BlogWashington.com - 202 Number1

Sunday - 31 July - World War III Looms Did You Say? and Americans preparing Iraqi 'departure' scenarios: We're sure managed to all get our priorities screwed up it seems. And of course the alliance between big government, big business, and the big corporate media empires has become a herculian problem forcing us all to dumb down and narrowly focus on the frivolous and tintillating rather than the really serious and important.   A few years ago none other than Walter Cronkite himself gave a major speech warning that our the Washington powerful were risking bringing about World War III. Amazingly the corporate media took a pass and the only known report about Cronkite's warning appeared in a college newspaper and then in MiddleEast.org.    But get this as the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima approaches. It's seems 6 in 10 Americans now actually believe World War III may be coming.   And even taking into account all the Christian Fundamentalists with their nutty idea that with Armageddon comes the Second Coming of Christ, reality is getting to be more and more scary all the time and in the end it can be traced back not only to the Christian Fundamentalists but to the powerful core of Jewish Zionist Neocons who today dominate the Bush/Cheney Regime.   Add top this volatile situation the 'Get Iran' movement -- itself primarily fueled by the Israelis, the Neocons, and the Evangelicals (see 28 July below) -- as a recent provocative article by Justin Raimondo illuminates.
    Oh yes, by the way, there are growing pressuers on the U.S. to find an exit from destroyed, practically dismembered Iraq in order to prepare for Iran, et. al.   First of all the U.S. military cannot sustain the current military deployment in Iraq even if Bush/Cheney insist on it -- the numbers and costs, in addition to the p.r., just don't add up.   Add to that other developmens taking place including yesterday's announcement that Uzbekistan is expelling the important U.S. base there and the Iraqi government, even as it depends on the U.S. military to 'fight the insurgents' is taking all kinds of steps to defy the U.S. -- closer relations with Iran, an 'Islamic country' constitution, ending alcohol sales at Baghdad International Airport, abd telling the Americans in public to hasten their departure.

Saturday - 30 July - OUTING JUDY MILLER:   There are two Judiths on the big-time Washington/New York foreign policy scene who need to be outed -- the first is much in the news these days, Judith Miller of course. The second, Judith Kipper, hangs out at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with a shady past of using mammaries and other tintilations on Arab big-wigs relieving them not just of their desires and frustrations.   But then the official Washington press corps, so deceitfully prideful of faithfully reporting the news of others, is extraordinarly hesitant to report the real news among their own. The very occassional article that makes it into the 'mainstream' press (see 26 July below for example) even then holds so much back and is such an exception.   But now that we're in the era of both the New World Order and the internet/blogosphere occassionally the hard thinking and tough-minded reporting is done by outsiders. Well...Oriana Huffington is not quite a real 'outsider'..but even so take a look at her two days of what we'll call 'Outting Judy' -- 27 July, 28 July -- for Oriana definitely gets the award so far of helping us all get to the bottom of this fiasco that somehow has Judith Miller portrayed by many of her Washington colleages as a hero/saint when in fact she is more akin to a villianous rogue/hack mouthpiece.

Friday - 29 July - BOLTON recessed or blocked?:   Once again it's down to the wire, this time with John Bolton and his U.N. Ambassadorship. The White House will be deciding, maybe momentarily, whether to recess appoint Bolton; but this time Bush/Cheney hvae been manuevered into a no-win situation and Rovegate/ScooterGate is still rolling along. If they capitulate the Dems and anti-neocons will claim victory. If they recess Bolton goes to the U.N. but with suspect credibility and more scrutiny than ever.   But let's not get carried away with any enthusiasm here. The Dems may possibly claim a little victory lap with Bolton but they've lost on just about everything else and their party seems to have no real alternate direction. From Iraq fiasco to World Bank Wolfowitz the reality remains that the town is run these days by far right-wingers and neocon ideologues who are busy making history while the Dems are busy blocking with just a few sideline manuevers. True,.if Bolton is blocked, the Dems might just might have a little encouragement to try to deal with John Roberts and the Supreme Law of the Land. But don't bet on it. By 2008 the Court is likely to have altered irrevocably for a generation to come.

Thursday - 28 July - Preparations for Iran et. al.:    Those 'Guns of August' may ring again is a warning being heard in the backdoor corridors here in Washington; and there should be no doubt the U.S. military has been ordered to prepare and the Israelis continue pushing harder than ever.   True, the Iranians are racing ahead with weapons -- they surely have had enough warnings and threats to make it understandable what they are doing and why. It's the old mantra of 'deterrence' propagated for decades now in fact by non other than Iran's top enemies, Israel and the U.S. -- countries that actually do have huge arsenals of weapons of mass destruction far beyond anything the Iranians can manage. Indeed the Americans alone spend more yearly on 'defense' then the rest of the world combined. And the Israelis not only have a triad of hundreds of nuclear weapons by land, by sea, and by air, but military forces of their own said to be many times superior to all the Arab armies plus Iran combined...and that's before the American and European militaries that stand behind the 'Jewish State'.

"...the crucial need [is] to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities before it's too late. We should have bombed Iran's nuclear facilities in November or December 2004, before they were as dispersed. We can still bomb these sites, although now it will take multiple bombing strikes. If we let Iran get nuclear weapons, which will happen, according to Israeli Intelligence, in August to November of 2005, Iran will eventually give nukes to terrorists who will blow up New York and Washington. Diplomacy does not work, as we have seen with North Korea, which now has 6 to 8 nukes. Iran has so much oil money they do not fear sanctions. If we don't act now, New York and Washington will be incinerated in nuclear blasts by terrorists." (bold underlined in original)       Dr. Howard Cort,
                        Republican National Committee's President's Club
                                                                                    Republican Senatorial Inner Circle

Meanwhile the Christian Evangelicals and the largely-Jewish Neocons are whipping up the expand-the-war efforts -- the public manifestation of which often takes place in the pages of the Washington Times. The above quote comes from a half-page ad in the Washington Times two days ago in fact on 26 July. That same day a top-of-the-page Op Ed touted and 'explained' that wacky Republican Congressman who ranted on a radio program about nuking the 'Muslim Holy Sites' of Mecca if the crazy Muslims attack U.S. cities. This even as another wacko Republican, this one a Washington radio and TV show regular, has taken to declaring that Islam itself is a 'terrorist organization'. Now really, just who is crazier than whom? And in view of 'the numbers' discussed yesterday, just who is being more killed, tortured, and invaded by whom?

Wednesday - 27 July - By The Numbers: Washington buzzed abit this week when a former top Pentagon General told the main Israeli Lobby Think-Tank that this year alone some 50,000 Iraqi 'Insurgents' had been killed or jailed in such infamous places as Abu Ghraib. Since the number of Iraqis said to be in jail in total is about 17,000 this means U.S. troops are killing about 5000 Iraqi 'insurgents' monthly, which is 100 to 200 daily, and this doesn't include 'civilians'. The actual reality when it comes to Iraq alone is quite startling actually if one goes back just some 15 years to when the American Ambassador was still meeting with Saddam assuring him he was a major American ally replacing none other than the neighboring strong-man recently toppled, i.e., the Shah of Iran. Reasonable estimates are that at least 1.5 million Iraqis who would otherwise be alive today but for the U.S., including about half a million children who were dying at the rate of 5000 monthly back in the 'sactions' decade of the 90s. The whole thing has actually been so horrible that a former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. resigned in order to campaign against the 'genocide' being perpetrated on Iraq. Furthermore now, if we're going to really talk about the numbers, some multiplication is in order so Americans can compare all the death and suffering to a country their own size -- in that case we're dealing with a whopping 17 million plus dead! And this doesn't even include all those physically injured, not to mention all the psychologically injured. Actually the numbers just won't do it for regular Americans, only the 'native-American' Indians will really get it. And while we're at it let's add to this the dead of Afghanistan, which figures I don't have at the moment, as well as the Palestinian dead, maimed, tortured, imprisoned which is also a very high percentage especially when extrapolated to compare the number to a country the size of the U.S. Just about every Palestinian family in fact has a story of a family member who has been imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Extrapolated to U.S. population size we are dealing with as many as 5 million Palestinians killed just in the years since the first Gulf War which the Americans and Israelis then so duplicitously reconfigured into the 'Oslo Peace Process' as the Israelis went about more than doubling their 'settlements' and creating conditions far worse than Apartheid of old. Now...look how the Americans have acted with the death of 3000 on 9/11, the Brits with the death and injury of about 1000, and the Israelis with about a smilar number, though of course their population too is much smaller and they do seem to feel the pain much more. Whatever...now imagine being Arab and Muslim, Iraqi and Palestinian, and just imagine the rage, the hate, the fire for revenge with 'the number' and the realities they are dealing with. There were no suicide bombers in Iraq until recent years; there were hardly any suicide bombers at all anywhere in fact before the Israeli-U.S. invasion of Lebanon just 23 years ago.

Tuesday - 26 July - Imperial Presidency - Washington Journalists Exposed: President Bush and wife Laura raced up Connecticut Avenue to International Drive yesterday at Noon -- a condolence call at the Egyptian Embassy where Mr. Bush declared of the 'terrorists' in his usual simplistic verbage (which one can easily imagine they could themselves utter in Arabic about him and his neocon warriors): "They have no heart. They have no conscience. They have no ideology that is hopeful. And they have an ideology of hate." It was a classic Imperial Presidency moment with a dozen motorcycle police, big black bullet-bomb-proof Secret Service 'Homeless Man' Waits at Presidential Motorcade Turn

Secret Service 'Homeless Man' Waits at Presidential Motorcade Turn

limos, numerous stretched battlewagons and blocking SUVs, an ambulance, maybe a ground-to-air mobile missile van, and lots of cop cars all making for quite a scene. By my count 28 vehicles in all plus others blocking streets along the way, along with a disheveled homeless man (i.e., Secret Service agent) talking into his wrist and cellphone across from the Intelsat location where the motorcade slows to turn onto Connecticut Ave.
Meanwhile, finally getting around to weekend reading, a rare article exposing some of the vital hidden truths about the Washington journalistic corps made its way into the Washington Post -- here's the link. And truth be finally told once

"...sources with exclusive stories are in a position to take their pick of journalists and dictate terms about the coverage they receive in exchange. 'White House officials and White House reporters are tight-lipped' about how this unappetizing news sausage is made...'because these leaks are fake and somewhat ridiculous, like teleprompters or the congressional auto-pen.'... The problem is that by deliberately omitting the essential explanation of how the source is attempting to manipulate the agenda, the journalist often becomes a virtual accomplice hiding the ongoing but subterranean bureaucratic or ideological conflict at the heart of the story."

again (read earlier commentaries this month), jailed Judith Miller is hardly a hero. Most of all she is the one who propagated and magnified all the false pre-invasion leaks about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction repeatedly on the front pages of the New York Times -- precisely why government officials like to use her for their own purposes. This isn't leaking in the classic sense of a whistle-blower who does in fact need and deserve protection. Rather this is an on-the-hustle journalist making herself available to the powers that be for propaganda -- and not informing her readers, nor maybe her editors either, about what is really going on. Protecting real whistle-blowers from the clutches and revenge of big-brother government is one thing. Protecting powerful government insiders who are purposefully spewing propaganda through the pages of the supposed 'independent' fourth estate is something entirely different.

Monday - 25 July - Stranger and Stranger in Official Washington:   What a stranger than life place Washington has become in the past few decades since the Conservatives of the Reagan era and the Neo-Cons of the Bush-Cheney-Sharon era have come to manipulate and control so many government departments and policy-making positions, not to mention so many of the cities think-tanks, law firms, and lobbying organizations. Today we learn that though he has continually insisted he 'has no memory' of ever being a member of the ultra-conservative 'Federalists Society', Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is in fact listed in a rare 'Leadership Directory' published by that organization for its own back in 1998. Yet Roberts is apparently going to now insist nevertheless that actually he wasn't a real 'member' though he was a 'leader'; and the organization itself is refusing to tell whether or not Roberts ever contributed any monies or paid any membership fees of any kind. It's as if he's getting his advice on this matter from Karl Rove himself who along with 'Scotter' Libby may well be yet indicted for some combination of conspiracy/perjury/felony relating to the Iraq/AmbassadorWilson/CIA fiasco.   And get this about how secretive and fearful some of the super conservative and right-wing powerful and successful are about what they are really all about. "You know", says one of Roberts' closest colleagues at the prestigious Hogan and Hartson law firm, himself a mild Democrat it seems, "I must have had a thousand lunches with John, and I can't think of a single thing he's said that would specify his politics."

Sunday - 24 July - 9/11 Conspiracy/Coverup Conference all weekend: All weekend a group of extraordinarily committed activists, many coming from far and wide from L.A. to Montreal to New York, convened at American University to insist -- often with rather convincing arguments, books, videos, and websites -- that the official 9/11 story is bogus, that the WTC Towers along with Building #7 came down by 'controlled demolition' , that the Iraq war was a setup from the get-go, and that America is well along the path to not only being a police-state but a neo-fascist 'big lie' one as well.   The information, and especially some of the outside speakers, were quite something actually; but the organizers gave off far too many impressions and 'vibes' of being a kind of incestous nearly cult-like gathering even as they continually insisted they had to somehow find ways to break out and reach a far wider audience including the 'mainstream' (i.e. corporate) media -- not to mention that their numbers were pretty thin especially realizing they were right here in Washington DC and few other than maybe a hundred of their own at most were involved.

Friday - 22 July - One Congress person only:   Throughout the day today in the ornate illustrious surroundings of the Caucus Room of the Cannon House of Representatives room, family representatives of those killed at the WTC on 9/11 along with a sprinkling of former government officials and journalists gone rougue hammered away at the 'official government 9/11' and the what more and more does look like a coverup Commission the Bush/Cheney White House set up to investigate it. Remember now this is the Commission whom Henry Kissinger was first tapped to head-up; until he relized his financial dealings with arms makers and Middle East countries would have to be revealed and he quicklyed bowed out.   Though it lasted throughout the day from 9 to 5, and though serious doubts are now fairly widespread over just what really did happen on 9/11 and who know what before and did what after, only one lone brave Congress person was willing to even step into the Hearing Room today, Cynthia McKinney.   C-Span cameras were there and were supposed to broadcast the Hearing over the weekend. But for unknown reasons they did not do so, saying instead they were going to broadcast it 'sometime in August'.   That may or may not now happen, and even if it does it may or amy not be at an hour when many will be watching.    Oh yes...a rather good National Press Club Press Conference was held as well in connection with the day-long hearing. Good on speakers that is...not so good on getting their message out.

Monday - 18 July - Rushing Forward to the 'New World Order' in the midst of Rovegate and Iraqgate:   What has now spiralled into 'Rovegate', and what you read about first here a week before it began to dominate news coverage in Washington, is really about the Iraq War, creating and enforcing the 'New World Order', and the 'big lie' style of manipulating the governed which is what the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Neocon/Evangelical administration is really all about. Bush was always the front-man, Rove was always the domestic political brains, Cheney was always the internationalist imperial Strategist-in-Chief, the Neocons were always intimately linked to Ariel Sharon and the Israeli-Jewish Lobby, and the Evangelicals are off in their own world with thoughts of the rapture and 'Left Behind' coupled to the approach of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.   It is the most dangerous and volatile mix of fundamentalist religion, crusading ideological zealotry, pecular American Manifest Destiny mindset, and Israeli-dominated politics the U.S., and indeed the world, has ever known. And it is not over by a longshot; there is likely much worse yet to come -- they are just wanting for the excuse, they are just further provoking the 'terrorism' that will then become the ignition switch for what more those who hold power in Washington, and in Israel, have had in mind from the start.

Friday - 15 July 2005 - Rove Indictment?    Whether or not Karl Rove will be indicted is both a political and a legal matter. Politically it's actually about the climate of public opinion which is why all sides hvae been so much doing the TV-thing. The Special Counsel will be reluctant to proceed, even if he has a legal case, if the public climate is not supportive. But then of course it all depends on just how much firm evidence he actually has, just how much stone-walling and lying there

has been, whether or not there is the equivalent this go-around to the little blue semen-stained dress in a closet at Watergate that was almost Bill Clinton's undoing. Regardless of Rove of course the real issue is what's happening in Iraq, in other parts of the Middle East, and just how determined the hard-line Israeli-connected Bush/Cheney/Evangelical/Neocon regime is to pursuing their larger strategy of dominating and controlling the Middle East and world energy reserves through ongoing military force, CIA operations, and regime change strategies. Actually determination in itself is becoming less the issue as actual ability to do these things, both in actual force and in political support, becomes more difficult for the Bushies. And here of course is the intersection with the whole Rove matter as it drains further the credibility, support, and thus capabilities of those who control the power of what remains the world's only superpower..

Thursday - 14 July 2005 - Amazing Selfishness, Escalating Abuses, and more on 'The Lobby': When Homeland Security Secretary Michael Certoff spoke for 40 minutes yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Building about all kinds of 'security measures' the audience of some 500 Capitol Hill Staffers applauded only once. That was when Chertoff told them that as of next week they didn't need to stay in their airplane seats for the first and last 30 minutes of flights to/from Washington Reagan National Airport -- how amazingly, how pathetically, selfish and myopic of the Washington insiders to think only of themselves and only of such a minor consideration. At about the same time an unprecedented life sentence was dealt to a well-known Muslim intellectual and cleric not for anything he actually did, not for any secret conspiracy in which he was engaged, but for rather openly preaching to his following in Mosques that they as Muslims should leave the U.S. and go the Muslim countries being invaded and fight the invaders, which of course means fight the U.S. and its allies. And about the same time as these developments we now learn that many of the abuse and torture Abu Ghraib 'interrogation' techniques that caused so much condemnation last year and which the government claimed were 'not authorized' were in fact begun at Guantanamo and specifically authorized by none other than the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
And one not so noticed but rather symbolic Capitol Hill development. What is called the Israeli-Jewish lobby on the Hill is not just the well-known organizations. It includes a wide variety of operatives of which super lobbyist and Orthodox Jew, with a great many entanglements with 'the Lobby' and with Israel, Jack Abramoff, continues to be investigated, may be indicted, and two of his associates have in fact just fled the country. You guessed it, they are in Israel. Sam Hook and wife Shana Tesler both worked with Abramoff at the law firm, Greenberg Traurig. Hook served as the registered agent for Grassroots Interactive, a lobbying venture tied to Abramoff that has reportedly been subpoenaed by the Justice Department taskforce. Abramoff, by the way, is closely tied to none other than 'the Hammer', Representative Tom Delay from Texas, the Republican Majority Leader, and one of the most rabid right-wingers and total Israeli supporters in the Congress. Meanwhile, the two top AIPAC officials who were forced to resign a few months ago may yet be indicted, though intense legal and political manueverings are underway to prevent that and/or severely water down the charges. If indicted they would be the first senior 'Jewish Lobby' officials formally indicted in some way for spying for Israel, though there have been all kinds of prior investigations and backroom deals over the years.

Half of Americans now believe Bush purposefully lied to bring about the Iraq invasion/occupation.

57% believe the Iraq War was 'Not Worth It'. And 42% believe if the President lied about the war he should be impeached.

Wednesday - 13 July 2005 - White House 'Conspiracy' and 'Cover-Up' Behind Rove Stonewalling? "Hung up on a closeline and beaten like a dirty rug" -- that's CBS White House correspondent John Roberts last night reporting on what has happened for the past two days to the White House Press Secretary...being politically beaten black and blue with questions about Karl Rove's future, not just about his past. And old White House hand David Gergen

weights in this morning: "Let's not assume that anyone will go to prison over this..."   Indeed, considerable pressure is building on the investigative prosecutor to indict Rove for a national security felony; and thus pressure is building on the White House to first of all make up more stories to protect Rove and at the same time figure out some way to insolate everyone else in the White House. After all it's not likely Rove did what he did completely on his own. There was clearly a major effort to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson for daring to throw cold water on the Bush/Cheney/Neocon desire to invade Iraq regardless of he facts. To use language from the yesteryear Watergate days, "there is a.cancer on the Presidency" in view of Rove being the closest adviser to President Bush for years and now formally his Deputy Chief of Staff. It may be thought to be a treatable and non-lethal political cancer; but at this point the treatments do not seem to be working.
    Meanwhile, remember all the hubbub about John Bolton becoming U.N. Ambassador?   His stature and influence will be diminished, and his every move will be scrutinized as rarely before, but failing Senate confirmation Bush/Cheney will likely make Bolton a 'recess appointment' when Congress goes on summer break at the end of this month. By law Bolton can then serve until the end of next year when the current Congress ends. It's of course one more sign of the arrogance and intransigence of today's White House. Plus of course the Supreme Court battle(s) looms; not to mention much more bombing and bloodshed ahead in the engaged and enraged Middle East.

Tuesday - 12 July 2005 - Rove Firestorm As Washington Calculates Timing For Next 'New World Order' Strikes:       As the Bush/Evangelical/Neocon regime weakens in Washington; as the poll numbers drop, the bloodletting mounts, and the dollars evaporate; the pressures are growing, not lessening, for further strikes to enforce the 'New World Order'.   Nothing like more 'terrorism', more appeals to no-nothing patriotism, and more 'defending the homeland' jingoism to rally the people around the flag, no matter what the long-term costs, no matter how much social polarization and opposition.
Washington's current political/military domestic/international time-table goes something like this: Get one or two right-wing appointees within a few months onto the Supreme Court, get the Israelis out of little imprisoned Gaza giving the false impression of 'progress' in the 'Middle East Peace Process', claim to be fast-track training Iraqi regime troops so the Iraqis can be blamed themselves for not 'stabilizing' their country and/or for the escalating civil war; and then be ready to strike one way or another, whenever the timing and excuses are suitable, against the remaining 'evils'... Iran, North Korea, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas.
    Meanwhile, what's left in Washington of the serious 'political opposition' is looking for anything to weaken the Bush/Evangelical/Neocon regime pending the mid-term 2006 and then of course the 2008 election. That's pretty much the only agenda the lost and bumbling Democrats can manage these days. And this even

though weakening the Bushies may well push their calculations to concluding it's better to lash out and try to climb back on top rather than to risk go down whimpering without having finished the mission.
And that is where this whole political firestorm outlined in Salon today, and which you can scroll down and see I first told you was brewing here in Washington many days ago now, is all about.
Meanwhile, what a travesty! For about 8000 fanatical settlers who never should have been there in the first place the Israelis have come to town demanding STILL MORE billions! Jesus Christ! Can't somebody finally just tell them NO! It's considerably because of them the Middle East has become so political poisonous and full of such hatreds in the first place!

Monday - 11 July 2005 - Rove Squirming out of Prison, Miller Celebrating In: Finally in the past few days the legal and political predicament of Karl Rove and the Bush White House has begun to emerge a little further into the more 'mainstream' media, which now includes internet publications -- read this. But readers of BlogWashington read the following more than a week ago on 2 July:

Another reality which will soon, finally, be leaking out further in Washington because of the confidential sources investigation, is that it was non-other than White House Rasputin Karl Rove himself who outed former deep-cover CIA operative Valerie Plame.
But don't expect the powers that be in Washington to really do anything about Rove. And don't expect the NYTimes to do anything about Miller...or about how it allowed itself so easily to become a significant part of the Pentagon/Ahmed Chalabi/U.S. propaganda war machine.
If there were accountability and justice in today's Washington Karl Rove would be indicted, for what he did and which is about to come out, actually broke a law protective undercover CIA operatives, and Miller, rather than being promoted to cover the United Nations would be demoted or fired. But as this recent investigation of her concludes: "Why top management at an institution that is normally fierce about staff errors [that's the New York Times of course] continues to tolerate this is a continuing mystery.

     Similar when it comes to Judith Miller. So much of the often-misguided 'liberal media' has been touting her as a champion of press freedom when in fact she is one of the arch villains who has done so much to harm truthful journalism and is now using the 'confidential sources' ruse to change the subject. Finally at least someone writing in a 'mainstream, corporate' publication has done a little to "out" Miller; and who knows maybe the author was reading BlogWashington to get some tips which go back here to 2 July.   Amazingly the NYTimes was planning not only to look the other way about all of Miller's misdeeds and sordid associations. Before her temporary incarceration they were planning to foist her off on the United Nations!

Sunday - 10 July 2005 - Obcessed With Results, Not Causes, of 'Terrorism':   Official Washington is indeed quite obcessed with what has come to be, not with how it all came to be, and certainly not with contrition for the role past and present policies have played. Avoiding the crucial 'How' and 'Why' questions of course makes avoiding the blame game oh so easy. And so when Condi Rice went to the Middle East recently and actually admitted 'six decades' of wrong policies, she forgot to mention the result of those policies and to thus to take any of the responsibility for the results of those policies. Meanwhile, the Israelis in tandem with the Americans of course are busy undermining Tony Blair's newly publicly expressed theme that the Palestinian conflict is the original sin which has brought about much of the hatred that has so fueled Arab and Muslim rage; and the Pope of Rome is busy himself further fueling what has now titled into a modern-day crusade proclaiming how 'different' Islam is from Christianity and declaring that 'Islamic terrorism is really targeting Christianity."   Please do read the links to better understand.

Saturday - 9 July 2005 -   KARL ROVE - "WANTED FOR 'Treason & Perjury' - Endangering the life of a covert operative by leaking name to media sources and lying about it":   White House Political Architect Karl Rove is indeed the man.   Under investigation for some time now, having done it to get back at her husband for breaking

ranks and undermining the rationale for the Iraq War, it is now emerging legally that Rove was at the least one of the major sources for the felonious act of 'outing' a secret CIA agent, the wife of the man they wanted to get back at. Rove is already dissembling hard and fast and will try to say, through his attorney that is, that either Valerie Plame's name just came up when discussing why her husband had been tasked by the CIA to take on a special mission and/or that he really didn't 'knowingly' realize what he was doing...the statute involved making it necessary that he who did the deed needed to do so 'knowing' what he was doing.   The poster to the left has started appearing on the streets of Washington...taken down in many cases by unknowns but then also being put up by unknowns.

Friday - 8 July 2005 -   Bomb Iran and Syria former Secretary of State screams:
A former Reagan-era Secretary of State yesterday, on FOX News of course (the 5pm 'Big Story' program with John Gibson), screamed out for more and greater military strikes against America's enemies. He actually singled out by name for bombing Iran, Syria, and then poked hard at Saudi Arabia for supporting terrorism through their "Wahabi ideology" saying "'enough is enough already". "The Saudi Royal Family would not last 15 minutes if we withdrew our support" Lawrence Eagleburger blurted out in a live interview. Eagleberger, a close protege of Henry Kissinger and that group of old-time Neocons (before the term became so popular), is helping set the stage, as has Kissinger himself of late in rather crass terms, for what they may know is being prepared by the Bush Team for Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and any other regime that doesn't knuckle under to American-Israeli dictate. Bloody tough times, and maybe very serious war times, are ahead; much worse than so far in fact... Back to Iraq -- if you haven't read Arundhati Roy's "The Most Cowardly War in History" -- which you probably haven't if you are American as neither her articles nor she is very much welcome in the mass U.S. media these days...make sure you do!

Thursday - 7 July 2005 - London Explodes, Washington tenses further:
     The crisis that now has Western cities becoming police states -- New York, Madrid, London, Washington not only already having experienced mass casualities but constantly on guard and constantly expending great resources to try to prevent further attacks -- has deep causes that have been brewing for years. At the top of the list so much political and ideological poison has oozed out of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades now. The harsh military occupation of the Palestinians, the many millions of Palestinians refugees, the severe and still escalating torture and repression methods...all on top of such extensive CIA infiltrations and Pentagon bases now omnipresent throughout the Middle East region, are all part of the story. Add to this what is a kind of historical blowback from the Israeli-U.S.

invasion/occupation of Lebanon in 1982, the horrible situation in Chechnya, Israeli and U.S. assassinations of the leaders of the PLO and Hamas, plus all the combined bloodletting that has occured in Algeria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt.   This 'Clash of Civilizations' did not have to be.   There is so much historical responsibility and guilt to apportion, and at the top of the list sad to say are the policies that have been pursued by the U.S. and Israel for so many decades now.   Indeed, none other than the American Secretary of State admitted before an elite American University audience in Cairo just a few weeks ago that 'six decades' of U.S. policies have been misguided and wrong.   But Ms. Rice forgot to add that there are results from wrong policies, that appologies without acts of contrition and compensation are of little consequence, not to mention how much the current policies are understandably mistrusted and considered hypocritical and disingenuous by most Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East and throughout the world.
      As for Ms. Miller at the top of the news last night before the London story took over, consider that her 'act of civil-disobedience' may be more an act of protection and self-aggrandizement than anything else.   "You are right to send me to prison", she actually told the judge adding "I am not above the law". If she had agreed to any of the compromise ways to 'testify' before the Grand Jury, as did the TIME magazine reporter and quite a few other Washington press noteables, she would have to tell the whole truth or possibly face more severe perjury charges.   Now imagine what info she might really have in view of her own track-record, including 'confidential' connections that go from Chalabi, to the Israelis, to the Jewish Washington Neocons of which she is an honorary member. Indeed, her own sources and information may be quite separate from Karl Rove and the White House which others have already pointed to anyway. Beyond protecting herself from having to tell the truth and avoid perjury Judith Miller has now been catapulted into the limelight and is sure to get lots of more speaking engagements and book deals. For her spending a few months in the clink has so many pluses; telling what she really knows not so.
      This said about Miller, and in fact putting aside this particular case in total, the continuing escalating government pressures and legal entanglements being used against both those who try to tell the truth and report the truth in Washington, should be great cause for concern to all citizens. The two great checks against political abuse and corruption in our system of government are the courts and the media, the 'fourth estate'. What is happening is that both the courts and the media are finding themselves under continuing assault from the military-industrial complex and under continuing pressures to conform to those holding political power. Add to this the educational community as well.
      The result is that there is more and more fear among those who might in the public good come forward either in public, or through the media, to reveal what they know. And there are more and more roadblocks put in the way of those in a position to seriously and without pulling punches report what they find out. In result, and precisely what those with power desire, less and less serious and detailed information makes its way to the American public. The more secrecy there is, the more difficult it is to find out what is really going on, the more unaccountability there is for having and using power, the more the very system of government and the very social contract between governing class and governed is endangered.   Indeed, these are among the greatest of dangers in today's contemporary Washington.

Wednesday - 6 July 2005 - Rove Refusing Comment, 'Stonewalling', Miller goes to the lockup:
Facing calls to 'jail Rove' the top White House adviser is refusing all interviews and questions.   In Washington speak this is saying quite a lot; especially after sending his lawyer out over the 4th of July weekend to say his client was 'innocent'. Read More...   As for Judith Miller's imprisonment today there are many personal reasons she held out as she did and wants to project herself as a journalistic first-amendment martyr. Doing so is a great way to cover up her terribly, in fact outrageously, off base reporting that helped bring about the Iraq war. No single journalist, in no other single newspaper, was willingly and repeatedly used so successfully. No single journalist, in no other single newspaper, did more to hype the false stories about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi 'ties to terrorism'.   Miller should have been let go by the NYTimes when the Chalabi fiasco became undeniable; and she should have ostracized by her colleages. Instead she will sit for a few months in prison, gather material for a book, and get ready to hit the talk show circuit, a la Martha Stewart, when she emerges unscathed. For you can bet Ms. Miller will be treated gingerly during her few months of forced rest; not to mention compensated well by the Times and others upon her reemergence by the snowy season this year. Read More...

Tuesday - 5 July 2005 - Actor Robert Redford Says Bush is like Nixon and calls on media to seriously investigate and report:
     He was the big star in the ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN Movie that made the Watergate scandal and 'Deep Throat' famous.   Now he is saying quite loudly that President Bush is like President Nixon but that the press is not doing its crucial investigative job as it should. Robert Redford, who played Bob Woodward in the movie, chose Independence Day, the 4th of July, to make his comments. And it was The Sunday Times two Sunday's ago now that published the tale of "Britain's Deep Throat".

The Washington Times has been stirring up trouble with China for some time; and sure enough there are more in Washington now, many more, who are ready to push China into the enemy category. Just before the holiday break the House of Representatives passed an anti-Chinese resolution demanding the Bush Administration block Chinese acquisition of an American oil company, even though the Chinese

had bid fair and square and won -- the American way! Yesterday, on the 4th of July, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded uncharacteristically with its own demand: "We demand that the U.S. Congress correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues and stop interfering in the normal commercial exchanges between enterprises of the two countries." The China mini-storm, so far, is today's front-page lead headline story in the Washington Post -- go back to 27 June below, the first day of this new BlogWashington in fact, where this is seen coming.

Monday - 4 July 2005 - Less Freedoms, More 'Big Brother' Realities, on Independence Day 2005:
Tonight Washington practices it's first emergency evacuation, while Washingtonians awoke to a treatise on how to spend big money to out-terrorist the terrorists. Tis a most fitting day in Imperial Blockaded Washington to take a break from it all. But not before this interesting little exposee about how life and freedoms in the national capital have taken quite a hit in recent years. Remember...the days and weeks ahead are now likely to be far more politically explosive than tonight's short-lived fireworks on the heavily guarded Mall at 9:10pm. Oh yes, sponsoring tonight's patriotic extravaganza are non other than big arms-maker Lockeed-Martin and the U.S. Army -- 'Be All You Can Be'!
Oh yes as well...that 'nuclear option' on Capitol Hill it seems never really went away, that was all just media ranting allowing the Senate to retrench from explosion a few weeks ago. It's already back; and official Washington is awaiting -- even as the little White House Karl Rove felony matter simmers around it's own quite possible

nuclear escalation; even as a large number of Americans, 42% in fact, favor Impeaching the President for all the lying and deception that lead to the Iraq invasion/occupation.    So how fitting indeed that on Independence Day Washingtonians are contemplating fast evacuation on top of terrorism war-gaming.   For this is what the 'New World Order' has already come to at home with every policeman and secret service agent unable to celebrate the Fourth for having to guard it.

Sunday - 3 July 2005 - Expect major Political and Legal Fireworks To Start Exploding 5 July!:
      When the Founder of the country's largest newspaper, USA TODAY, takes on the cause of getting the country to withdraw from Iraq, maybe a tipping point is within reach. In the interview with Editor and Publisher a few days ago Al Neuharth recalled when CBS Anchorman Walter Cronkite turned against the Vietnam in 1968.   By noting that the difference today is that we have no Cronkite, Neuharth is also saying two further things. First that in an era of fragmented and omni-present media it's much harder than ever for anyone to focus the public's attention. Second that he is putting himself forward for the Cronkite roll this time, however many aspects of the situation are different today.
      Meanwhile the biggest political / legal fireworks of the Bush Pesidency is about to erupt in Washington right after the Fourth of July fireworks on the Mall.     The Democrats are gunning for no less than the President's top man, Karl Rove. It's partial pay-back for what was done to Bill Clinton. It's more about weakening the Bush Administration and holding the Evangelicals and Neocons in check hoping to scatter and depart them in both the mid-term and then the 2008 election.
      In the week ahead the journalist notes that both TIME Magazine and the NYTimes insisted they would not turn over to the grand jury investigating who in government leaked the name of a secret CIA agent will result in Karl Rove being personally fingered as the source. Rumors and speculation are one thing. Now there is about to be a legal-process 'smoking gun'.   Democrats are likely to demand a Special Prosecutor and they will push and push for Rove to resign and face the music. Of course the White House will dissemble and delay and resist.    Whether the Dems will hold tight is always in question; but with public opinion switching as it is they just might.
      One way the Bush White House will respond is that a few days later they will put up for the Supreme Court a 'qualified' but also a sound right-winger for the Supreme Court. They will in this way challenge the Democrats to fight hoping to at least deflect some of the media glare in Washington away from the Rove matter as well of course as away from the Iraq war and the economy.
     Blame the Neocons, the Christian Evangelicals, and the hard-line right-wing Jewish Zionists who all together now have thought they had Washington power finally in their hands to do as they wished.      A new time of blood-letting in Washington -- on top of the blood-letting in the foreign killing-fields -- is being brought on by their Iraq war on top of their zealotous ideological fervor and hubris. This political blood-letting in the capital of the United States is far less direct and visible than what the Americans have induced on the streets of the Middle East. But it is also extraordinarily damaging and threatening of the future of us all.

Saturday - 2 July 2005 - Neocons Judith Miller and Karl Rove:

   Neocon Reporter Judith Miller is loving it. All the deflecting attention about how she is protecting confidential sources as if she is some kind of first-amendment crusader.
     The actual realities are quite different. Miller, working with and through the hard-line Israeli-centric Washington Neocons quite willingly allowed herself to be used by one of the biggest hucksters of modern-times, Ahmed Chalabi, to continually front-page fearmonger in the complicitous NYTimes about the non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and 'terrorism connections'. She and her great but seriously compromised newspaper of record have never come clean about this; and probably never will.
      Another reality which will soon, finally, be leaking out further in Washington because of the confidential sources investigation, is that it was non-other than White House Rasputin Karl Rove himself who outed former deep-cover CIA operative Valerie Plame.
      But don't expect the powers that be in Washington to really do anything about Rove. And don't expect the NYTimes to do anything about Miller...or about how it allowed itself so easily to become a significant part of the Pentagon/Ahmed Chalabi/U.S. propaganda war machine.
      If there were accountability and justice in today's Washington Karl Rove would be indicted, for what he did and which is about to come out, actually broke a law protective undercover CIA operatives, and Miller, rather than being promoted to cover the United Nations would be demoted or fired.     But as this recent investigation of her concludes: "Why top management at an institution that is normally fierce about staff errors [that's the New York Times of course] continues to tolerate this is a continuing mystery."

And it's a little bit of a mystery as well that the author of this very insightful article, Russ Baker, and his U.N.-based 'international community' news organization, refuse to investigate the 'mystery' they claim to have uncovered. If they would it would take them in directions, and into subjects, it appears they prefer to not deal with. And that is, to be specific, Ms. Miller's long-time connections to various groups and personalities connected with the 'Israeli-jewish lobby' and how they have used her to plant stories, and she them to further her 'investigative' credentials, for quite some time. Furthermore, and helping a great deal to explain how the NYTimes has handled Ms. Miller, these are connections the NYTimes not only is aware of, but in many cases in many fudgeably and always carefully indirectly and deniable ways, it shares.

Friday - 1 July 2005 - Polls, Propaganda, and reflections on 'The Big Lie':

Those old enough to remember, or well-educated about the century past, will remember concepts like 'The Big Lie' and 'The Good German'. Had a few weather conditions been different, a few battles (like Midway and the Buldge) gone differently, as they very well could have, and the Germans may well have been victorious in World War II -- hard as that is for most Americans to grasp. With another American Independence Day looming in a few days, pondering history in an objective and serious way -- including pointing fingers at times in the mirror if and when deserved -- is something we might quite usefully do these days. Try this: From Germany to America. And then take a deep breadth and find out about the new big-time public opinion consultants hired by the White House to tell them how best to keep the lies and distortions about the wars taking place, and those to come, sufficiently 'popular' to be pursued without rebellion in the streets, or maybe more importantly for the Neocons in the upcoming mid-term election.

Thursday - 30 June 2005 - Bush Spoke Tuesday, then Wednesday GET IRAN escalated:

     Bush's latest speech was dishonest, deceitful, and down-right distasteful. There are so many people now that can't even bring themselves to listen to the man. In some ways the emphasis should be on 'Latest'.   In other ways, crucial ways, the emphasis needs to change as the Bush approach itself has morphed. This is especially the case because those in charge in Washington, call it the Neocon Cabal if you will, are not really looking back, they are looking ahead. These two very crucial things then have changed and are behind the 'latest' Bush speech:
   * A much more comprehensive and coordinated propaganda campaign is again underway.
   * Emphasis on 9/11 and the 'necessity' to act in advance of threats materializing is not really about Iraq at this point, it is really about shifting thinking to Iran and Syria in the Middle East, Israel's major enemies, and to North Korea not only for its own weapons but for its potential to help others opposed to the 'New World Order'.

Two very interesting articles about the latest Bush Speech and what it's really all about - both published yesterday, the day after the speech, are easily available. The first comes from Australia where the World Socialist organization downunder has a very active and outspoken organization; the second from Professor Juan Cole who has his own blog/commentary that is often of considerable interest.
But the real news today -- top of the TODAY show at 7am and many news programs, plus banner frontpage headline in the big bad Washington Times -- is not about the past and Iraq. Regime-change has already taken place there even if civil war and lack of the kind of control anticipated are the result. It's regime-change and/or confrontation with Iran that's now at issue. And Bush's speech was more about setting the stage for dealing with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, than about Iraq.

Wednesday - 29 June 2005 - Bush , Condi, Rummie, and the Generals all Now Speaketh:
Condi spoke a week ago behind the closed protection of 'The American University' in Cairo and a hand-picked audience, mostly of Americans of in fact. She dared not speak before a real Arab audience even though she was in the heart of the Arab world, her subject was the Arab world, and her admission was that six decades of past U.S. policies were all wrong in the Arab world. She said nothing of all the hatred, bloodshed, misery, and oppression caused and stimulated by all those years of such misguided policies, nothing of the

hatreds and desires for revenge created by those policies, nothing of how those very policies lead to some of the most brutal wars, revolutions, and dictatorships to ever envelop the Arab world, and surely nothing of how those policies were the crucible in which what we now known as 9/11 was born.

   The American President spoke last night behind the closed protection of Fort Bragg with an audience of selected military.   He dared not speak in public to the American public; he dares not attempt to give his address before a university or civic audience, not even one carefully filtered for all signs of opposition, of which there is considerable, more than ever in fact.
    Rumsfeld and the Generals have been out rather incessantly it seems on the talking head circuit, carefully manipulating all the free air time the networks make so abundantly available to them while rarely giving any quality time to any serious independent expert critics.
    The propaganda campaign has been considerable in recent weeks, Bush and the Neocons knowing they have a little p.r. problem they have to deal with as they prepare, according to General McCaffrey, to kill 'at least 20,000' more 'insurgents' and to enforce the demands of the 'New World Order' from Korea to Iran, from Damascus to Arabia.

The 'Total War' campaign inspired by Israel's minions and the Imperialist Neocon legions slugs forward at huge cost in blood and treasure and credibility. Future Secretary of States will one day have to say we were wrong again in the future; but then it may already be too late and even fewer will be willing to listen rather than tune-out in disgust or fight on in rebellion.

And as if that isn't enough the entire Editorial Page is taken up with one vilification and slander against Iran after another, nearly always totally out of historical context and perspective. First the lead editorial is "Misreading Iran's election" and that is followed by a glowing endorsement of Kenneth Timmerman's many down-with-Iran charges in his new book -- a major replay of all the pre-war slanders that came from Ahmed Chalabi, Judith Miller, V-P Cheney, and the leading Pentagon Neocons in the lead up to the Iraqi invasion.