Babble on, Babylon

Bush insists Al Qaida-Saddam ties existed

Meanwhile, while 9/11 was happening

The great, vaunted US military and defense had not a clue what to do.

One witness after another described the overwhelming confusion that ruled military command centers and air traffic control rooms on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. 

More and more it’ seems that Bush, the CIA, and the military, underneath all the strutting and pretensions to unchallenged supremacy, appear to be, well, just not real incompetent. There were clear signs al Qaeda would attack by plane, they were ignored. When the attack happened, no one had any idea what to do. After the attack, two invasions of countries, both based on false pretenses, were launched and have gone rather badly, to say the least. Even some military are now saying the US is losing in Iraq. And the US has lost friends all over the planet. How did things get so fucked up?

Socialist theory would call this a crisis of capitalism, wherein the contradictions in the overweening imperialist drive for more territory  (and thus more markets to sell in and more resources to plunder) finally become untenable. Things go wrong, badly wrong, and the ruling class splits over what to do next. You don’t have to be socialist to see that large sections of the ruling class are now mobilizing to destroy George Bush. When billionaires like George Soros pledge to do whatever is needed to dethrone Bush, yes, this is most definitely a crisis in the ruling class

Bush is bad for business. When you lose friends, you lose economic power too. No one wants to do business with or get close to anyone who says God tells them to invade countries and justifies torture because they are above the law. Does anyone want a business partner? Well, of course not.

So, as Bush is toppled from power, and I for one will be dancing in the streets when it happens, remember, a John Kerry will put the velvet gloves back on over the iron fist and will be orders of magnitude less extreme than Bush on many issues, yet on foreign policy and the manifest destiny of the US to expand anyplace it wants, Kerry will get consensus, will listen to others, but will anything fundamental change?

Because if it doesn’t, then all this will happen all over again. However, a very good first step towards real change, of course, is the coming distintegration of the neocon agenda and with it, George Bush.

Gore Vidal may well be proven to be correct when, some months back, he said  Dubya will leave office the most-hated President in history.

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Car bombs and Hep E

Reporter Dahr Jamail blogs from Baghdad

I haven’t slept very well the last couple of nights, as the growing anxiety of car bombs has me waking at the smallest noises outside my window nowadays.

Dave was typing on his computer as I walk past him to the kitchen to make some coffee at 8:15 this morning and a huge explosion rumbles down the street near Tharir Square.

“Morning, man,” I said. “Morning,” he replied as we both stare at the huge, brown mushroom cloud that rises above the buildings out our window.

Our daily car bomb viciously welcomed another day of this wretched occupation of Iraq.

And accordiing to a doctor, the once rare Hepatitis E, which is transmitted via contaminated water, is becoming widespread.

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It’s not just Iraq

“U.S. operates worldwide network of secret jails..

A report released Thursday by Human Rights First says the United States is holding terrorism supsects in more than two dozen detention centers worldwide, at least half of which operate in total secrecy. Deborah Pearlstein, director of the group’s U.S. Law and Security Program, told Reuters that the secretive conditions make “inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable.” The report coincided with news that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hide a detainee from the Red Cross in Iraq.”

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