Traitors

It's about time we stopped ascribing good intentions to the team of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, and their closest fellow travelers. These scoundrels can talk all they want about how far they'll go to protect America, but not one of them ever put their body in harm's way, preferring AWOL and draft dodging. Their actions now make it clear, they are not helping America by torturing prisoners, wiretapping without independent judicial oversight or invading a country (soon possibly two) that had nothing to do with the clarion call of 9/11.

These are men who have given away to the wealthiest Americans the surplus left by a genuinely caring administration, and gone on to enrich their cronies with no-bid war contracts, further pillaging our nation's Treasury for the benefit only of their political machine. Like Boss Tweed in 1860's NYC, one can only pray it doesn't end in some sort of financial disaster as resulted from Tweed's endemic pilferage.

Just check out the latest news on the traitorous decision to lie America into the War in Iraq (as War on Iraq and War for Iraq are no longer operative, if they ever were):

There's more torture going on in Iraq now than under Saddam Hussein (one of those post-WMD arguments for going in). Per the U.K.'s Guardian:

"You have terrorist groups, you have the military, you have police, you have these militias. There are so many people who are actually abducted, seriously tortured and finally killed," said Mr Nowak, an Austrian law professor.

"It's not just torture by the government. There are much more brutal methods of torture you'll find by private militias."

It gets even more chilling:

Unami cited increasing evidence of violent torture, a growth in the numbers of death squads, and a rise in the honour killings of women and girls.

"Corpses appear regularly in and around Baghdad and other areas. Most bear signs of torture and appear to be victims of extrajudicial executions," said the report.

How about Iraq as some sort of central front excuse in the GWOT (Global War on Terror, per Bush Admin). According to a high-level U.S. intelligence report suppressed since April and only just released (The New York Times:

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled "“Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, "“Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,"” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,"” said one American intelligence official.

Okay, so treason is a strong word, say, a rightwing word for each and every liberal American. But unless one believes that America is and should be an oligarchy, does this sound like the stirring words of a patriot?:

BLITZER: Let'’s move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, –if not already a civil war. –We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see -- you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there'’s a strong will for democracy.

That's right, 2700 American military dead and, by some counts, over 150,000 Iraqi civilians and this is a comma?

Curse words come to mind. That, and impeachment, as fast as humanly possible. See the whole bit for yourself on Crooks & Liars. More nauseating that Jackass Number 2, and that involves horse semen cocktails. To be that smugly dismissive...means you really, really, don't give a shit about anybody but your own treasonous self.

Contrast with a real patriot, President Bill Clinton, who turns the tables on Fox's Chris Wallace and shows what a fighting Democrat looks like -- one who can not only stand up for himself and more against the entire GOP disinformation campaign, but clearly fought terrorism for real.

I'm sick of Bush, Cheney, Rice (then National Security Advisor) et al getting a pass on 9/11. If they had not downgraded the most important terrorism fighter in the U.S., Richard Clarke, if they had focused on the intelligence in front of them instead of planning from before the start of their first term to attack Iraq, if they weren't such pretend patriots, then maybe, just maybe, 9/11 would have been thwarted just as well as the Millenium Plot during Clinton's term.

But then again, without 9/11, they wouldn't have all this to run on.