Pentagon PsyOps Chicanery: The Great Zarqawi’s Demise

“Let’s not start sucking each others dicks just yet”

-Winston Wolf

Given the mass media coverage of near Lewinsky proportions and the accompanying pomp and circumstance of our ‘elected’ government over the last two news cycles you would have thought that Osama Bin Laden himself had finally been taken out. Desperate to gain traction and to rapidly tamp down on the public outrage over the massacre of civilians in Haditha (both Time and Newsweek actually featured real news on their covers simultaneously this week) the Psy-Ops bogeyman that is dreaded the Al Zarqawi had been sacrificed but can you kill what may not have ever existed in the first place?

The greatest villain in recent history, a man who became the very personification of the ugly, bloody, unexpected (if you actually believe the Machiavellian acolytes that are Leo Strauss enthralled neocons) insurgency and the only Al Qaeda franchisee who could be positively placed in Iraq in the run up to the invasion has reportedly been killed in a bombing attack, there was no immediate word as to whether there was any `collateral damage’ as far as women and children but who would really give a rat’s ass anyway? Things are getting pretty fucking bad when the Pentagon finds it necessary to blow up their poster boy in order to one more time reach a `turning point’ in Iraq (gag) and begin to restore some of the luster to the metaphorical never-ending `war on terror’ to juice Republicans for the upcoming mid-term elections and justify further intrusions on American civil liberties.

The news came fast and furious and just in time for the morning news cycle where it was a dead bang certainty that it would dominate the coverage throughout the day. Pictures of the dead body were proudly displayed like a trophy much the same way that the sons of Saddam were a few years back and video of the two 500 pound bombs blowing up the location where the dreaded uber-terrorist was finally cornered like a rat were available online and on demand on CNN.com and others. The question that cynics such as myself are likely asking is why in the hell was there any corpse to display after these bombs destroyed the building that he was in? Hmmm. And as usual once an inconvenient question came up the Bushists and their propaganda machine did what they always do best:

THEY LIED!

 

Today’s spin is that while the Zarqawi’s corpse was not reduced to so much low-grade hamburger meat is that he survived the bombing and actually tried to escape from the stretcher as his ass was being hauled out of the rubble of the safehouse that was otherwise completely destroyed! Jesus, we knew the guy was good but how did we ever manage to kill Superman without fucking Kryptonite? This is one tough motherfucker if he survived the attack that killed him only to die later while trying to escape!
Jesus Pete, is there any lie that is too shameless for these shape shifters and reality benders?

George W. Bush’s renewed swagger was apparent and the latest attempt to recapture the halcyon days as national strong daddy and `the war president’ was at least for one day a smashing success as the MSM was on this story as though it were the second coming of Natalee Holloway. While Bush pumped out his chest and enjoyed his moment in the limelight now that he could proudly re-launch his previously failed product `Can-O-Whoop Ass’ the news conferences of others were sprinkled with caveats and qualifiers:

“Given the nature of the terrorist networks, really a network of networks, the death of Zarqawi, while enormously important, will not mean the end of all violence in that country”

Said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by golly.

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalizad stated:

“This was a significant success which should have a positive impact, but at the same time, it would be a mistake to assume that violence will go down immediately because of this”

Bush’s Poodle Tony Blair yapped:

“The death of al-Zarqawi is a strike against Al-Quaida in Iraq, and therefore a strike against Al-Quaida everywhere. But we should have no illusions. We should know that they will continue to kill.”

Even Bush himself conceded:

“We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders”

SO EXACTLY WHAT THE BIG FUCKING DEAL HERE?

You mean that after all of the hoopla and posturing over killing Zarqawi that they are saying that basically nothing’s changed right? And oh, by the way, the bombs kept exploding and the body count continued to ratchet upward after the news came out.

Of course the big winners were the `Dukes of Douchbaggery’ that are the fascist goon squad of right-wing pundits and propagandists who mercilessly harangued and hectored the pitiful Democrats for not being happy enough and the left in general for not groveling at the feet of the victory that was further proof of the imminent greatness of King George.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this is a planned culmination to a massive coordinated operation to restore some of the sheen to Bush’s waning aura and put lipstick on the pig that is the meat grinder of Iraq. Other than the obvious suspicious timing to pull the shell game and hide the peas that are war atrocities from the dimwitted public with saturation coverage of the killing of `Al-Zarqawi’ was I the only one who happened to notice the recent abundance of live video of a man who was as elusive as a ghost for years (unless of masked and performing executions on hostages) with only the same stock, grainy black and white mugshot available? In recent weeks Zarquawi has been as ubiquitous as Bradgelina, Anna Nicole Smith or the latest American Idol.

Recent reports indicated that Al-Zarqawi was beginning to become a hindrance to the movement and was being demoted due to being a fuckup unfit to milk Osama’s goats and the planners in Rove and Rummy’s Reichstag probably decided that now was the time to pull the trigger on `Operation Save GOP Asses’ before the word began to spread that their phantom menace had been largely a creation of hype and PR from day one and what better time than to terminate the bastard with extreme prejudice than as a capper on a week of gay marriage amendments, estate tax cut votes, foiled alleged terrorist plots and other assorted red meat chunks thrown to the Bushists to shore up the regime’s flagging support.

My good ole friends from the great state of Texas have an expression for a mass fuckcluster like this:

A GOAT RODEO!

 

And the evil rodeo clowns just keep making us take our pratfalls for their ongoing amusement at the great role reversal where democracy is turned into the will of the few rather than the many. The greatest tragedy in all of this is that we are only too willing to wallow in the bullshit while they laugh and laugh and enjoy the show.

In the Aftermath of the Storm

If anything has been laid bare in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina it is the long disseminated myth that America is a land of boundless opportunity and equality for all of its citizens. A land where the ability to prosper was limited only by the ability of each and every American to answer the knocking at their front door of Horatio Alger, to seize the roaring tiger named destiny by the tail and to ride on its back, roaring in unison in the pursuit of the American Dream and all of its optimism. Immigrants descended on this nation at one time literally believing that the streets were lined with gold only to find themselves trapped in hellish working conditions in factories, in fields or forced to build the railroads that would provide the infrastructure of commerce to the wealthiest of the land, to the capitalists, to the Robber Barons. The truth is that for too long the ugliness of the growing underclass has been ignored, the poor and the black are systematically ostracized from society by the adherents of the philosophy of unfettered greed that is the bastard fruit of the Reagan Revolution: the free market.

When the horrifying imagery of thousands of mainly black, poor, elderly and sick residents left to their own devices to survive in the anarchy filled streets of post Katrina New Orleans was broadcast to the entire world some very uncomfortable questions were beginning to be asked. Uncomfortable to the entire concept of an advanced egalitarian society that has for too long been accepted as gospel to ignorant, television addicted Americans and specifically troublesome for the Bush administration, whose reckless, ideological undercutting of the very foundations of the progressive social ideals that at one time had built this country into the shining city on the hill were beginning to be exposed as the nothing other than the all out class warfare with extreme prejudice that they are intended to be. Once the foolish Orwellian sloganeering is put under a microscope it is easy to see that it is all marketing, wrapped in the flag and promoted through political and media chicanery to disguise the true nature of the ideologies behind such radical assaults on American ideals as Healthy Forests, Clear Skies, No Child Left Behind, PATRIOT Act, Ownership Society and all of the other malarkey and folderol that spews forth from Rove Inc.

The very fabric of the social contract itself is being unwound, the constitution of the republic disemboweled so that the wealthiest can become wealthier, the tax cheats can continue to duck responsibility for paying their use of the infrastructure to reap profit, the tax code rewritten specifically to introduce mammoth loopholes to facilitate their willful noncompliance and the laws of the land themselves rewritten to limit the recourse of the less fortunate to hold accountable those in power. The law is also being changed so as to allow the ruling elite imperialists to loosely redefine that which constitutes terrorism so that the net becomes wide enough to entrap any dissenters to the reactionary reign of the fascist right. Corporations and the ultra rich now own congress, they subsidize the campaigns of those willing to defraud the public in their rise through the system and fully expect to be rewarded for their efforts. Corporate sponsored political organizations such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) carefully screen all potential candidates so as to root out any progressives who would seek to close the feeding trough to ultra capitalist pigs, this further strengthens the radical right and undermines the concept of democracy. The Democratic Party itself has become so inundated with corporate hacks and compliant appeasers that it has lost its ability to act as a check on power run amok, and its fecklessness in the face of aggression bears one hell of a lot of the responsibility for the current state of this country.

What did George W. Bush do when it became apparent that his lack of response to last weeks disaster was as abysmal a failure as his leadership of the country? He made public relations appearances, he sent Laura Bush out to appear on national television. He called out the guard three days too late and when the relief convoy finally rolled into flood and mayhem roiled Louisiana it was led by a cigar chomping general, an archetype figure and just the piece of stagecraft that would demonstrate to the T.V. stewpots that law and order would damned well be restored in the American way, it if as though Patton himself were arriving to lead the charge. He enlisted the assistance of the right wing media smear machine to once again muddy the waters regarding responsibility for the disaster of New Orleans and he pulled out the race card by sending forth loyal soldier Condoleeza Rice as an emissary to show that any suggestion that his administration and the radical conservative movement was insensitive to the needs of the poor or racially insensitive to the plight of black Americans was patently absurd.

Condi, who earlier in the week while shopping for thousand dollar shoes at Ferragamo, an exclusive New York boutique was shouted down by an angry patron who screamed “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!”, the woman who was understandably incensed at seeing a top administration figure splurging lavishly on vacation while the Big Easy was being engulfed was only voicing the frustration of the growing number of Americans who realize the extent to which the pyramid of bullshit that has been constructed by this administration. The former Chevron board member was sent to the front lines to slog through the trenches of public opinion. By Sunday, Dr. Rice had her pampered ass parked in the pew of a Mobile, Alabama church where she deflected mounting criticism by proclaiming “Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race”. In reality, Rice has little in common with the poor inner city blacks that she is now directed by her boss and his handlers to champion, she has far more in common with other prominent Toms like Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas and O.J. Simpson who are so smitten with their presence on the master’s plantations that they dare not even dream about biting the hand that feeds them by actually trying to bring about recognition to the problems of the poor and black second class citizens of the land. Rather they ignore them at any time when it is not necessary for public relations purposes, like their elitist benefactors they themselves become advocates of social Darwinism through their inability to utilize their positions of influence to promote concepts of humanitarianism and dignity for those who are less fortunate.

As the long Labor Day weekend wore on, the unprecedented negative media coverage given the Bush administration’s criminal neglect of the suffering citizens of New Orleans was somewhat diluted due to the fortuitously timed death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, it began to become clear that the GOP strategy would be to triangulate and redirect the blame to local officials rather than admit the embarrassing truth that every agency in America is staffed by Bush loyalist lackeys like FEMA chief and former commissioner of the Arabian Horse Association Michael Brown. The king himself stated that ‘Brownie’ was doing “a heck of a job” on Friday, giving a pat on the back to his utterly clueless and overwhelmed compadre. The best quote regarding the mind boggling level of utter incompetence of Brown belonged to Kate Hale, the former Miami-Dade emergency management chief who eloquently summed it up: “He’s done a hell of a job, because I’m not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm. The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience.”. AMEN!

The damage from the aftermath is so severe that the master of double-dealing treachery, Turd Blossom himself would personally lead the efforts to slime and discredit those who would dare to speak out against the regime in the name of the preservation of the real ‘naked’ truth that not only does the emperor have no clothes but is a fucking delusional lunatic whose incompetence is only matched by his megalomaniac fantasies of being God’s own instrument of Earthly providence.

Another pathetic opportunistic vulture is the odious Senator Bill Frist (R) TN: The flip flopping Senate Majority Leader, never one to allow a chance for publicity and self glorification go by materialized in New Orleans as a volunteer medical assistant. The heart surgeon and scion of the HCA Healthcare empire, the man who made Terri Schiavo into a personal crusade and launching pad for the 2008 GOP nomination, busied himself in triage for the benefit of the cameras although his limited participation as a volunteer would not impede his return to Washington on Tuesday for the confirmation hearings of future Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Did you expect anything less from the spokesman for the radical religious right’s Justice Sunday assaults on the judiciary?

I will never forget how angry that I became when once many years ago a young woman named Dorothy who happened to be majoring in women’s studies at a local college proclaimed that “America is a land for rich white men founded by rich white men”. This was a statement which I found to be bordering on heresy at the time given my ignorance of how the system really works. Today, in retrospect, after time and education have enlightened me I am flabbergasted at just how this angered me at the time. But then I knew nothing of the true nature of our society nor of it’s at many times gruesome and sordid history. I was as oblivious to that which is now as obvious as the light of day to any who are able to rise above the lemming like mentality of the bewildered herd. In a land where twelve former U.S. Presidents were also at one time slave owners, including eight who owned them while in office it is hard to look at any broad state condoned versions of history with anything other than a skeptical eye.

This statement now ranks as one of the greatest truths that has ever been told to me in a world that is sadly lacking of them…

Thanks Dorothy….and sorry…you were right !