Remember This, Too

25 years ago, President George Bush and Vice President Cheney resolved to send the country to war against a country that had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks. They pushed the intelligence community to fabricate intel justifying their war: The WMDs that didn't exist, the aluminum tubes that weren't suited to refine uranium, the "mobile biologial weapons lab" that was an apparatus that made hydrogen for weather balloons.

Thousands of Americans died, millions of Iraqis were made refugees and the costs to this country alone runs into the trillions, all because Darth and Chimpy wanted their war. Between a war of aggression and conspiring to commit war crimes, the White House, not for the first nor the last time, was the site of meetings of war criminals.

George W. Bush Celebrates

In 1943, the Army began planning for the occupation of Germany, which was a full two years before the war ended.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the ad hoc plan for occupation was to install figureheads, give them billions in cash and provide security with American troops and mercenaries.

In Venezuela, there is no plan at all for what came after the raid to kidnap Maduro. The regime is still in place, only the number one guy was removed. The Venezuelan militias are apparently combing the country, looking for Americans and American spies.

Who would have thought that we'd miss the haphazard planning of Chimpy?

Blasts From the Past.

According to the stats thingie, somebody is going through and reading/vacuuming up a lot of my old posts. This one, from 2007, is pretty spot-on with what's going on with the Administration of Commandante Bone Spurs.

Satan Gains a New Lieutenant

Dick Cheney, the former White House chief of staff, member of Congress, secretary of defense and US vice-president, has died, his family has said. He was 84.

Cheney started out covering up the war crimes of Tiger Force and reached the height of power, pushing for wars of aggression and ordersing/approving the commission of war crimes. Like other conservatives, he flipped on culture war issues only when they affected his family. It took Trump's first coup attempt for him to recognize the threat posed by the Bloated Orange Fascist, but by then, he was long out of office and, if not for the stand taken by his daughter, he might have kept quiet.

So I'll end with the old saying of never speak anything but good of the dead. Good.

The Day to Remember That Trump Might Not Be the Worst President of the 21st Century.

That would be Chimpy. As a result of 9-11, he invaded one country then fucked up the aftermath, then invaded a country that had nothing to do with with 9-11, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and creating millions of refugees, which destabilized an entire region. ISIS came about as a direct result of his fecklessness.

His administration, with the direct approval at the highest levels, practiced torture of people who were not involved in the attacks, guys who were traded to special forces for money. His cabinet of war criminals have international warrants out for them, to the point that they only travel to countries that they can count on not enforcing the warrants.

He created an Orwellian department that continues to ruin the lives of the citizenry, resulting in armed masked goon squads grabbing people who look vaguely Latino.

He blew up the Federal budget, going from a path that would have reduced the Federal debt to blowing it up, because "Regan proved that deficits don't matter."

His SecDef so mismanaged procurement and training that we're still not out of the hole that he dug.

Immediately afterward, his top priority was protecting the interests of his Saudi friends, the country of origin for most of the attackers, and the country of the man who organized and funded the attacks.

In almost every way possible, Bush the Lesser failed so badly in his response to the attacks that, even to this day, he hides at his place in Texas, painting shitty works. One of the few things he did that was good, PEPFAR, was destroyed by tRump without a peep out of Bush.

There were a lot of heros who died that day, including the firefighters who were climbing the towers to rescue people when they fell. One of the enduring horrors was the sound of bodies hitting the roof of the visitors' center, people choosing to die by falling than by burning.

But none of that glory belongs to the shitbird in the White House at the time and his cabal of war criminals.

National Shit-Yer-Pants Day

When I think of the aftermath of 9/11/2001, I think of all that we willingly threw away. We threw away our right to morally object to another nation's war of aggression when the Bush Administration invaded Iraq. We threw away many of our civil liberties with the abysmally-named "USA Patriot Act". That piece of excreable lesiglation, among many other things, authorized "sneak-and-peek" searches, where the cops could legally sneak into your home and look for things that might justify a formal search. Over 99% of the "sneak-and-peek" searches had nothing to do with terrorism.

We had the FBI doing what they do best: Ginning up terroism cases based solely on egging on someone with a loud mouth and few brain cells. The FBI concentrated on locking up Achmed the Blowhard while refusing to look into the neo-Nazis and their ilk who were actually killing people. But to be fair, the FBI and the DHS (a Soviet-style security apparatus if there ever was one) were hampered in looking into far-Right terrorism because the GOP, even pre-Trump, recognized them as being part of their base.

We commemmorate a day when the intelligence agencies failed without acknowledging that they had all the tools and information that they needed before the attacks without giving them more power to further harass us. We commemmorate a day which happened after then then-sitting president was more interested in getting back to his golf game than being briefed on the therat that was posed. We commemmorate a day which was used as an excuse to launch a war of aggression that destabilized a region and which we are still dealing with. We commemorate a day which resulted using torture to prove a crime.

We criticize other nations for overreacting to a terrorist attack without ever having done a single thing to hold those who overreacted here to account for their actions. History may not judge the Bush Admininstration for having a discussion in the White House about using torture, but it's clear that we won't.

As I see it, there is little today that is worth commemmorating. Mourning would be more appropriate.

Dear Chimpy: Fuck You and Your Legacy

From his speech on 9/11:

There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.
...
On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know.

At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know.

Right. It was Bush's campaign that said in 2000 that John McCain had a Black love child. In 2004, it was Bush who opted to gin up the Christian Taliban in a culture war to enact bans against gay marriage in the states where they had control.

Oh, Bush talked a nice game of equality and respect for others. But when the rubber met the road, he ran campaigns that were as racist and divisive as those of TFG.

Heckuvajob, Darth, Chimpy and Rummy

It was in the waning days of November 2001 that Taliban leaders began to reach out to Hamid Karzai, who would soon become the interim president of Afghanistan: They wanted to make a deal.

“The Taliban were completely defeated, they had no demands, except amnesty,” recalled Barnett Rubin, who worked with the United Nations’ political team in Afghanistan at the time.

Messengers shuttled back and forth between Mr. Karzai and the headquarters of the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in Kandahar. Mr. Karzai envisioned a Taliban surrender that would keep the militants from playing any significant role in the country’s future.

But Washington, confident that the Taliban would be wiped out forever, was in no mood for a deal.

“The United States is not inclined to negotiate surrenders,” Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in a news conference at the time, adding that the Americans had no interest in leaving Mullah Omar to live out his days anywhere in Afghanistan. The United States wanted him captured or dead.

If there was one characteristic most attributed to Dick Cheney, one of the Wingnut draft dodgers, it was hubris.

Now, twenty years, thousands of dead American and a trillion dollars or so later, all we have are ashes. Even if, down the road, we have to go back and bomb them flat, they won't give up (uness Pakistan has a total change of heart)\.

Heckuvajob, Chimpy.

Voldemort May Have Been an Autocrat and a War Criminal, Sending Hundreds of Thousands of Americans to Fight and Die for Big Oil and Halliburton, But Nobody Ever Accused Him of Being Stupid

Unlike, say, Trump and Pence.

Dick Cheney says WEAR A MASK. #realmenwearmasks pic.twitter.com/iBfVoa7ypL

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 26, 2020

George W. Bush Fucked Up the Post Office

John Oliver explains:

Chimpy set up the Post Office to go broke and Deadbeat Donnie wants to swing the axe.

Heckuvajob, Chimpy and Donnie!

No Shit, Dubya!

George W. Bush is taking a lot of satisfaction in how Trump's making him look much better, in comparison.

Dubya Continues Firing on Donnie

“I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated,” Bush, 70, tells PEOPLE in an interview for the new issue of the magazine on newsstands Friday. ... "I didn’t feel like speaking out before because I didn’t want to complicate the job and I’m not going to this time. However, at the Bush Center we are speaking up.”

The couple list some of the center’s work that stands in contrast to Trump’s isolationism: immigration ceremonies, women’s reproductive-health programs in Africa, and leadership training for Muslim women that the Bush Center brings to Texas from the Middle East. Asked if Trump’s determination to restrict immigration and travel from Muslim countries threatens the Bush Center programs, he shrugs. “Now that you mention it, it might bother me but we’ll figure out how to bring them over.”

Reading between the lines, when the Bush Center speaks out to criticize the Orange Dumbster Fire, you can be pretty certain that it's GWB who's the shot-caller.

Dubya Can't Stomach Donnie

Former President George W. Bush said Monday that the American people deserve answers on the alleged connection between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

“I think we all need answers,” Bush said in an interview on NBC. “I'm not sure the right avenue to take. I am sure, though, that that question needs to be answered."

And:

Former President George W. Bush said Monday that the media is “indispensable to democracy,” a break from the position of his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump, who has called the press “the enemy of the American people.”

“I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. That we need the media to hold people like me to account,” Bush told Matt Lauer, anchor of NBC’s “Today” show. “I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”
...
Recalling his own presidency, when he was often the target of withering media critique, Bush said he devoted significant time to extolling the virtues of a free and independent press around the world, including to Russia’s strongman President Vladimir Putin. Trump has publicly lavished praise on the Russian president, but Bush said it’s important for the U.S. to set a strong example for leaders like Putin.

“One of the things I spent a lot time doing was trying to convince a person like Vladimir Putin, for example, to accept the notion of an independent press,” Bush said. “And it's kind of hard to, you know, tell others to have an independent, free press when we're not willing to have one ourselves.”

We Kind of Suspected That All Along; Iraq War Edition

While we've been jabbering about Racist Donald and Crooked Hillary, the British inquiry into the Iraq War has been released.

Basically, the only thing they didn't find was an evil cabal of neocons. But as to everything else, such as over-reliance on suspect intelligence, going to war when other options remained, and faulty postwar planning that could be considered to be criminally negligent, yeah, they found all that.

They found all that despite stonewalling and obstruction from both the British and American administrations, including refusals to release the conversations between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.*

The Iraq War was a lie. Worse than a lie, it likely qualified as a war of aggression, which is a war crime.

Don't hold your breath that any of the architects or deciders of that war will ever be held to account for it.
__________________________________
* Or, "Chimpy and the Pig-Fucker", if you prefer.

The View From 2100

I believe that when historians look back on this time from the distance of a century, they will be amazed that Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were walking around as free men, rather than having been either imprisoned or shot for war crimes (warmongering) and crimes against humanity (torture).

Whither Afghanistan?

The U.S. Army general picked to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan warns the security situation there is deteriorating despite a valiant effort by Afghan forces.

The reasons are slightly unpalatable. The Bush Administration established (or allowed) a government of kleptocrats. The Obama Administration has been either unwilling or unable to change that. Afghanistan is the third most-corrupt nation on the planet.

Like the Iraqi army, the Afghan army has been plagued by officers who have cared more about lining their own pockets than fielding an effective army. Their army has ranks filled with ghost soldiers, names on a roster that don't correspond to a living person, so that the officers can pocket their pay. Equipment has been stolen and sold, often to the enemy. Public improvement projects have been repeatedly built with shoddy materials; the contractors skim the difference between what was spec'd and what was built-- often paying off the officials who awarded the contracts.

Because it would seem to be easy as pie to obtain a post in the army by bribery, the enemy has had little trouble in salting the Afghan army with agents who wait for an auspicious time and then slay their supposed comrades, superiors and advisers.

By invading Afghanistan, the neocons who were then in charge thought that they were striking a mortal blow against the Taliban and al Qaeda. But what they were really doing was punching a tar-baby. And now we're pretty well stuck there.

Unless the Pakistanis finally get tired of letting the Taliban operate within their borders, there will be no change to the situation. There is no sign of the Pakistanis ever doing that. When the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan rolls around, I predict that things will be no better than there were at the 5th, 10th or 15th anniversaries.

And, unless we follow the advice of Se. George Aiken, we'll still be there.

War on Terror Was Never About Terror

Borepatch has pointed out that the French government is using the excuse of the Paris attacks to quash dissent in general.

I almost want to say "like this is news"? The last group of clowns in office tried to establish an American Stasi. The last president thought it was peachy to torture anyone he chooses. The current one eschews torture, but loves killing people.

I've written for years about the Patriot Act and the erosion of freedom in this land. There's probably more there than you will ever care to read.

Sadly, it seems that as long as the attention of the cops is directed at those people, whomsoever that may be, most Americans are just fine with sacrificing their freedoms and liberties for a fig-leaf promise of security. One political party may nominate an outright fascist as its candidate next year.

But it doesn't seem to matter, really. A candidate might promise to bring about smaller government or even follow the Constitution, but as soon as they walk into the Oval Office, they turn into Smeagol.

Our country has been corrupted into a police state. Most people are fine with that, it seems.

So we might as well elect The Donald and get it over with.

Freedom: 1775-2016. She had a pretty good run, for awhile, but she got sick in 1971 and became terminally ill in 2001.

Only Speak Good of the Dead

Good!

Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who played a role in persuading the US to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, has died of a heart attack, according to state television.

I believe that Chalabi was an Iranian sock-puppet.

I believe that Chalabi knowingly fed the neocons in the Bush Administration false information to justify a war of aggression. (I also believe that the Bush Administration knew, or had reason to know, that the information was phony.)

May he rot in Hell, forever.

What Drone-Drivers Don't Have

They don't have skin in the game.

An American F-16 aircraft was hit by small arms fire while conducting a patrol in Afghanistan last week, U.S. military officials said on Monday. ... The fire hit one of the aircraft's stabilizers and damaged one of the munitions it was carrying, said a second official, Captain Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Department of Defense.

There is evidence that the drone drivers are suffering psychological trauma from their role in killing people half-a-world away. It is still nevertheless true that the drone drivers' biggest risk of injury is from either paper cuts or carpal tunnel syndrome. The average hunter takes greater risks going into the field with a gun or a bow than does a drone driver.

The drone drivers are doing what the Air Force has ordered them to do, but let it not be overlooked that fighting by drone is a cowardly way to wage war. It is as honorable as shooting a manacled man in the back of the head.

The blame rests with the men who have eagerly adopted war by drones, namely, this president and the last one.

And yes, firing a cruise missile from hundreds of miles away is in the same league as launching missiles from a drone.

War was never meant to be fair. But it also was never meant to be a no-risk proposition.

Probably Will Never Be a Trial

But history will leave no doubt: George W. Bush and Tony Blair are war criminals.

A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the ‘deal in blood’ forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War.

The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started.

It flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Going to war on a false pretext was as wrong in 2003 as it was in 1939.

(H/T)