Further to my last:

Comment on: Comments: Iraq Contractors Face Growing Parallel War - washingtonpost.com on 6/16/2007 9:26 AM

Of all the bad consequences of Bush's and Cheney's war in Iraq, the creation and funding of these mercenary forces is the scariest. They are an army for hire, available to whoever can pay the considerable freight. Let's see, who could afford to hire private armies? Ordinary citizens? Small businesses? Or would it be big corporations, especially transnationals, and other centers of concentrated capital? Or governemtns, say the government of what we used to consider our own country, who for any number of reasons, including legal reasons, needs to avoid the use of regular military forces? Can't send in the Marines because of treaty obligations or internal law or deep public opposition? Heck, secretly hire Blackwater to do the job. Do it through a third party created for the purpose to hide the source of the funds and of the mission, an 'agent for an undisclosed principal'. Need some folks 'whacked'? Hire a 'private security contractor.' Isn't this what mafiosi were to those paying protection money, 'private security contractors'? The very idea of the existence of these companies is scary, evidence of the total erosion of any notion of participatory democracy and of the rule of law. Thanks, Commander Guy. Thanks, Dick. Thanks, Rummmie. Thanks, Condoleeza. Thanks, Gonzo.

Comment on: Comments: Lisa de Moraes - Fade to Black Has 'Sopranos' Fans Seeing Red - washingtonpost.com on 6/12/2007 7:23 AM

Like everyone else, I was stunned when the screen went black and thought 'what a lousy ending.' I went to bed thinking Tony had won the mob war and life was going on as usual for him and his family. I woke up however thinking Tony and the whole family had been whacked, that the diner was full of assassins waiting for Meadow to show up so they could blow the whole famn damily away in revenge for the muffed hit on psuedo-Phil and his goomah and the real hit on Phil right in front of his wife and granddaughters. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Comment on: Comments: Robert D. Novak - Standing by the Wrong Guy - washingtonpost.com on 6/11/2007 8:15 AM

It is wishful thinking to think that Bush will dump Gonzales or that Gonzales will resign. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. They are like many other criminals who have committed serious crimes together. Each 'has the goods' on the other and knows where the bodies are buried. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave himself, his vice president, and his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of the "commander guy", he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself. The only likely defensive targets for him would be the Decider, Darth Cheney, and the political people in the White House. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If Gonzales does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee would not be a James Comey or Fitzgerald-type, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back 'Heckofajob Brownie" as his deputy AG to replace the hapless McNulty who is about to join the long line of dustbiters.

As for Libby, Bush probably doesn't have to worry about him blowing any secrets. Libby is rather like that Nixon miscreant G. Gordon Liddy, a real soldier. He won't be going public and embarassing Cheney or Bush, who will insure that Liddy, ah Libby that is, is very well taken care of when he emerges from federal prison. A cushy job in the defense industry or at the American Enterprise Institute or Hoover Institution or some other nice think tank awaits him Reminds me of George H. W. Bush telling us years ago, "Don't cry for me, Argentina." Ah, those Bushes and their way with words.

Comment on: Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq - washingtonpost.com on 6/8/2007 6:02 AM

I watched almost all of the hearing at which Gen. Lute testified and was surprised at both the candor and analyses of Gen. Lute and the lack of bloviating by the members of the panel. The only Republicans I saw participating in the hearing were Senator Warner who was, as usual, thoughtful and heartfelt in his comments and questions and Senator Sessions, who was similarly thoughtful. The other GOP members were noticable only by their absence, except for the troubling DINO Lieberman. IF, and it's a big if, Gen. Lute survives in his new White House position and is not regularly undercut by both Vice President Cheney and David Addington and the other Cheneyites in Cheney's alternate government and by his nominal boss, George W. Bush, maybe for the first time since 2003 we will get some straight talk out of the White House on Iraq and Afganistan. Both Gen. Lute and DOD Secretary Gates have been much more candid and realistic in their public assessements of our unenviable strategic and tactical positions in both Iraq and Afganistan than the President, the Vice President, Condoleeza Rice, Steve Hadley or Tony Snow(job). It makes me think that Gen. Lute won't last long as a public voice within the White House unless he beaten into submission by the White House's extensive deception machinery.

Comment on: David Ignatius - Solving 'Stovepipe America' - washingtonpost.com on 6/7/2007 7:14 AM

". . . or America will enter a period of cyclical decline"? Or? As an American who was born on the eve of the country's entry into the Second World War, it's pretty hard not to accept the fact that we are in the cyclical decline right now and still on the downslope. For the last half of the last century, this country was universally considered "the leader of the free world." To the extent that that is still true, it is only by dint of the overwhelming destructive power of our military establishment. Whatever moral leadership we retained at the end of the century, Messrs. Bush and Cheney squandered in Iraq. Maybe the next president will regain some of that moral leadership, but one would have to be quite an optimist to believe that the damage done by the current regime will be undone by the next regime. As Mark Anthony said of Caesar, "The evil men do lives after them." We'll be paying for our recklessness in Iraq, in more ways than one, long after I've departed this life. Domestically, our manufacturing strength has been decimated by globalization. In my city, the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere has had a devastating effect, especially in minority communities. The crime rates in certain neighborhoods reminds one of Baghdad or Beirut during the civil war. The loss of well-paying factory work has led to a sense of hopelessness that is manifested in all kinds of ways, all bad. We have moved from being the world's No. 1 creditor nation to being the world's No. 1 debtor nation. Our dependency on other nations for everything from manufactured goods to debt financing has put us in such a vulnerable position that we must maintain a military budget as large as the rest of the world's military budgets combined, or very nearly as large. Is it any wonder that so much of the world considers America the greatest threat to world peace? No, the news isn't all bad; there is still much to be grateful for about living in America but one would have to be wilfully blind not to recognize that the country is in a period of decline and vulnerability. Turning that situation around will require great leadership and willing followership. ASU President Crow is clearly correct about the seriousness of the problem of "stovepipe" thinking and institutional organization, but how likely is it that real change will occur in large private institutions. Look at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and the health care sector of the economy. As for the federal government, don't Katrina and Iraq say it all?