Trainwreck Media lead dumbkopf Roger Simon:

Whatever one thinks about the neocons, they had virtually the only program, the only idea of how to right the world after 9/11.

Me:

If they have such a program of how to right the world, as Simon claims, it’s about time they tell us what it is, and try to implement it in place of the humongous clusterfuck of death, incompetence, and costly ruin they’ve inflicted on the US and the world the last 7 years.

My suspicion, however it that the program of how to right the world about which Simon speaks is every bit as imaginary as the non-existent Iraqi WMDs Roger claimed was transported through the mythical tunnels into Syria with the help of the Russians.

Via Instaputz.

The invasion of Iraq has destabilized Iraq and brought Shiite political parties with long and close ties to Iran into power in Iraq, while destroying the power of the Sunni and Baathist enemies of Iran. So all in all, it’s worked out pretty well for the mullahs, but was this awful result mere serendipity?

Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?

WASHINGTON — Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have “been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service … to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government,” a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.

A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials’ activities after only a month, and the Defense Department’s top brass never followed up on the investigators’ recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.

The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.

Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces.

This follows the classic pattern of the Bush administration: the fuck-up (being the stooge of a foreign intel op) followed by the cover-up (killing the investigation into the matter).

Front and center as the witless conduits of foreign intelligence efforts are the familiar names of two of the leading dimbulb warpimps responsible for pushing the Iraq invasion:

According to the report, Ledeen, however, persisted, presenting then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith with a new 100-day plan to provide, among other things, evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that supposedly had been moved to Iran — Saddam Hussein’s archenemy.

Ledeen, who regularly receives foot massages from Trainwreck’s Roger Simon, was really on top of things, though:

When the CIA and the State Department discovered that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved, they opposed any further contact with the two. Ledeen’s contacts, the Defense Human Intelligence Service concluded, were “nefarious and unreliable,” the Senate committee reported.

Bear this in mind the next time Ledeen advocates nuclear strikes on Iran.

The name Ahmed Chalabi should fit into this story. Chalabi was the Iraqi exile who was promoted by the Neocon numbnuts at the Project for a New American Century (Bill Kristol’s intellectual sewer) as Iraq’s George Washington. As I write today, I find the PNAC’s website reads:
“This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible,”
but the site once contained the PNAC’s lengthy hagiography of Chalabi, and an homage to his integrity and the value of his intelligence apparatus.

Of course, this was before it was determined that the information Chalabi provided to gullible neocon warhawks was purposely false and misleading, based on unreliable (and often drunken) sources, before Chalabi was accused of spying for Iran, and before Chalabi’s most recent notoriety, when earlier this month he was fired from his government post due to “his murky ties to Iran, including leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the country’s internal security force.” An earlier Salon.com piece on “How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons” touched upon both Chalabi’s influence with the PNAC hawks who steered administration towards invading Iraq, and his ties with Iran’s leadership. A money quote: “”Ahmed Chalabi is a treacherous, spineless turncoat,” from former ally Marc Zell.

Bellicose, feckless and duped is no way to run our foreign policy.

But “Janus-faced” and “hypocritical” don’t begin to describe this person.

No ties to 9/11, no WMDs and no ties to al Qaeda? Don’t ask Joe Lieberman:

The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

Instead a debate soon began within the Democratic Party about how to respond to Mr. Bush. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own, because it was our own. But that was not the choice most Democratic leaders made. When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

The Democratic Party rejected Bush’s framework for the war on terror — invade a country which had no ties to al Qaeda, no means to harm our nation, and no connection to the attacks of 9/11 — because it was a stupid, counterproductive, and disastrous framework. As a recent Pentagon study stated:

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle.”

Why, in the hell should Democrats embrace, as Lieberman urges, a “major debacle?” For the sake of “centrism” and presenting a united front — of stupidity — to our enemies?

Which enemies, by the way, are being increased by the decisions made within Bush’s disastrous framework for the war on terror. The National Intelligence Estimate released in September, 2006 undercut the argument that invading Iraq has made us safer — an argument Lieberman either stupidly or dishonestly continues to implicitly make. Rather, Iraq has made it easier for al Qaeda — the real threat — to recruit and rebuild its networks:

• The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Measured in terms of significant terrorist attacks world wide, Bush’s framework for the war on terror has resulted in a geometric expansion in the number of attacks world wide: from 208 such attacks in 2002, to well over 14,000 such attacks in 2006. To paraphrase my late mother, “If Bush jumped off a cliff, you would jump too?”

Perpetuating Bush’s mistakes, and endorsing his catastrophic “framework for the war on terror” only continues to strengthen our enemies, continues to squander our financial resources, and more importantly, continues to erode our military and drain its strength. Losing tens of thousands of killed and maimed in a “major debacle” which enables al Qaeda to cultivate more jihadists, and launch thousands of more attacks is no way to make America safer.

(We should change the category to flaming West Virginia douchebag)

Is giving up golf. Or maybe not.

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

All of those whining about lost limbs or lost loved ones, take heed of W’s sacrifice. Or supposed sacrifice.

via atrios.

I DIDN’T SAY IT:

Nearly every president of the past century, including Bush and his father, has been a regular golfer. Presidential historian Robert Dallek noted that Dwight D. Eisenhower’s golf habit was so advanced that Democrats accused him of neglecting his duties.

But Dallek, who is critical of the current president’s legacy, said Bush’s remarks about Iraq “speak to his shallowness.” Dallek added: “That’s his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?”

Glenn Greenwald writes about the “response” of NBC anchor Williams to disclosure that supposedly independent analysts employed by the network were part of a Pentagon “PsyOps” effort targeting the American people, in order to pimp the Iraq war.

At no time did our analysts, on my watch or to my knowledge, attempt to push a rosy Pentagon agenda before our viewers. I think they are better men than that, and I believe our news division is better than that.

Our “liberal media” at work.

Or, Tim Russert, buffoon or dupe?

First of all, hola to Martini Revolution readers. I’ve been on sabbatical, hiatus, vacation, winter break, busy doing important shit which actually pays the bills for my magnificent estate. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I have a job, of sorts, and was moving to a new office. So I haven’t had time to enlighten you with my brilliant commentary, okay? I feel bad about this, but not as bad as I would feel if my daughter’s tuition came due and I couldn’t cut a check.

But back to the topic at hand: John McCain’s de-evolution from a principled maverick into a Neocon-propaganda spewing caricature.

Juan Cole spends a bit of time deconstructing McCain’s pitiful and disingenuous attempt at a gotchya on Obama’s response to a Russert hypothetical postulating al Qaeda’s seizure of Iraq at some point in the future:

‘ MR. RUSSERT: . . . do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn, with sizable troops in order to quell any kind of insurrection or civil war?

SEN. OBAMA: . . . Now, I always reserve the right for the president — as commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad. So that is true, I think, not just in Iraq, but that’s true in other places. That’s part of my argument with respect to Pakistan. . .’

As Cole points out, the question was a hypothetical about future events occurring after an American withdrawal from Iraq, a nuance Sen. Corkscrew blithely ignored. Cole also points out the disingenousness of Russert’s hypothetical and McCain’s premise that al Qaeda was capable of establishing or sustaining a viable regime in Iraq, or even a friendly regime similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the allegation that he makes about there being ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ that could well take over the country is part lie and part insanity. The Sunni Arabs are no more than 20% of the Iraqi population. How could a tiny minority from within them take over the whole?

The technical definition of al-Qaeda is operatives who have sworn fealty to Usama bin Laden. There were only a few hundred of them. I doubt whether more than a handful of such individuals are in Iraq.

But McCain’s intellectual dishonesty or sheer, mind-numbing stupidity goes deeper than that, because even among Iraq’s Sunnis, Osama bin Ladin and al Qaeda are widely despised.

Polls conducted at the end of 2006 showed that:

Overall 94 percent [of Iraqis] have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views.

~~~

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

Get that? Iraqis as a whole hate al Qaeda and Osama. And for good reason: al Qaeda views Iraq’s 80% Sunni Shia (thanks Andrew) and Kurdish populations as apostates and enemies.

But even among the 20% Sunni population which Osama might troll for support, he and his organization are mainly reviled. This is predictable, as many Iraq Sunnis were Baathists, or simply more secular than the fundamentalist al Qaeda, and also because Iraq’s Sunnis grew to resent being murdered by al Qaeda’s small contingent of foreign cutthroats and murderers. While the administration and its pro-war flacks like McCain have tried to portray the “Anbar Awakening” to the surge or increased American military activity in those regions, this is simply untrue. Sunni rejection of Al Qaeda is typically accompanied by more of a hands off approach, turning away from confrontation with Sunni groups, and arming their former enemies while giving them more autonomy and less interference from US or Iraqi Central government forces. The awakening movements have succeeded largely by lowering our profile in those areas.

As the mission in Iraq grew more costly, more bungled, and more protracted, Bush and the few remaining war pimps like McCain have struggled to put forward a rationale for the fiasco, stubborn and unwilling as they are to admit the most monumental fucking mistake in the history of American foreign policy. The rationales which were put forward before the war, destroying the phantasmagorical WMDs, and liberating a grateful population to establish a secular, pro-western democracy are, as the late William F. Buckley not, irretrievable failures.

The last resort is fear — and the attempt to tie the whole misbegotten, ill-executed Iraq failure into the meme of 9/11 and the war against terror. It may be disingenuous, and unconscionably stupid for Bush and McCain to present the war in this light, but it is all too predictable given the complete absence of remorse for ruinous decisions and utter lack of intellectual integrity. McCain, for better or worse, has saddled himself to being pro-war, and he intends to ride it into the ground.

I think it does not mean what you think it means.

From Bush’s State of the Union address:

“we must trust in the ability of free people to make wise decisions. . . . To build a prosperous future, we must trust people. . . . we must trust Americans with the responsibility of homeownership. . . . we must trust patients and doctors to make medical decisions. . . . we must trust students to learn . . . . we must trust American workers . . . . we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers. . . . we must trust in the skill of our scientists. . . . we must trust in the innovative spirit of medical researchers and empower them to discover new treatments . . . .we must trust in the good heart of the American people. . . . Our foreign policy is based on a clear premise: We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom . . . . so long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure

Extraordinary that a beady-eyed little bastard who trusts no one would use “trust” as the cornerstone of his final State of the Union address.

He “trusts” the American people so little, that in this very same speech he insists we must continue to spy on Americans and grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies who assisted his administration in illegally doing so, or face annihilation:

. . . if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.

He trusts doctors and patients so little, that he insists government should have the final say on medical decisions like abortion.

He trusts scientists so little, that his political operatives watered down warnings about global warning, and pays mere lip service to the goal of reducing greenhouse gases.

And he trusts the judgment of the American people, the vast majority who wish to see us end our disastrous intervention in Iraq, so little that he insists we have to continue to stay in Iraq long past the 8-year debacle of his Presidency.

I’ve never seen a speech so laden with hypocrisy, fatuousness, and out and out disregard for the will of a people he insists that we must “trust.”

Even the Doughy Pantload hits the mark, once in a while. From today’s Freudian projection column ink spoor in the Los Angeles Times:

What Americans really want when they look into a politician’s eyes is to see their own images reflected back, like in Narcissus’ pool. The presidency in particular has become the highest ground in the culture war. Americans want a candidate who validates them personally. “I’m voting for him because he’s a hunter like me.” “I’m backing voting for her because she’s a woman too.” “I’m for that guy because he’s angry like me.”

If you think about this, it makes sense — at least with respect to the Pantload himself. When Jonah voted for George Bush, he no doubt said, “I’m for the incompetent, intellectually moribund son of a privileged family, who was handed every job he ever had (and for which he was wholly unfit) through a lethal combination of nepotism, family name, and his parents’ connections — because he’s just like me!”

Jonah Goldberg, narcissist.