asking you.
[Hermit] No matter how much violence happens, and there will be violence if we are there for 100 years, or if leave tomorrow, there will be less violence when we leave. And less violence is good. We are defeated already. We spend billions of dollars we cannot afford, even as our opponents, who arguably have right on their side, spend hundreds of dollars. An asymmetric ratio of ten million to one. This is ten thousand times worse than the Soviet ratio in Afghanistan (Where we are, BTW, doing nearly as badly, just less reported, as we are in Iraq). The bigger picture is that ethically and legally, when we are responsible directly for violence, that is far worse than when we are responsible as a contributory cause to violence.
[Bass] You know the Government would not be in control of Iraq if we left. The terrorists are more organized in that country than the newly appointed government is. The country would just decend into even more chaos then it already is. The American presence is by no means ideal, no. But if we just left, then what little order our troops provide there now would surely crumble. The war was illegal, yes. The government lied to us, yes. The war itself was not a mistake, but was the maleviolent and selfish intentions of a corrupt government, drunk on its own power; yes. But that is all in the past. What we should be most concerned with now is the present and the future. It may not have been our right to remove Saddam from power, but the Iraqi people are happy he is gone. He abused his power, was a dictator and nullified (if not destroyed) what ever political right he once had to his country with what he did to his people. Being politically correct and leaving him in power would not have been ethical I feel, but then neither was the war. If anyone it should have been the UN who intervened, not us - although some still argue 9/11 as a justification for our actions (at lest to begin with). He should have been removed, but not to the degree (and to the cost) it has transpired to today.
[Hermit] If, as you say, "The terrorists are more organized in that country than the newly appointed government is", then begging the question of who the so called "terrorists" are, and why, shouldn't the "terrorists" be the government? Who or what gave us the right to "appoint a government" in Iraq. Just because that is how we have chosen to work in the USA (and damn our constitution), doesn't legitimize it when we do it to others, specifically against international law in an occupied country, no matter who we threatened or bribed for their support in doing so. Illegal remains illegal while the law stands, no matter who agrees that it is convenient to break it. The Baathists under Saddam Hussein, under killing sanctions, fed all of the Iraqi people. They made enough money to keep the economy running, even with the UN keeping 50% of the revenue from their sales of oil for war reparations and administrative costs. We can't even pump the oil we desperately need and are blatantly attempting to steal from them. Why are we getting in the way?
[Hermit] Speaking of reparations, given your admissions above, don't you think reparations are in order? I do. Somewhere around 3 trillion dollars - or around 1/3 of one year of US GDP for the actual damage and deaths we have caused seems fair. Looking at the normal triple actual damages typically awarded in civil trials when malevolence is shown, suggests that a further 9 trillion dollars in punitive damages, given that our actions were willful, wanton and massively out of proportion, would also be fair. Which would be somewhat over one year's GDP for the US. Administered by the UN and paid out in segments both as seed money and as rebuilding is accomplished and stabilization achieved, this would provide a massive incentive to Iraq to stabilize itself; while simultaneously leaving the US in no condition to engage in further military aggression. What do you think?
[Hermit] BTW, there is no legitimate organization or body, American or International, that has investigated the events of 9/11 which has found any relationship between that event and Iraq or Saddam Hussein, outside of the Cheney/Bush administration's use of 9/11 as part of their campaign of lies to justify their illegal war.
[Bass] But now that our soldiers are there we need to support them until they come home. It won't be a cut and run, it can't be - on the British or American front. I don't agree with why they're there, but I don't think it's something I could hold against them.
[Hermit] Why not. Pleading that they accepted propaganda and thought the other side were evil incarnate didn't excuse German and Japanese soldiers from their aggression and failure to uphold International law. Why on earth should it excuse ours? More hypocrisy?
[Hermit] If the US does not know how to execute a rapid strategic retreat, I suggest they ask some retired South Africans. Gen. Constant Viljoen comes to mind. He managed to extricate nearly as many soldiers from Angola, while in the midst of a combined conventional and unconventional war situation as we currently have in Iraq, with a fraction of the logistical and strategic resources - and with much fewer losses than the US is taking daily under the current situation. With the right staff, I could put together and implement plans for a retreat that would first destroy every weapon I could lay my hands on in Iraq - government and non-government alike - and then remove the men and more valuable equipment from Iraq back to the USA, all in under six weeks, with only minor supplements to the current logistical situation - relatively easily -and compared to the cost of war - cheaply arranged. The only reason this hasn't been done is that like Nazi Germany in occupied Europe, the USA doesn't much want to yield territory it has captured even though it would be strategically, tactically and economically the sane thing to do.
[Bass] The point I made earlier was that they, the soldiers, are effectively the property of the Army. Their only real job is to do as they're told, and now they're just doing what their jobs demand.
[Hermit] Actually, as soldiers, members of the US Military have a prior duty to uphold International and US Military Law. First and foremost this certainly means refusing illegal orders. Like engaging in wars of aggression, attacking civilians or civilian infrastructure - and certainly not planning for plagues and epidemics to render a nation ungovernable. All of which the US military has done and admitted to. We have held the military of other nations to this standard. Were we hypocrites then or are we hypocrites now?
[Hermit] An additional consideration is that US military personnel take an oath to support the Constitution, not to the Administration, not to Congress , not even to the Supreme Court, but directly to the Constitution. And the Constitution is founded in the will of the people, 63% of whom, according to recent surveys, want the military withdrawn immediately.
[Hermit] Further, according to the Constitution of the USA, the USA derives its legitimacy from International Laws and Treaties; and only then to US law. Many of which the current government is abandoning or breaching and in the case of the bill of rights, an integral part of the constitution, has been interpreted out of existence since the 1800s. So perhaps the duty of the US military is to do what happened in France and Russia in the early years of the 20th century, and nearly happened in the US military in the 1970s. Revolution. Revolution in order to uphold their oaths to support the constitution of the US.
[Bass] I do not support war (unless its provoked and your defending yourself against attack). I support its victims, be they crying children or suffering soldiers. We may not be able to win this war, but we can at lest try and make up for what we've done.
[Hermit] By acting responsibly and making suitable reparations? How do you think that this should be funded? At what level should tax be set, and what percentage of the budget should be made available for this?
[Bass] My point here is: It's something that shouldn't have been done in the first place, but now that we are in it, we stay until we make sure everything's ok. Not just cut and run.
[Hermit] Your entire argument seems to be based on the (wrongheaded I would say) idea that if you were to directly attack your neighbors house with his family in it, destroyed it and killed them, and then torched the pieces and the corpses, that you then would have somehow earned the right to decide how to rebuild it and when, as well as who the contractors should be and how much they should be paid, carefully appointing your cousins as the beneficiaries and all the while shooting anybody that appeared to disagree with your right to make these assertions. And you anticipate that your neighbor will eventually come to embrace you, because you killed his landlord too.
[Hermit] How long until you expect this logic to be embraced by these neighbors in order that we may bring our military home?
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #19 on: 2007-07-29 16:48:40 » |
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Dangers of a Cornered George Bush
By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity & Dr. Justin Frank
07/27/07 "ICH " -- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ -- The "new" strategy of surging troops in Baghdad has simply wasted more lives and bought some time for the president. His strategy boils down to keeping as many of our soldiers engaged as possible, in order to stave off definitive defeat in Iraq before January 2009.
Bush is commander in chief, but Congress must approve funding for the war, and its patience is running out. The war – and the polls – are going so badly that it is no longer a sure thing that the administration will be able to fund continuance of the war.
There is an outside chance Congress will succeed in forcing a pullout starting in the next several months. What would the president likely do in reaction to that slap in the face?
What would he do if the Resistance succeeded in mounting a large attack on U.S. facilities in the Green Zone or elsewhere in Iraq? How would he react if Israel mounted a preemptive attack on the nuclear-related facilities in Iran and wider war ensued?
Applied Psychoanalysis
The answers to such questions depend on a host of factors for which intelligence analysts use a variety of tools. One such tool involves applying the principles of psychoanalysis to acquire insights into the minds of key leaders, with an eye to facilitating predictions as to how they might react in certain circumstances.
For U.S. intelligence, this common-law marriage of psychoanalysis and intelligence work dates back to the early 1940s, when CIA's forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services commissioned two studies of Adolf Hitler.
We call such assessments "at-a-distance leader personality assessments." Many were quite useful. VIPS found the 2004 book Bush on the Couch, by Washington psychiatrist Justin Frank, MD, a very helpful assessment in this genre. We now have two more years of experience of observing Bush closely.
As we watched the pressure build on President Bush, looked toward the additional challenges we expect him to face over the next 18 months, and pondered his tendency to disregard the law and the Constitution, we felt very much in need of professional help in trying to estimate what kinds of decisions he is likely to make.
Dr. Frank, it turned out, had been thinking along the same lines, when we asked to meet with him just three weeks ago. What follows is a collaborative Frank-VIPS effort, with the psychological insights volunteered by Dr. Frank, who shares the imperative we feel to draw on all disciplines to assess what courses of action President George W. Bush is likely to decide upon in reacting to reverse after reverse in the coming months.
Parental discretion advised. The outlook is not only somber but potentially violent—and includes all manner of threats born of George W. Bush's mental state (as well as the unusual relationship he has with his vice president).
Things are going to hell in a hand basket for this administration, and Bush/Cheney have shown a willingness to act in extra-Constitutional ways, as they see fit.
While Bush and his advisers make a fetish of it, he is nonetheless commander in chief of the armed forces and the question becomes how he might feel justified in using them and is there still any restraining force—any checks on the increasing power of the executive in our three-branch government.
We have a president whose psychological makeup inclines him to do as he pleases. Because Congress has been cowed, and the judiciary stacked with loyalists, he has gotten away with it—so far.
But the polls show growing discontent among the people, especially over the war in Iraq. Congress, too, is starting to challenge the executive, as it should—but slowly, slower than it should. The way things are moving, there is infinite opportunity to diddle and dodge—in effect conducting business pretty much as usual over the next 18 months.
Could Start Another War...
Meanwhile, the president may well feel free to start another war, with little reference to the Congress or the UN, against Iran.
The commander of CENTO forces, Admiral William Fallon is quoted as having said we "will not go to war with Iran on my watch." Tough words; but should the president order an attack on Iran, chances are Fallon and others will do what they are accustomed to doing, salute smartly and carry out orders, UNLESS they show more regard for the U.S. Constitution than the president does.
There is an orderly remedy written into the Constitution aimed at preventing a president from usurping the power of the people and acting like a king; the process, of course, is impeachment.
The usual focus on impeachment is on abuses of the past, and a compelling case can surely be made. We believe an equally compelling incentive can be seen in looking toward the next 18 months.
In this paper, we are primarily concerned about what future misadventures are likely if this administration is not somehow held to account; that is, if Bush and Cheney are not removed from office.
Unless Checked
If the constitutional process of impeachment is under way when President Bush orders our military to begin a war against Iran, there is a good chance that, rather than salute like automatons and start World War III, our senior military would find a way to prevent more carnage until such time as the representatives of the people in the House have spoken.
This administration's capacity for mischief would not end until conviction in the Senate. But initiating the impeachment process appears to be the only way to launch a shot across the bow of this particular ship of state. For it is captained by a president with a psychological makeup likely to lead to new misadventures likely to end in a ship wreck unless the Constitution is brought alongside and a new pilot boarded.
We are grateful that Dr. Frank agreed to collaborate with us and to issue under VIPS auspices the psychological assessment that follows.
Discussion of the three scenarios after his profiling of President Bush was very much a collaborative exercise aimed at applying Frank's insights to contingencies our president may have to address before he leaves office. Our conclusions are, of necessity, speculative—and, sorry, scary.
The Assessment of Dr. Frank:
If a patient came into my consulting room missing an arm, the first question I would ask is, "What happened to your arm?" The same would be true for a patient who has no guilt, no conscience. I would want to know what happened to it.
No Conscience
George W. Bush is without conscience, and it would require a lengthy series of clinical sessions to find out what happened to it. By identifying himself as all good and on the side of right, he has been able to vanquish any guilt, any sense of doing wrong.
In Bush on the Couch I gave examples illustrating that remarkable lack of conscience. From his youthful days blowing up frogs with firecrackers to his unapologetic public endorsement of torture, there has been no change.
Observers are gradually becoming aware of this fundamental deficit. For example, after watching the president's press conference on July 12, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote, "He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush?"
No Shame
George W. Bush seems also to be without shame. He expresses no regret or embarrassment about his failure to help Katrina victims, or to tell the truth. He says whatever he thinks people want to hear, whether it be "stay the course" or "I've never been about `stay the course.'" He does whatever he wants.
He lies—not just to us, but to himself as well. What makes lying so easy for Bush is his contempt—for language, for law, and for anybody who dares question him.
That he could say so baldly that he'd never been about "stay the course" is bone chilling. So his words mean nothing. That is very important for people to understand.
Fear of Humiliation
Despite having no shame, Bush has a profound fear of failure and humiliation. He defends himself from this by any means at his disposal—most frequently with indifference or contempt.
He will flinch only if directly confronted about being a failure or a liar. Otherwise world events are enough removed from him that he can spin them into his intact defense system.
This deep fear helps to explain his relentlessly escalating attacks on others, his bullying, and his use of nicknames to put people down. There is fear of being found out not to be as big in every way as his father.
What a burden to have to face his many inadequacies—now held up to the light of day—whether it is his difficulty in speaking, thinking, reading, managing anxiety, or making good decisions. He will not change, because for him change means humiliating collapse. He is very fearful of public exposure of his many inadequacies.
Contempt for Truth?
Contempt itself is a defense, a form of self-protection, which helps Bush appear at ease and relaxed—at least to big fans like New York Times columnist David Brooks.
The president's contempt defense protects his belief system, a system he clings to as if his beliefs were well-researched facts. His pathology is a patchwork of false beliefs and incomplete information woven into what he asserts is the whole truth.
What gets lost in this process is growth—the George W. Bush of 2007 is exactly the same as the one of 2001. Helen Thomas has said that of all the presidents she has covered over the years, Bush is the least changed by his job, by his experience. This is why there is no possibility of dialogue or reasoning with him.
Sadistic
His certitude that he is right gives him carte blanche for destructive behavior. He has always had a sadistic streak: from blowing up frogs, to shooting his siblings with a b-b-gun, to branding fraternity pledges with white-hot coat hangers.
His comfort with cruelty is one reason he can be so jocular with reporters when talking about American casualties in Iraq. Instead of seeing a president in anguish, we watch him publicly joking about the absence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, in the vain search for which so many young Americans died.
Break It!
Bush likes to break things, needs to break things. And this is most shockingly seen in how he is systematically destroying our armed forces.
In the early days of the Iraq invasion he refused to approve the large number of troop the generals said were needed in order to try to invade and pacify Iraq and acquiesced in the firing of any general who disagreed.
He turned a blind eye to giving the troops proper equipment and cut funding for needed health care. Health care and other social programs have one thing in common: they are paid for by public funds.
It may well be that, unconsciously, the government represents his neglectful parents, and those helped by the government represent the siblings he resents. If George W. Bush wanted to destroy his own family, he could scarcely have done better. Thanks to him, no Bush is likely to be elected to high office for generations to come.
Where Does This Leave Us?
It leaves us with a regressed president who needs to protect himself more than ever from diminishment, humiliation, and collapse. He is so busy trying to manage his own anxiety that he has little capacity left to attend to national and world problems.
And so, we are left with a president who cannot actually govern, because he is incapable of reasoned thought in coping with events outside his control, like those in the Middle East.
This makes it a monumental challenge—as urgent as it is difficult—not only to get him to stop the carnage in the Middle East, but also to prevent him from undertaking a new, perhaps even more disastrous adventure—like going to war with Iran, in order to embellish the image he so proudly created for himself after 9/11 as the commander in chief of "the first war of the 21st century."
Iran would make number three—all the compelling reasons against it notwithstanding
* * *
Contingencies:
We will now attempt to put flesh on the discussion by positing and examining scenarios that would force Bush to react, and applying the observations above and other data to forecast what form that reaction might take.
Outlined below are three illustrative contingencies, each of which would pose a neuralgic threat to George W. Bush's shaky self-esteem, his over-determined efforts to stave off humiliation, and his unending need for self-protection.
These are not seat-of-the-pants scenarios. Each of them is possible—arguably, even probable. The importance of coming up with educated guesses regarding Bush's response BEFORE they occur is, we hope, clear.
Scenario A: Destructive Attack on the Green Zone
The U.S. military is out in front of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other policymakers in Washington in seeing the hand of Iran's government behind "the enemy" in Iraq.
On July 26, the operational commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, blamed the recent "significant improvement" in the accuracy of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone on "training conducted inside Iran." Odierno also repeated that roadside bombs are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran.
Last week, Gen. David Petraeus warned that insurgents intend to "pull off a variety of sensational attacks and grab the headlines to create a `mini-Tet.'" (Tet refers to the surprise country-wide offensive mounted by the Vietnamese Communists in early 1968, which indicated to most Americans that the war was lost.)
Attacks on the Green Zone have doubled in recent months. Despite this, the senior military appear to be in denial with respect to the vulnerability of the Green Zone—oblivious even to the reality that mortar rounds and rocket fire have little respect for walled enclaves.
Anyone with a mortar and access to maps and images on Google can calibrate fire to devastating effect—with or without training in Iran. It is just a matter of time before mortar round or rocket takes out part of the spanking new $600-million U.S. embassy together with people working there or nearby.
And/or, the insurgents could conceivably mount a multi-point assault on the zone and gain control of a couple of buildings and take hostages—perhaps including senior diplomats and military officers.
Given what we think we know of George Bush, if there were an embarrassing attack on U.S. installations in the Green Zone or some other major U.S. facility, he would immediately order a retaliatory series of air strikes, and let the bombs and missiles fall where they may.
The reaction would come from deep within and would warn, in effect: This is what you get if you try to make me look bad.
Scenario B: Israeli Attack on Nuclear Targets in Iran.
This would be madness and would elicit counterattacks from an Iran with many viable options for significant retaliation. Nevertheless, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D, Conn) and his namesake Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's minister of strategic affairs, are openly calling for such strikes, which would have to be on much more massive a scale than Israel's bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981.
For that attack in 1981, Cheney, a great fan of preemptive strikes, congratulated the Israelis, even though the U.S. joined other UN Security Council members in unanimously condemning the Israeli attack.
Five years ago, on Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney became the first U.S. official publicly to refer approvingly to the bombing of Osirak. And in an interview two and a half years ago, on Inauguration Day 2005, Cheney referred nonchalantly to the possibility that "the Israelis might well decide to act first [to eliminate Iran's nuclear capabilities] and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
One thing Cheney says is indisputably—if myopically—true: Bush has been Israel's best friend. In his speeches, he has fostered the false impression that the U.S. is treaty-bound to defend Israel, should it come under attack—as would be likely, were Israel to attack Iran.
With the U.S. Congress firmly in the Israeli camp, Cheney might see little disincentive to giving a green-light wink to Israel and then let the president "worry about cleaning up."
Reporting from Seymour Hersh's administration sources serve to strengthen the impression shining through Bush's speeches that he is eager to strike Iran. But how to justify it?
Curiously, a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear capability, a study scheduled for completion early this year, has been sent back several times—probably because its predictions are not as alarmist as the warnings that Cheney and the Israelis are whispering into the president's ear.
Senior U.S. military officers have warned against the folly of attacking Iran, but Cheney has shown himself, time and time again, able to overrule the military.
But What if Impeachment Begins?
Is there nothing to rein in Bush and Cheney? It seems likely that only if impeachment proceedings were under way would senior officers like CENTCOM commander, Admiral William Fallon, be likely to parry an unlawful order to start yet another war without the approval of Congress and the UN.
With impeachment under way, such senior officers might be reminded that all officers and national security officials swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States—NOT to protect and defend the president.
It was a highly revealing moment when on July 11, former White House political director Sara Taylor solemnly reminded the Senate Judiciary Committee, that as a commissioned officer, "I took an oath and I take that oath to the president very seriously."
Committee chair Patrick Leahy had to remind Taylor: "We understand your personal loyalty to President Bush. I appreciate you correcting that your oath was not to the president, but to the Constitution."
The most senior officers, military included, can get their loyalties mixed up. And this is of transcendent importance in a context described by Seymour Hersh: "These guys are scary as hell...you can't use the word `delusional,' for it's actually a medical term. Wacky. That's a fair word."
One does not need psychoanalytic training to see that Bush and Cheney do not care about facts, treaties (or the lack thereof), or other legal niceties, unless it suits their purpose. This gives an even more ominous ring to what Hersh is hearing from his sources.
If Israel attacks Iran, President Bush is likely to spring to Israel's defense, regardless of whether he was inside or outside the loop before the attack; and the world will see a dangerously widened war in the Middle East.
Psychologically, Bush would almost certainly need to join the attack, mainly to sustain his illusion of safety and masculinity. And Cheney, knowing that, would be pushing him hard on U.S. energy and other perceived strategic interests.
Scenario C: Congress Cuts War Funding This Fall
We posit that Congress finally grows weary of the increasingly obvious bait-and-switch, the "we-need-more-time" tactic, and cuts off all funding except for that needed to bring the troops home.
The talk now is about getting a "meaningful" progress report in November, because September is said to be too soon. The Iraqi parliament is behaving much like its American counterpart by taking August off. But our soldiers do not get a month-long hiatus from constant danger.
It is clear even to the press that the surge has simply brought more American deaths and an upsurge of insurgent attacks. What is less clear is why Bush remains so positive. It is probably not just an act, but an idée fixe he needs to hold onto tightly.
Since doubt is dangerous, we see a compensatory smile fixe on the face of the president and other senior officials, dismissing any trace of uncertainty or doubt.
If Congress cut off funding for war in Iraq, Bush might well cast about for a casus belli to "justify" an attack on Iran.
Would the senior military again go along with orders for an unprovoked, unconstitutional war on a country posing no threat to the U.S.? Hard to say.
In this context, an ongoing impeachment process could provide welcome evidence that influential members of Congress, like many senior military officers, see through Bush's need to strike out elsewhere. Military commanders might think twice before saluting smartly and executing an illegal order.
In such circumstances, Dick "it-won't stop-us" Cheney, could be expected to try to pull out all the stops. But if he, too, were in danger of being impeached, uniformed military officers could conceivably block administration plans.
There is only a remote chance that Defense Secretary Gates would be a tempering voice in all this. Far more likely, he would smell in any restrictive legislation traces of the Boland amendment, which he assisted in circumventing during the Iran-Contra misadventure.
Petraeus ex Machina
With "David" or "General Petraeus" punctuating the president's every other sentence at recent press conferences, the script for September seems clear. This is one four-star general with exquisite PR and political acumen—pedigree and discipline the president can count on.
And with his nine rows of ribbons, he calls to mind the U.S. commander in Saigon, Gen. William Westmoreland at a similar juncture in Vietnam (after the Tet offensive when popular support dropped off rapidly).
It is virtually certain that Petraeus will press hard for more time and more troops. Potemkin-style improvements will be used by Bush to justify continuing the "new" surge strategy, with the calculation that enough Democrats might be overcome by the fear of being charged with "losing Iraq."
In the past Bush seems to have bought Cheney's "analysis" that increased enemy attacks were signs of desperation. Hard as it is to believe that Bush has not learned from that repeated experience, it is at the same town possible to "misunderestimate" one's capacity for wooden-headedness, particularly with respect to someone with the psychological makeup of our president.
He is extraordinarily adept at finding only rose-colored glasses to help him see.
With Cheney egging him on from the wings of the "unitary executive," but Congress no longer bowing to that novel interpretation of the Constitution, Bush will be sorely tempted to lash out in some violent way, if further funding for the war is denied.
To do that effectively, he will need senior generals and admirals as co-conspirators. It will be up to them to choose between career and Constitution. All too often, in such circumstances, the tendency has been to choose career.
Impeachment hearings, though, could encourage senior officers like Admiral Fallon to pause long enough to remember that their oath is to defend the Constitution, and that they are not required to follow orders to start another war in order to stave off political and personal disaster for the president and vice president.
Justin Frank, M.D.
With,
David MacMichael
Tom Maertens
Ray McGovern
Coleen Rowley
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #20 on: 2007-07-30 00:48:14 » |
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My personal opinion is that Cheney has been owned by Israel (regarded by Israel as an intelligence asset) since at least the early 1970s. Which is the only way I can see for his activities in the late 70s and early 80s (never mind throughout his vice presidency) to make sense. Bush is I think handled indirectly through Cheney and his own awareness that his father had his presidency ripped from him due to his having offended AIPAC and friends, and as I concluded earlier, both of Cheney and Bush are apparently sufficiently hooked on Fox to mean that Murdoch's Israel-first policy has a massive influence on the Whitehouse. While we know for sure that Cheney/Bush was heavily involved in the Israeli planning for their illegal invasion of Lebanon, the likelihood is that Israel spoke first to Cheney who would then have motivated And managed Bush and his puppet handlers.
I also feel that while the analysis here (which matches well with a 1983 analysis I remember in the Guardian) is reasonably accurate, I'd still rather have the Cheney/Rove duo out of the way before or simultaneously with going after Bush. It is, I think doable. Only it seems it is going to take something to really terrifying to motivate the Democrats to action. Clearly neither the will of the electorate nor hope for the future has proved sufficient to motivate them to date. Which raises the probability that neither Arab nor American lives are sufficiently valuable to outweigh their ambition of being electable next fall. Clearly when the congresscritters refuse to do the job they were resoundingly elected for, they hope that through not acting to end the carnage that they can claim that it is all Bush's fault; whereas acting means that they will be portrayed as being "weak on security" and "anti-Semite" at best, while the slightest bad news would result in all fault for it landing on their trembling heads.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:The President of The United States.
« Reply #21 on: 2007-08-12 09:29:00 » |
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Challenging Bush’s Reality
[Hermit: Color highlighting and additional bold text in last 4 paragraphs mine.]
Source: Antiwar.om
Authors: Gordon Prather
Dated: 2007-08-11
Physicist James Gordon Prather served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Americans increasingly realize – despite a dearth of reporting by the mainstream media – that there is a widening gulf between reality and President Bush’s characterization of it. And what’s scary is that Bush may actually believe his mischaracterizations and act upon them, perhaps even nuking Iran, a signatory to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation Weapons, and practically certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency not to possess nukes or the makings, thereof.
So scary is that prospect that last week, Agence France-Presse, until now a consistent neo-crazy media sycophant, uncharacteristically began its report of a news conference held by President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karsai thusly;
"U.S. President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons – an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran."
Bush made an inaccurate accusation?
Great Zot!
What was it?
AFP quotes Bush thusly;
"It's up to Iran to prove to the world that they're a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon."
But AFP reporters well knew that the Mullahs running Iran have proclaimed over and over that they have no desire to acquire nukes and that even desiring them, much less using them on their fellow men, would be seriously contrary to Islamic law.
So, in an effort to find out whether Bush was a dimwit or simply flat-out lying to them, the AFP reporters accosted White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who claimed Bush had been referring to "Iran’s defiance of international calls to freeze sensitive nuclear work."
Now, if Bush truly believes that Iran’s refusal to suspend, indefinitely, programs – which the NPT recognizes to be Iran’s "inalienable," God-given, right to conduct – constitutes a proclamation of "its desire to build a nuclear weapon," then he certainly qualifies as a dimwit.
Johndroe’s explication of Bush’s charge continues;
"After keeping their nuclear program secret for a decade, the Iranian government has refused the offers of the international community to provide [them] nuclear energy and continues to flout the inspectors of the IAEA."
Three more "inaccurate accusations," proving that Bush’s spokesman – if not Bush, himself – is either truly ignorant or a bald-faced liar.
Iran's Safeguards Agreement – which gave the IAEA the "right and the obligation" to ensure that safeguards are applied on "all source or special fissionable material" in all peaceful nuclear activities "for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons" – entered into force in 1974.
In the early 1990s, Russia had agreed, inter alia, to complete the nuclear power plants at Bushehr, whose construction had begun under the Shah, and build a gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz.
Also in the early 1990s, China had agreed, inter alia, to provide Iran two 300 MW nuclear power plants and a uranium-conversion plant at Isfahan.
But, in 1995, as a result of intense Clinton-Gore pressure on Russia and China – and on European suppliers of auxiliary equipment – Russia canceled the gas-centrifuge facility contract and China canceled the power plant contract. In 1997, China also canceled the uranium-conversion plant contract.
The Russians have continued to honor their contract to complete at least one of the 1,000 MW power plants at Bushehr.
Then, in 2002, at the 46th IAEA General Conference, Reza Aghazadeh, president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced that Iran planned to construct within two decades nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 6,000 MW:
"I take this opportunity to invite all the technologically advanced member states to participate in my country's ambitious plan for the construction of nuclear power plants and the associated technologies such as fuel cycle, safety and waste management techniques."
It is important to note that under the existing safeguards agreement, the Iranians were then – and are, now – under no obligation to inform the IAEA about any activity unless and until it involves – or will involve within 90 days – the chemical or physical transformation of safeguarded materials.
In August 2002, the Iranians subjected the uranium-enrichment pilot plant they had under construction at Natanz to IAEA safeguards. They had already subjected the uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan.
Then, in December, 2003, Iran signed the IAEA Additional Protocol and announced it would "cooperate with the Agency in accordance with the [Additional] Protocol in advance of its ratification."
In November, 2004, under the so-called Paris Accords, Iran entered into negotiations with the Brits-French-Germans in the hope they could obtain "objective guarantees" the Europeans would defy the United States, would reestablish normal diplomatic and trade relations, and would, inter alia, respect both Iran's "inalienable" rights and European obligations under the NPT.
Iran reaffirmed that "it does not and will not seek to acquire nuclear weapons."
And, in order to "build further confidence" Iran "decided – on a voluntary basis – to continue and extend its suspension to include all enrichment and reprocessing activities."
Since all these activities were already subject to IAEA Safeguards, the IAEA Board of Governors was notified of this voluntary suspension and the IAEA Secretariat asked to "verify and monitor" it.
On March 23, 2005, the Iranians made a confidential proposal to the Brits-French-Germans to voluntarily "confine" Iran’s nuclear programs.
In particular, the Iranians offered to forego indefinitely the chemical processing of spent fuel to recover unspent uranium and plutonium, and to limit their uranium-enrichment activities to meeting contingency refueling requirements for Iranian nuclear power plants, planned and under construction.
The Iranians also offered to submit to "continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities to provide unprecedented added guarantees."
As a result of extreme pressure by Bush on the Brits-French-Germans, they never even acknowledged the Iranian offer.
So, in July, 2005, the Iranians resumed – subject to IAEA Safeguards – some of the activities they had voluntarily suspended.
Now, Iran’s offer of March 23, 2005, made to obtain "objective guarantees" that the Brits-French-Germans would prevent Bush’s nuking them, is essentially compliant with UN Security Council Resolution 1747.
So, the reality is that Iran voluntarily offered to do in 2005 what Bush strong-armed the Security Council into requiring them to do in 2007.
Or else.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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