Fait accompli

I saw a teaser for a set of shows on the Discovery channel tonight. It said that America was "preparing for the possibility of war". As much as I hate to admit it, the war in Iraq is a fait accompli. For while the rest of us are still preparing for the possibility of war, the Bush misadministration has been preparing for war. We have thousands of soldiers in place and ready to invade and nothing will bring them back until Bush has his wargasm. No development in Iraq can possibly stop them or change their minds. After months about going on and on about how we had to remove Saddam, and after the expense of amassing our invasion forces, Bush can't possibly back down now, no matter how sane or beneficial such a course would be. Now it is just a matter of when.

I've heard it mentioned that the people in charge of planning this little war of ours don't want to fight in the hot Iraqi summer, so you can see why the war rhetoric has been ramped up recently. They have to start this thing soon so they can be done by summertime. I'm guessing that Bush may be able to keep up his thinly veiled lust for blood and oil for another few weeks, but that by March the patina of acting like someone who even remotely cares what kinds of weapons Saddam has will be gone. "Enough talkin'!"

And then we will be off to the races in one of the most ill-conceived and reckless policy fiascoes in our history. "Gulf War II, This One's for Poppy". Even the Germans - the Germans! - don't want this war.

Right now the justification for invading is still way too thin. No proof of anything has been offered, and nobody, apart from Blair, supports our actions. But there will be a war, which means that they must be planning some massive PR event which will serve to paper over the holes in this idea long enough to get it going. Archduke Ferdinand is not around to assassinate, so who will it be? I'm guessing the CIA will off some of the UN weapons inspectors and blame it on Saddam. That would be pretty dramatic. Or maybe they will either stage or allow another spectacular terrorist attack, and plant an "I [heart] Saddam" T-shirt in the perpetrator's getaway car. Something like that has to happen, or else Bush is just really so arrogant that he thinks he can just bluster his way in as things stand now and damn the consequences.

This is what happens when we let our democracy get stolen. It is bad news for the entire world. Because of our position in the world today, we have a special responsibility to make sure that it doesn't happen again. But these guys will surely try.

Media Watch

Three very interesting developments at MWO lately: First, the good news that there has been a boycott of Rush Limbaugh, and it is meeting with some success. Go and join the boycott!! Second, Susan McDougal's book review in the NYT included false statements about Clinton's guilt in Whitewater. Third, Jeb Bush is cutting all funding to the Florida organization which is storing the ballots from the 2000 election, in the hopes that they go down Winston Smith's little memory hole and are never seen again. With the proof gone, they can spin the election theft any way they want to.

Thanks to Paul for this excellent article from Frank Rich. I have lots of these articles bookmarked - hopefully we'll have time to get to some more of them.

There is an excellent Top Ten Conservative Idiots this week and also a very good new This Modern World about oil and Iraq. (You may have to click through a couple pages of adds to get to it, but it is worth it).

Race Card Watch

You will find an excellent analysis of Affirmative Action here.

Dick Watch

Two items concerning Cheney's business while at Halliburton are here. Check this item and the one below it.