Mad Man in a Roomful of Mirrors

Americans love a good revolution, as long as they are not the ones taking to the streets. In what would appear to be an Iranian version of the Bush crime family election theft of 2000 it appears that the New Hitler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stolen the Iranian election. It was all there, polls that didn’t support the results, a corrupt power structure and even the state run media to pop in ala Bush’s cousin John Ellis of FOX ‘News’ came out and called the election in Dubya’s favor. But it was a rigged game, I will never forget the shit-eating grins on the Bush family as they sat clustered around a big screen television on that terrible night of November 7, 2000 – they knew goddamned well that it was rigged. I am sure that the mad mullahs and ayatollahs were just as smug just before the Iranian election was called (prematurely) for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Champagne corks were also popping at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) because with their poster boy for deviltry, global terrorism and anti-Semitism still in power they had scored a body blow against Barack Obama for daring to reach out from the confines of imperialist madness in his Cairo speech. The propaganda mills began to churn faster, the attacks against Obama were ratcheted up and the GOP gauleiters placed on high alert.

You have to give it the Iranians, at least they are out raising hell over a perceived theft of their election, how long did it take Americans to get out in a similar way after the second blatantly stolen election in 2004? We are still waiting for that revolt. This one though, at least at first glance is appealing to Americans because it is on television, a spectator sport of bone crushing violence and passion that puts even the NFL to shame, it makes for marvelous viewing as one is ensconced upon a sofa paying homage to the digital living room god. The Green Revolution is on, but what if it’s bullshit? If there is one thing in the post 9/11 wasteland of Der Homeland that I have learned to be it is skeptical of absolutely everything. First let me say that I have no love for that unshaven demagogue Ahmadinejad or for that matter for the religious zealots who run him. I believe that it would be a damned good thing were he, his paramilitary goons and the clerics were to be chased down and shot like rabid dogs Ceauşescu style in the streets of Tehran. Shit, they could decapitate the bastards and march around with their heads on sticks for all that I care.I hate thug regimes and take to theocracies even less kindly, they should all be torn to bloody pieces and their remains buried in fields sown with salt for all that I care. But I for one do remember the 2002 U.S. backed coup d’état in Venezuela that failed to rid the world of that horrible little socialist man Hugo Chavez and given the amount of agitation in Iran this could be another example of destabilizing a regime by fomenting rebellion and manipulating public opinion.

The network news, the corporate cable cesspool and the nattering nabobs of nonsense that are the talking heads are all discredited, you can immediately throw out most of that gibberish as propaganda. Now however there is the alternate media and such technology enabled information tools as You Tube and Twitter that are able to circumvent the normal and easily controlled information streams. During the recent Burma/Myanmar revolts it was the new technology that allowed for communication to continue, Iran is an example of this on a larger scale with even more advanced mediums available. Why is it that they work so hard on filtering and censoring the internet in full blown goon states like China? The internet is the biggest threat to tyranny that has ever existed and since China is the prototype of what our very own government is desperately trying to do in controlling dissent here, often under the cover of fighting child pornography, chasing down loosely defined and ‘dangerous’ right and left wing extremists and the utterly ludicrous and lame crackdown on cyber bullying. The protectors of the oligarchy are keeping an especially keen eye on Iranian protests and the ability to pass on information. That however is a story for another time, I am sure that all savvy bloggers are aware of the threats that they pose to a corrupt establishment and the coming pushback.

The pictures that are coming out of Iran are quite powerful, beatings, shootings, bloody young people trying to duck and cover truncheon swing black suited state paramilitary goons but the information itself is what is suspect, what if Ahmadinejad really did win the election? I have witnessed in the past days an irrational exuberance on the blogs and boards in support of the latest and greatest color coded revolution but be mindful that Mirhossein Mousavi is just another puppet of the imperialists, just like Mikheil Saakashvili, the tie chewing little twit in Georgia. Mousavi allegedly has ties to the ultimate players in Iran-Contra including Michael Ledeen. Now that Americans are throwing in with the protesters, jubilant, cheering, twittering, it makes the PNAC boys jobs that much harder when it comes to bombing them…or does it? Glenn Greenwald weiged in with the following on yet another neocon contradiction:

From: The “Bomb Iran” contingent’s newfound concern for The Iranian People

I’m going to leave the debate about whether Iran’s election was “stolen” and the domestic implications within Iran to people who actually know what they’re talking about (which is a very small subset of the class purporting to possess such knowledge). But there is one point I want to make about the vocal and dramatic expressions of solidarity with Iranians issuing from some quarters in the U.S.

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country — actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz entitled “The Case for Bombing Iran,” and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he “hopes and prays” that the U.S. “bombs the Iranians.” John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol — with typical prescience — hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way — just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called “attack on Iran” or “bombing Iran” in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many — obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it’s some abstract decision in a video game.

While many neocons like the oozing, fetid Daniel Pipes actually came out and endorsed the mad Mahmoud in the runup to the election the tactic now has shifted to bringing pressure on the Obama administration for intervention on the behalf of Mousavi. I have to admit that it really makes one want to vomit when an onerous old vulture like John McCain works his grampers into a twist over unfair elections. I sure as hell don’t remember him saying anything after Bush stole the White House in 2000 while the wounds from the area where his balls used to be prior to being ripped off by the Karl Rove machine in South Carolina was still smarting. The cringing but still loudly barking old dog yapped “I’m disappointed, it is an American principle ever since our founding that we are dedicated to the principle that all are created equal and the fact is they have the right to free elections and to select their leadership” – I haven’t seen anything from the other two stooges (Lieberman and Graham) yet but I am sure it’s out there as well because just like the sun coming up in the morning Moe and Jack are always in tune with Manny. Hell, hearing any Republican giving lectures about stolen elections is hysterical, kind of like being given lessons in dinner table etiquette from Jeffrey Dahmer or marital fidelity from Senator John Ensign. These people have absolutely no fucking shame whatsoever, their hypocrisy is as blatant as the Democratic party’s fecklessness.

So to close here I offer up some food for thought and please do take it seriously. Despite the blather and bombast that goes along with their political rhetoric and rank demagogy what if the neocons are deliberately instigating the mayhem in order to push the devil Ahmadinejad into a violent, over the top Tiananmen Square style put down that will further reinforce the years long propaganda campaign to demonize him? After all, it is already out there courtesy of Seymour Hersh among others that money has been being pumped into Iran for covert operations that would destabilize the regime. There is still conflicting information on what really happened in Iran so be cautious. There is a crackdown in progress and instigating the protesters into more violent action against the regime may very well result in the sort of ugliness and bloodshed that will only crystalize the neocon version of Ahmadinejad as the New Hitler and in additon to a failed revolution that we are treating as a spectator sport we will have a resurgent push to bomb all of those green flag waving freedom fighters into bloody bits – just collateral damage folks, we have seen this movie too many times.

Mad Man in a Roomful of Mirrors

Americans love a good revolution, as long as they are not the ones taking to the streets. In what would appear to be an Iranian version of the Bush crime family election theft of 2000 it appears that the New Hitler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stolen the Iranian election. It was all there, polls that didn’t support the results, a corrupt power structure and even the state run media to pop in ala Bush’s cousin John Ellis of FOX ‘News’ came out and called the election in Dubya’s favor. But it was a rigged game, I will never forget the shit-eating grins on the Bush family as they sat clustered around a big screen television on that terrible night of November 7, 2000 – they knew goddamned well that it was rigged. I am sure that the mad mullahs and ayatollahs were just as smug just before the Iranian election was called (prematurely) for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Champagne corks were also popping at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) because with their poster boy for deviltry, global terrorism and anti-Semitism still in power they had scored a body blow against Barack Obama for daring to reach out from the confines of imperialist madness in his Cairo speech. The propaganda mills began to churn faster, the attacks against Obama were ratcheted up and the GOP gauleiters placed on high alert.

You have to give it the Iranians, at least they are out raising hell over a perceived theft of their election, how long did it take Americans to get out in a similar way after the second blatantly stolen election in 2004? We are still waiting for that revolt. This one though, at least at first glance is appealing to Americans because it is on television, a spectator sport of bone crushing violence and passion that puts even the NFL to shame, it makes for marvelous viewing as one is ensconced upon a sofa paying homage to the digital living room god. The Green Revolution is on, but what if it’s bullshit? If there is one thing in the post 9/11 wasteland of Der Homeland that I have learned to be it is skeptical of absolutely everything. First let me say that I have no love for that unshaven demagogue Ahmadinejad or for that matter for the religious zealots who run him. I believe that it would be a damned good thing were he, his paramilitary goons and the clerics were to be chased down and shot like rabid dogs Ceauşescu style in the streets of Tehran. Shit, they could decapitate the bastards and march around with their heads on sticks for all that I care.I hate thug regimes and take to theocracies even less kindly, they should all be torn to bloody pieces and their remains buried in fields sown with salt for all that I care. But I for one do remember the 2002 U.S. backed coup d’état in Venezuela that failed to rid the world of that horrible little socialist man Hugo Chavez and given the amount of agitation in Iran this could be another example of destabilizing a regime by fomenting rebellion and manipulating public opinion.

The network news, the corporate cable cesspool and the nattering nabobs of nonsense that are the talking heads are all discredited, you can immediately throw out most of that gibberish as propaganda. Now however there is the alternate media and such technology enabled information tools as You Tube and Twitter that are able to circumvent the normal and easily controlled information streams. During the recent Burma/Myanmar revolts it was the new technology that allowed for communication to continue, Iran is an example of this on a larger scale with even more advanced mediums available. Why is it that they work so hard on filtering and censoring the internet in full blown goon states like China? The internet is the biggest threat to tyranny that has ever existed and since China is the prototype of what our very own government is desperately trying to do in controlling dissent here, often under the cover of fighting child pornography, chasing down loosely defined and ‘dangerous’ right and left wing extremists and the utterly ludicrous and lame crackdown on cyber bullying. The protectors of the oligarchy are keeping an especially keen eye on Iranian protests and the ability to pass on information. That however is a story for another time, I am sure that all savvy bloggers are aware of the threats that they pose to a corrupt establishment and the coming pushback.

The pictures that are coming out of Iran are quite powerful, beatings, shootings, bloody young people trying to duck and cover truncheon swing black suited state paramilitary goons but the information itself is what is suspect, what if Ahmadinejad really did win the election? I have witnessed in the past days an irrational exuberance on the blogs and boards in support of the latest and greatest color coded revolution but be mindful that Mirhossein Mousavi is just another puppet of the imperialists, just like Mikheil Saakashvili, the tie chewing little twit in Georgia. Mousavi allegedly has ties to the ultimate players in Iran-Contra including Michael Ledeen. Now that Americans are throwing in with the protesters, jubilant, cheering, twittering, it makes the PNAC boys jobs that much harder when it comes to bombing them…or does it? Glenn Greenwald weiged in with the following on yet another neocon contradiction:

From: The “Bomb Iran” contingent’s newfound concern for The Iranian People

I’m going to leave the debate about whether Iran’s election was “stolen” and the domestic implications within Iran to people who actually know what they’re talking about (which is a very small subset of the class purporting to possess such knowledge). But there is one point I want to make about the vocal and dramatic expressions of solidarity with Iranians issuing from some quarters in the U.S.

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country — actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz entitled “The Case for Bombing Iran,” and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he “hopes and prays” that the U.S. “bombs the Iranians.” John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol — with typical prescience — hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way — just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called “attack on Iran” or “bombing Iran” in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many — obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it’s some abstract decision in a video game.

While many neocons like the oozing, fetid Daniel Pipes actually came out and endorsed the mad Mahmoud in the runup to the election the tactic now has shifted to bringing pressure on the Obama administration for intervention on the behalf of Mousavi. I have to admit that it really makes one want to vomit when an onerous old vulture like John McCain works his grampers into a twist over unfair elections. I sure as hell don’t remember him saying anything after Bush stole the White House in 2000 while the wounds from the area where his balls used to be prior to being ripped off by the Karl Rove machine in South Carolina was still smarting. The cringing but still loudly barking old dog yapped “I’m disappointed, it is an American principle ever since our founding that we are dedicated to the principle that all are created equal and the fact is they have the right to free elections and to select their leadership” – I haven’t seen anything from the other two stooges (Lieberman and Graham) yet but I am sure it’s out there as well because just like the sun coming up in the morning Moe and Jack are always in tune with Manny. Hell, hearing any Republican giving lectures about stolen elections is hysterical, kind of like being given lessons in dinner table etiquette from Jeffrey Dahmer or marital fidelity from Senator John Ensign. These people have absolutely no fucking shame whatsoever, their hypocrisy is as blatant as the Democratic party’s fecklessness.

So to close here I offer up some food for thought and please do take it seriously. Despite the blather and bombast that goes along with their political rhetoric and rank demagogy what if the neocons are deliberately instigating the mayhem in order to push the devil Ahmadinejad into a violent, over the top Tiananmen Square style put down that will further reinforce the years long propaganda campaign to demonize him? After all, it is already out there courtesy of Seymour Hersh among others that money has been being pumped into Iran for covert operations that would destabilize the regime. There is still conflicting information on what really happened in Iran so be cautious. There is a crackdown in progress and instigating the protesters into more violent action against the regime may very well result in the sort of ugliness and bloodshed that will only crystalize the neocon version of Ahmadinejad as the New Hitler and in additon to a failed revolution that we are treating as a spectator sport we will have a resurgent push to bomb all of those green flag waving freedom fighters into bloody bits – just collateral damage folks, we have seen this movie too many times.

Another Day In Der Heimat: Captain America Snuffed

In a star spangled bummer Marvel comic book icon Captain America, a stalwart of good ole fashioned head smashing patriotism since the days when he opened a can of whip ass on Nazis, the Red Skull and Hitler himself is reputedly being killed off in a perfect example of how art so often imitates life here in Der Heimat. Times change, it was about a year ago that DC comics rolled out their grand red meat project Holy Terror Batman pitting Batman against none other than the nefarious Osama Bin Laden – the caped crusader was likely summoned by George W. Bush himself by a secretive bat signal beamed out from the White House roof since the ‘war president’ had failed to smoke him out as promised and who better to call in than millionaire Republican donor Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. But those were the days when 9/11 was still the most ass kicking club in the bag for Rove and the fear-mongering Republican neo-fascist swine and national disillusionment hadn’t turned into festering outrage over the mounting body count in Iraq, the despicable treatment of the politically inconvenient wounded as exposed by the great recent Washington Post stories on Walter Reed Hospital (grumpy old GOP lackey Bob Dole has just been summoned to the rescue in order to save face for the king)….and before the neocons were cutting deals with Bin Laden’s buddies to use as proxies against Iran but more on that later. Cap’s reported demise is a perfect metaphor for these sick times in this sorry land of the doomed, the apathetic, the greed heads and the terminally fucked. But I digress…

It sure as shit isn’t a perfect world like the one in which comic book heroes roam, dispense frontier justice and good and evil are strictly defined – that much we know but would it really take one to look at the long awaited day of reckoning for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and the office of the treasonous Vice President as a damned good start? Now that Cheney’s lackey Scooter has been convicted for perjury and obstruction for his role in the extremely convoluted process of leaking CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name to a myriad of media elitists in a setup full of blinds, double-blinds, cutouts and smokescreens that would put Tom Clancy, John le Carré and Robert Ludlum to shame it would be nice if the establishment press would do it’s fucking job for once and use yesterday’s verdict as a jumping off point for a flurry of investigations that could for once return some measure of dignity to a once honorable profession long ago taken over by self-interested, career oriented whores, shills and flacks for the metastasizing social cancer of zero sum corporatism and the ruling oligarchy.

As Libby juror Denis Collins let loose in yesterday’s prominent interviews Scooter was the “fall guy” (or more appropriately put a firewall to Cheney and the neocons) for a much bigger, far more sinister network operating to undermine American security, cut deals with foreign governments hostile to American interests and implement a fascist police state on the back of a bogus, never ending war on terror. Collins stated that which was so painfully obvious when he was quoted as saying:

“It was said a number of times, ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove … where are these other guys?”This could be a perfect opportunity to go straight for the throat of the fascist monster that has been gnawing away at American values since long before the passel of utopian parasites jumped aboard their addle brained, brand name host George W. Bush.

Congress should immediately announce hearings (rumors are already flying to that effect) into the real extent of the neocon lies that have mired this country in the life-sucking, blood soaked quagmire that is Iraq. Cheney should be ousted, Addington should be ousted, Rove could be frogmarched out in handcuffs and slimy Iran Contra pricks like Elliot Abrams who resurfaced like a colossal shit sucking leech in this criminal administration could finally be held accountable. They would have to build an entire new wing at Gitmo to house all of the felons and traitors who could be exposed. That roiling spring of filth The American Enterprise Institute could be investigated and the dual-loyalist agents of a foreign government exposed as the disloyal, traitors that they always have been. Maybe it is too much to hope for but wouldn’t it be nice to see the mainstream media focusing on the actions of PNAC instead of the headline grabbing exploits of Brittney Spears and her shaved dome…what the fuck’s the difference anyway to the moron vassals and serfs in the rotting empire when it comes to their next hit off of the electronic crackpipe?

The Libby verdict could also serve to expose the Iran Contra style Secret Government that has long since operated in the shadows and which is anathema to the very concept of America. The restoration of the House of Clinton could be prevented, the imminent rise of Jeb Bush to the presidency could be stopped dead in it’s tracks as both crime families have links to the clandestine networks that subvert congress, form bastard alliances with foreign governments, run drugs and guns and carry out brutal search and destroy campaigns against ‘leftists’ who stand in the way of a rapacious global capitalism that rapes, pillages and destroys in the name of imperialism, crusade and avarice.

It’s a veritable Pandora’s Box of nightmares for the oligarchy – if it is opened that is and that is against the odds given the current level of systemic corruption that infects both the government and the major media outlets in the Heimat as it could blow the lid off of the entire rigged game and peel back the facade of legitimacy that is used to conceal the duplicity of some of America’s so-called allies. Was the Plame outing and the subsequent shutdown of the WMD intelligence brass plate shop Brewster Jennings only a simple act of revenge against a war critic or was it a part of something far darker? Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan brought this up on Tuesday’s Scarborough Country that the real story is actually the forged Niger documents themselves and exactly what purpose did that clumsy act of espionage serve? Here is the transcript:

SCARBOROUGH: … there are people on both sides that are afraid to open up this can of worms, afraid to investigate what Libby did, what Cheney did, what Rove did, what the president did because it will reflect badly on everybody up there.

BUCHANAN: It will reflect badly on those who gave those guys a blank check. But one question which is really relevant, Joe. Why did Cheney ask the CIA to look into Niger? Because they had a report out of Italy, forged documents saying the Iraqis were going for yellowcake, which meant they‘re working on a nuclear program, which would frighten every American into going to war. Who forged those documents? Why don‘t we have the answer to that? Some foreign agents or foreign intelligence agents forged those things to get us into war with another country. That‘s what I want to know, not that Scooter Libby foolishly went up there and lied in his teeth.

Craig Unger did a good piece on this very question in Vanity Fair that examined the documents last year called The War They Wanted, the Lies They Needed. He also recently wrote another very revealing piece on the hidden agendas of the neocon madmen and the Israeli hard liner connection to the planned and now ready to rip attack on Iran that will kick off World War III called From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq from which I will offer up a few relevant paragraphs below:

The neoconservatives have had Iran in their sights for more than a decade. On July 8, 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s newly elected prime minister and the leader of its right-wing Likud Party, paid a visit to the neoconservative luminary Richard Perle in Washington, D.C. The subject of their meeting was a policy paper that Perle and other analysts had written for an Israeli-American think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” the paper contained the kernel of a breathtakingly radical vision for a new Middle East. By waging wars against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the paper asserted, Israel and the U.S. could stabilize the region. Later, the neoconservatives argued that this policy could democratize the Middle East.

“It was the beginning of thought,” says Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-American policy expert, who co-signed the paper with her husband, David Wurmser, now a top Middle East adviser to Dick Cheney. Other signers included Perle and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy during George W. Bush’s first term. “It was the seeds of a new vision.”

Netanyahu certainly seemed to think so. Two days after meeting with Perle, the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress with a speech that borrowed from “A Clean Break.” He called for the “democratization” of terrorist states in the Middle East and warned that peaceful means might not be sufficient. War might be unavoidable.

Netanyahu also made one significant addition to “A Clean Break.” The paper’s authors were concerned primarily with Syria and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, but Netanyahu saw a greater threat elsewhere. “The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran,” he said.

Ten years later, “A Clean Break” looks like nothing less than a playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era. Many of the initiatives outlined in the paper have been implemented—removing Saddam from power, setting aside the “land for peace” formula to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon—all with disastrous results.

 The usual defenders of the Bushreich media mockingbirds in the Money Changer’s Gospel (The Wall Street Journal) and the Neo Con Gazette (National Review) are already in full Pardon Scooter mode with Rupert Murdoch’s shitrag New York Post bringing up the rear and the loose cannon on deck that is the boorish Chris ‘Pinky’ Matthews is featuring another juror by the name of Ann Redington who is sympathetic to Libby and imploring Bush to pardon the little traitor – war is good for GE and cleaning the neocon house isn’t conducive to keeping the stock prices up, especially with a market that is going schizo. A presidential pardon would be right in line for a piece of shit like Scooter, Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton have already set the precedent on granting amnesty to global criminals like Iran Contra operators Caspar Weinberger, Robert McFarlane and Eliott Abrams, terrorists like Orlando Bosch and tax cheating double agents of foreign governments and manipulators of global capital and commodities like the ultra-sleazy scoundrel Marc Rich – in an interesting bit of trivia Scooter Libby was Rich’s lawyer – such are the nature of the incestuous relationships within the oligarchy.

Sleeping With The Devil: Speaking of incestuous and dangerous relationships with allies of dubious intent Seymour Hersh’s latest bombshell in the New Yorker entitled The Redirection is an absolute must read for a look at the sheer audacity of the Bush-Cheney-Rove Axis of Evil and the neocon operators who treat foreign policy as though it were a game of Risk. According to Hersh’s piece the cloak and dagger types in the neocon mafia are funneling money to militant jihadist groups with sympathies towards Al-Qaeda and the sectarian violence that is killing and maiming American soldiers by the day and that sleazy little rat fucker Prince Bandar (aka Bandar Bush is back as a player). The House of Saud, Bandar and Israeli hard-liners are now working in concert with Cheney’s goon squads and other Sunni regimes to foment anti-Shiite violence in the region. American Enterprise Institute fellow and dual loyalist thug Michael Ledeen has a term for such Iran-Contra style subterfuge: Creative Destruction. Here is a sampling of the article:

Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.

A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues had not been adequately briefed. “We haven’t got any of this,” he said. “We ask for anything going on, and they say there’s nothing. And when we ask specific questions they say, ‘We’re going to get back to you.’ It’s so frustrating.”

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did not respond to specific queries but said, “The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.”)

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The new strategy “is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,” he said. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it.”

“It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written widely on Shiites, Iran, and Iraq, told me. “The Saudis and some in the Administration have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”

Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside down.”


AND


The Administration’s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed.

Last November, Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a surprise meeting with King Abdullah and Bandar. The Times reported that the King warned Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back its fellow-Sunnis in Iraq if the United States were to withdraw. A European intelligence official told me that the meeting also focussed on more general Saudi fears about “the rise of the Shiites.” In response, “The Saudis are starting to use their leverage—money.”

In a royal family rife with competition, Bandar has, over the years, built a power base that relies largely on his close relationship with the U.S., which is crucial to the Saudis. Bandar was succeeded as Ambassador by Prince Turki al-Faisal; Turki resigned after eighteen months and was replaced by Adel A. al-Jubeir, a bureaucrat who has worked with Bandar. A former Saudi diplomat told me that during Turki’s tenure he became aware of private meetings involving Bandar and senior White House officials, including Cheney and Abrams.

 AND

 The Saudi said that, in his country’s view, it was taking a political risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. “We have two nightmares,” the former diplomat told me. “For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I’d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.”

Interviews with Hersh about the explosive revelations of The Redirection are all over the internet including at Democracy Now and Antiwar.com just to name a few – if you don’t have time to read the piece at least download the programs and listen to them.

This could get really ugly very, very quickly unless the brakes are applied to the neocon express that is careening towards Armageddon much to the delight of the royal order of the rubber fetus in the rapture death cult. Outing the entire global conspiracy could be huge if the mainstream media finally has been shamed into doing it’s fucking job – bigger than diapered astronauts, Brittney, Anna Nicole or even the holiest of holies that is the latest daily pedophile story.

It is highly unlikely that any of this will be afforded the proper scrutiny by the media and the political hacks that is essential to maintain a functional democracy but with Captain America dead and America itself not far behind even the most cynical amongst us have to find something to hope for.

by Ed Encho