Stop The Spirit Of Zossen

Unveiling Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:17:59 -0500

Dear Readers, we are constantly trying to provide you with a better community experience. Towards that end, we have developed STSOZ 2.0, which will offer more multimedia, easier cross linking, use and one hopes more fun and stimulation.

It is located at Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0. Let us know what you think about it. Either leave a comment over there or here. One benefit of the new STSOZ is that valued members of the community can assume contributing editor roles more easily should they have an item they wish to share. We have a hardy band of enthusiasts and it would be nice to formalize our community a bit — or at least offer the opportunity.

Future posts will migrate to that platform. We will work hard to integrate the rich and frankly dazzingly creativity of readers (and critics) here there. Database migration presents a moment of extreme vulnerabilities to wreckers so we will proceed with some caution. Several times today we believed we lost the entirety of STSOZ 1.0 2005-2007 due to an errant click of a mouse.

Tomorrow, Fran Townshend et al. get taken to the woodshed over there.

Tags: Fran Townshend, Fool, Idiot, NIE Nonsense, Banging Ones Head On The Deak

Two Thoughtful Items

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:59:27 -0500

Our friend Global Paradigms has two items that offer intruiging insights into the geopolitical challenges facing both the United States and Israel. In “The Globalist,” GP writes:

The choice that Washington will face in the aftermath of Iraq is between continuing to strive for strategic dominance in a way that has ignited more opposition at home and resistance abroad � or working together with other powers to contain threats to the international system.

In that case, the United States will still be first among equals (or primus inter pares) � which is the next best thing to being Number One.

We are skeptical that the U.S., particularly its so-called policy-making elites, is prepared psychologically or even structurally to recognize the constraints already apparent before our eyes now. It would be a pleasant surprise. Our guess is that it will take a “shot across the bow” or an even more eggregious geopolitical setback to make the point. Perhaps Dick Lugar can take the Senate floor and quote David Brooks again. The over all analysis is excellent, as usual in the piece.

Not content to stand there, GP also supports and expands upon the position of those who describe Israel's current strategic woes as the unfortunate legacy of its alleged greatest strategic success, the 1967 War. Definitely worth a a read.

Tags: Global Paradigms, Leon Hadar, unipolar, multilateral, Israel, 1967 War

In Your Hometown, This Is Your Hometown . . .

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:01:51 -0500

Only twice before over the last century has 5 percent of the national income gone to families in the upper one-one-hundredth of a percent of the income distribution � currently, the almost 15,000 families with incomes of $9.5 million or more a year, according to an analysis of tax returns by the economists Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley and Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics.

Such concentration at the very top occurred in 1915 and 1916, as the Gilded Age was ending, and again briefly in the late 1920s, before the stock market crash. Now it is back, and Mr. Weill is prominent among the new titans. His net worth exceeds $1 billion, not counting the $500 million he says he has already given away, in the open-handed style of Andrew Carnegie and the other great philanthropists of the earlier age.

The scale of damage done to the foundational fabrics of our society and its possibilities as a stable, actually functioning liberal democracy is mindboggling. Particularly when combined with the destruction of a broad-based middle class in the last 7 years (obscured by the false economy of inflated housing 'equity'). The purposeful rollback of the 20th century (and as mentioned here often, 1789) is fuelled by a longstanding philosophy from the Continent and many American strands of the Movement. Most of them, except the Neocons, are ignorant of their historical roots and even larger political purpose — seeking only their immediate agendas.

And still we wonder who can rescue the Nation from this monsterous, mutational mockery of itself? And then summon the political will, fashion a concrete program, the cadre and infrastructure needed to retrieve this Nation from this grotesque state? We look, and we hope. And we find . . .

Tags: Guilded Age, Bush, Radical Conservatives

The Man Who Mistook His Third Wife For A Genocidal War*

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:16:14 -0500

When this regime took over, most of the senior personnel across the board came from either smokestack industrials such a Alcoa and paper (Paul O'Neill), Haliburton, Searle or from academia/policy wilderness. They missed having to confront the digital era and its impact on governments and States; recall “real men do nation states”, etc.

The first Clinton Administration was not too different. It had to learn the hard way. When Ira Magaziner and others first started looking at the Internet, etc. their response, too, was largely to approach from a State/FCC/regulatory stance. Circumstances forced learning. True, Sandy Berger, the trade lawyer turned national security mandarin, Dick Clarke, Cressey and others by 1999-2000 totally got the networked nature of the world (of which terrorist cells are only one phenomenon). We know this because we had dealings with the Clinton White House. But that knowledge was hard won. And not there inherently — although Clarke took to it with gusto — his energetic flacking of the digital 'Pearl Harbor' fears in the late 1990s bordered on the comical. It will be, however, a valid concern soon, though.

The smokestackers in their twilight still don't get the network concept. Despite their relentless use of the term and related concepts (cells, recruitment, etc.) and even invocations of real world examples. Anyone who understands network behavior (terrorist or otherwise) would know networks by their nature will reconstitute in a sanctuary. Especially given sufficient recruitment impetus — either proactive internal network outreach or a totally extraneous phenomenon such as the abortive U.S. campaign in Iraq.

Who didn't predict that Al Qaeda would take advantage of the Pakistani deal with the tribal chiefs? Who didn't warn that the U.S. kinetic instinct to kill individual men in Al Qaeda fails to realize 100 more will take their place if the ideology is not neutralized?

Americans still largely don't understand force of arms absent extermination can not defeat an ideology. The porn on the History and Military Channels, etc. remind us we defeated fascism and Mikado worship in Japan — although through near genocidal violence. So we are fighting an ideological enemy purely on kinetic grounds with a force too small to accomplish an eliminationist goal (however masked by AgitProp) and geopolitically allowing significant sanctuaries — Pakistan, Iran and Syria, etc.

Why is anyone suprised or indignant that the networks from these sanctuaries will seek our defeat? Of course the Quds Force will network with Shia to destroy and defeat American arms. After all, AEI and others were trying to arm and train the MEK against Iran, etc. Milt Beardon, when he is not hanging with DeNiro, might recall he was doing the same thing in Pakistan in the 1980s and even sent that “We Won!” fax when Gromov left Afghanistan. Of course, the tribal elements in Pakistan will tolerate Al Qaeda. In the ladder of abstraction, tribalism may (or may not) trump religion trumps national identity trumps profession trumps represenations made to Americans on the ground.

The defeat that looms before us is larger than most can anticipate.

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George Will was wrong (again) when he claimed that Zarqawi was the most successful terrorist besides Lenin. The Neocons and related Movement strands may have Zarqawi beat. Due to the Warlord's incompetence, we have a gut feeling, much like Chertoff, that they will get their “war of civilizations” eventually.

We are not worried if Eliot Abrams wants to drag Hezbollah into today's press conference via the Warlord, that's expected. The military reality is that the U.S. is a spent force. We can either continue to attrit ourselves into even more dull ineffectivenss or withdraw and begin reconstitution. And cover that military defeat with a strategic political and diplomatic effort. The bolt has been shot for the time being. Civilians and the Tweetysphere often talk of a “broken” Army and Reserve but do not truly understand what these words mean. And Barry McCaffery et al. do say these words but are quick to back track for fear of losing access and contracts. In our opinion, it will take some 8-10 years to rebuild the Force back to effective striking power with a viable strategic reserve — assuming a drawdown in 2008. It is a Human Capital issue as much as a procurement matter.

We also believe the Marine Corps and other wargaming looking at an Iranian campaign in 2015 timeframe should not be dismissed. A failed state in Iraq under Iranian domination fought by Sunni outside forces and perhaps a destablized Pakistan would command attention. It would be in the 2015-2020 time frame that U.S. forces would be reconstituted sufficiently should it be necessary to re-insert ourselves into the littoral once more. Until that time, the U.S largely is left with a Desert Fox multi-day air/naval strike campaign that would offer the Warlord's base and the Likudists pyrotechnics but not solve the immediate nucelar problem re Iran. And be the worst of all choices politically and strategically.

Such a war in the 2015-2020 timeframe will by necessity escalate into the 'war of civilizations' that the Movement, Neocons and Likudists all want. Because the American/Israeli military's refusal to concede they do not understand warfare in the 21st century, we can expect a continued reliance on the false promise of precision fire to deliver “Effects Based Operations”. In the logic of escalation and relying on “the Lessons of Iraq” (and as LeMay's own experience upon taking over the 21st Bomber Command) we should expect near genocidal violence akin to Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And note to Americans, it is not going to be all “over there”. Expect some of that American fondness for violence to land here for the first time as well in one fashion or one another.

Here's how our friend Newt recently wrote about it all:

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA — As I write you this week, I am concluding a fascinating and informative trip to Russia with the American Foreign Policy Council and my friend Herman Pirchner. Last week, I wrote to you from Moscow. This week, we concluded our tour in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Old Russian Empire.

One place we visited in St. Petersburg in particular has got me thinking about the threats we face as a country and as a civilization — and how our leaders and elites have yet to honestly face up to these threats. They are, in significant ways, deluding themselves — and endangering us in the process.

The Dead of the Siege of Leningrad

On Sunday, we visited the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, dedicated to the victims of the siege of Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was called at the time) during World War II. For nearly 900 days, from September 1941 until January 1944, the German Army surrounded and besieged the city. At least 641,000 people died and perhaps as many as a million — the vast majority of them civilians — mostly from starvation and disease. More than 500,000 of these victims are buried in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery.

Newt goes on to say that this is the kind of mass grave the Islamists want to make of America and that the Islamists are akin to Nazis. As usual, Newt is conflating a twentieth century State-on-State war of extermination with an insurgency within Islam itself — i.e., Newt does not understand that the West and the U.S. in particular are not the primary targets of the Islamists, but a means of overthrowing moderate, modernizing Muslim and pro-Western regimes. We are the battery that Al Qaeda relies upon to charge up its ideological capacitors and help them weaken their immediate Near Enemies, the House of Saud, Jordan, etc. In this, Newt and those like him are Al Qaeda's best fellow travellers.

(Newt also doesn't know or understand that the starvation of Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and all the major cities was part of the Wehrmacht's “Hunger Plan” (drawn up by General Thomas) and would have involved the murder of tens upon tens of millions of Russians, far exceeding the racial SS sonderkommando activities — i.e, there is no legitimate basis to claim a moral distinction between the Wehrmacht and the SS.

Note to readers: we too have stood before that grave and understand the scale of suffering in the Eastern campaign, except we stood there when GLCMs and Pershings were going into Europe in 1983 truly global nuclear extermination was on the table. He can be such an idiot).

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But this is what we suspect we may end up with if our strategic military withdrawal is not handled with exceptional skill and supplemented by agile and adept diplomatic engagment. A bungled withdrawal will not only fuel stab in the back legends here; the Warlord's incompetence may well be the final step that makes a return and escalation of violence almost a fait accompli. And Newt, Michael Scheuer et al. want the U.S. to be the one creating the mass graves in the Middle East.

So in this regard, the Stiftung differs from our friends who believe we may see irrational, precipitous U.S. military activity during the Warlord's remaining months. The chain of command goes from Dubya to Gates (not Cheney) on down. We would not be surprised should Gates have an understanding with “other” people ala Nixon's final agonies that should a covert presidential military order come down that he might tip them off. An overt campaign to build support for a strike on Iran in the next 18 months now given domestic U.S. politics strikes us as unrealistic.

Moreover, as mentioned, our read on Israeli psychology indicates that they are still digesting the failure of the 2006 campaign. Absent a true AgitProp and demonstrable provocation such as more kidnapping or missile strikes, we also think it unlikely they will seek to re-enter Lebanon in the near future. It will likely happen. Just not on the immediate horizon of the Warlord's tenure, in our opinion. But we are not ME experts, defer to those analysts who are more astute should they make the case this is in error. YMMV as they say.

Our gaze is on the 2015-2020 timeline. And we worry. A great deal.

__________
Apologies to the book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”

Tags: Iran, Iraq, War, Neocons, Israel, Likudists, Cheney, Hezbollah, strategic withdrawal

No Kidding

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:12:01 -0500

Calling Gerson, your whirlwind is on the way.

The Stiftung ran into this evening alone the Bete Noire of the Neocon imagination the past decade and a half. A true pleasure.

As we are fond of saying, van Creveld had it right from the beginning. Note that van Creveld even then, years ago, predicted a fighting American withdrawal down essentially shooting gallery narrow logistical arteries.

It needn't be a calamity, although we suspect it may well be such or close to it. Not only for American forces but for the region and the refugee crisis. Some from deliberate domestic bait-and-switch, some from incompetence, inertia and not a little from instinctive American reliance on kinetic solutions. Which leaves the Stiftung a bit despondent tonight.

The rubble of the 'Vulcans' will clutter the Movement/Republican symbiotic relationship for some time, but no one 'serious' as they are fond of saying, would entrust them again with with a PTA meeting, let alone national security affairs. (It would be amusing to see how they would insist that First Graders are required to understand Ze'ev Zabotinsky's 'steel bayonet' theories). The McCain Campaign's death spiral is all the more encouraging in that regard. (And we say that after where we were and who we were with the night of the South Carolina primary).

Yet even the verbose Biden et al. have yet to come to turns to the pragmatic consequences of withdrawal — whether in “stages” or whatever AgitProp term is used, or not. Half-assed going in is no excuse for half-assed now. That should have been another Dean Wormer quote.

Tags: Iraq, Neocons, Kagan, War, Cheney, Surge, Condi, Condi Rice

Learning From Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq?

Mon, 9 Jul 2007 10:07:30 -0500

That gerund is optimistic, naturally. If, perchance, you are a long time reader, you know our cant on the fractured, micro-channelled and above all, incoherent nature of the contemporary American mind. This diagnosis applies most accurately (and ironically) to the most regimented and hierarchical of our institutions, such as the DoD/industrial duality.

William Lind offers us still more incisive analysis on the fundamental failure of the American military to meet our current needs. Lind, correctly in our view, notes the excellent Israeli Winograd Commission's review of why Israel lost in Lebanon in 2006 applies (unsurprisingly) to the U.S. as well. The Commission excoriates the Israeli's fixation on technology as an end unto itself, while failing to understand that warfare has changed to what Lind et al. coined as “4th Generation”. Both the U.S. and Israel remain addicted to a flawed view that warfare remains putting fire on targets, hence the continued fixation on “precision fire”.

Lind quotes the Commission's pithy insight:

[The-IDF Chief of the General Staff] Halutz encouraged the civilian leaders to believe that Israel could launch a precision air and artillery offensive without getting dragged into a broad ground offensive. ... the failure of Halutz and the General Staff to appraise the enemy's abilities: correctly at the outbreak of the war stemmed not from incorrect intelligence or analysis, but from a willed denial of the limitations of the IDF's precision weapons.

So do we see OSD's dreams also buried in the sands of Anbar.

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As we noted recently, OSD and the military deliberately hide the true cost of “Operation Excellent Adventure” by obscure the staggering Force Replenishment bill for hardware destroyed or worn out through accelerated lifecyle useage. CNN ran a surprisingly good piece this weekend on this topic. The military take enormous efforts to hide destroyed and damaged Bradleys, Humvees, even M1s, helicopters, etc.

Replenishment is a separate cost item from next generation procurement price tags (based on stunningly expensive, over designed platforms designed to deliver precision fires). The Navy wants new carriers, a new destroyer and the troubled littoral combat ship. The Air Force is smart enough to make sure that the F-22s are prominently displayed in the pop culture imagination such as Transformers movies, etc. And the Army has the Future Combat System, and so on. Something has to give.

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We raise all this because the issue is about to leave ethereal academic discussion and plummet into the Tweetysphere (tm). Naturally, the fact that the U.S. will lose a war because the military itself no longer understands warfare will be obscured and ignored. Lind's initial arguments about 4G warfare, the precision fire ethos, even Rummy's transformation all still remain specialized, arcane debates. How many angels (Powerpoint slides?) on the head of a APFSDS 120mm round?

The Tweetysphere (tm), however, can comprehend spending, budgets, pork and jobs. Very soon, the U.S. for the first time must confront external resource restraints — we can not afford Force Replenishment and procurement of the next generation at the same time. Boys with toys naturally want the new stuff, so the Air Force for example retired the F-117 Stealth platform to make way for the F-22. But what we have been calling the scissors crisis — two tend lines in diamentrically opposite directions — will not go away.

Tags: RMA, Winograd Commission, Israeli, 4th Generation War, precision fire, procurement, replenishment, Iraq, Neocons, War

Still Not Understanding What Cheney Is And Represents

Thu, 5 Jul 2007 17:43:36 -0500

One's expecations for American political discourse are by necessity low. But after 7 years, it still surprises us a bit that even now, after all that has unfolded, how few realize the true nature, imperative and direction of the Cheney era.

Forget those silly WaPo articles about Cheney that everyone found so “revealing”. Talking to long departed second tier staff about vague generalities regarding peripheral events and minor details constitutes a new hot issue of “Tiger Beat” for the Tweety Class. Much like most American Sovietologists never really understood the Soviet Union at its most fundamental level. And believe me, if you have heard of a Sovietologist of any stature in the post-war era, the Stiftung likely has heard them out one way or another. Or argued them out.

Amerikanskie Chekisty

John Dziak, a Soviet and Soviet intelligence specialist over at DIA “back in the day” got it right in our opinion — far better than 90.9 percent of our American “specialists”. (Although the woefully wrong (and pompous) Stephen Cohen at Princeton at least got to play hanky panky with a young Katrina and ride the Ferrari so ya gotta give him something). The following is merely our intepretation of Dziak's thesis, so keep that in mind.

What John said in his publications and analysis of the Soviet Union and the KGB was to understand the Soviet Union, you had to understand the KGB. Walking that path, one upon careful study realizes that the Soviet Union first and foremost was the world's first and foremost “Counterintelligence State”. From its very inception until its death. This frame of mind, thinking, ideology, social organization and mobilization was far more important than the mere militarization of Soviet society.

A “Counterintelligence State” begins with the assumptions of enemies, penetration, subversion, threats to national survival and the elevation of resources to thwarting those hostile and malignant forces and suburdination of all else towards that end. Now, believe me, the Stiftung has sat down with world famous so-and-sos you've seen on television etc. and discussed all the other notions of Soviet Union policy motivation and “behavior” as extension of Great Russian Chauvanism, Marxist-Leninst World Revolution, and on and on — with all the alleged predictions of impact on Soviet policy if this happened or that happened. But in the end, without understanding the implications of Dziak's analaysis, all such analysis are in the end more or less wrong or merely foggy glimpses of the underlying phenomenon.

Finally, the Neocons do have a point about CIA dropping the ball. It hurts us to say this — and we naturally prefer a non-perfect CIA to a bunch of Likudist lunatics. But don't believe a word of what CIA, Gates , Mel Goodman, Cher Condi and everyone else says now about their understanding of the end of the Soviet Union.

NONE of them in 1985 understood Gorbachev and his impact, none of them understood the “official reforms” such as perestroika and glasnost' (how's that for a blast from the past?) and none of them understood what these policies would do to a Counterintelligence State. Which is to destroy it. (In all fairness, Gorbachev didn't either as far as that goes).

Let's just say the Stiftung has reason to have a good understanding what Gates et al. were saying as late as late July/ early August 1991 before the Soviet Union really collapsed. No surprise. No relation to what Gates claims now he said or in his memoirs. Believe me. Same for that twit Cher Condi.

Cheney, Addington, Scooter, et al. were in the end assembling an American Counterintelligence State. This is related to authoritarianism and needs it to succeed, hence the implict Schmittean ideology in much that came out of EOVP from 2001-2007. But it is far more. Vastly more than anything the blowhards on cable can comprehend or the fatuous reporting from the WaPo.

The GULAGs, secret prisons, suspension of habeus corpus, wiretaps, eviscerating FISA and the FISA Court, the unleashing of uncontrolled FBI powers and abusive NSLs, the fear, castrating Congress and the courts, these are all the components of — the necessary components — for literally re-creating the American version of a Counterintelligence State that Dziak diagnosed. You may laugh, but this is deadly serious and explains precisely why Cheney's people stamped TOP SECRET/SCI on Talking Points to be given to the press. And the proliferation of new “classes” of information “Sensitive but not Classified”, etc. The American CI Community and Threat Merchant Contractors have not had it this good EVER. And not surprisingly, the policies that emerged from this embryonic American Counterintelligence State also paralleled its predecessor. Not all the fault, dear Brutus, lies at AEI.

In a Counterintelligence State, the annointed few (however defined) elevate and use the intelligence and security organizations above traditional social entities and civil society. Rule of Law by necessity must be ignored. All is justified by the threat - whether of Western imperialism or alleged elite Albanian pizza delivery commandos ready to strike here. Ironically, however, by their very bellicose, furtive and aggressive nature, Counterintelligence States eventually will summon into place all the threats and more that they perceive — or at least facsimiles thereof.

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ONLY in our opinion if you understand this essential truism about EOVP, then will all else fall into place. This is another reason for my deep contempt for that blowhard Larry Wilkerson, the Benchpresser and General Jello, and all those think tanks and others that trot them out as great “catches” and fund raising icons. (As you may be tired of us repeating, Wilkerson looked the Stiftung in the eye and declared his confidence that “Cheney is not an ideological man ” ).

These Small Men of Process (who loom large in their self regard) deservedly and totally were outgunned by the Neocons. The Neocons at least were armed with an agenda and a philosophy (which everyone managed to ignore)-- both which always gives them the political initiative re the Small Men of Process. Even so, these Small Men of Process were shadowboxing against the lesser threat to them — none of them understood that the Neocons were merely one strand of the Movement, and a secondary one to the rising American Counterintelligence State.

The question still remains: even with Dubya and Cheney gone, who has the vision, will and capacity to clean house, shut down operational cells, purge first, second through fifth tier personnel - while rectifying our decaying international position.

Here's a hint: it won't be Wilkerson, General Jello, the Benchpresser or any of that crowd.

Tags: Cheney, Counterintelligence, Counterintelligence State, John Dziak, KGB, NSA wiretaps, Colin Powell, Larry Wilkerson, David Addington, GULAG, Soviet Union, Gorbachev, Bob Gates

Independence Day 2007 For You And Me

Tue, 3 Jul 2007 17:41:03 -0500

Tags: Scooter Libby, Cheney, Neocons, Iraq, Fitzgerald, Bush, Commute, Pardon, Obstrusction of Justice

Scooterus Sejanus Beneficium

Mon, 2 Jul 2007 19:46:40 -0500

Two interesting and intertwined stories collide. First, Lynne Olson, author of the feted “Troublesome Young Men”, the story of Churchill's wilderness years leading up to 1940 and immortality, spanks Bush, the Neocons and the whole Likudite effort to hijack Winston as their own revisionist mascost.

The WaPo is increasingly irrelevant as a journalistic force and even a useful local information source (witness Sunday's incredibly inane effort to promote their young hip Internet reporters against the WaPo rebel kids who left to found Politico.com. The WaPo scoop? People should use BCC instead of CC on Capitol Hill when sending mass emails. We almost sobbed at the temporary nadir, soon to be surpassed.)

But the Olson piece is a pleasant surprise. Read the whole thing as the ex-space-law power tool law firm associate-turned-blogger says. The Walter Reed stories and a few other glimmers at the WaPo, too — but so much empty banality.

Then, the Imperator of the White House grounds (and little else) bestows Scooter's Neocon-VC (and in this case not even politically postumously).

We were never a blog site that devled into the feral debates and arcana of the L'Affaire Wilson. The case against the WH et al. seemed clear to the Stiftung from the outset. We have always suspected from knowing Grover et al. that this WH ran an enemies list operation that would make Erlichman blush, and from outing Plame to selective IRS audits is how we know and suspect these guys roll.

Moreover, from the outset the details bored the Stiftung and were often wrong when reported. In truth, Firedoglake and the other usual suspects will serve you better, Dear Reader, if this issue is of concern. Those people, more than the traditional media, brought this story to the American people and deserve your readership. We could never match their expertise on the case even if we wanted to try.

We don't plan on avoiding it and may even come back to it from time to time. Speculating how this will affect November 2008 at this early juncture strikes the Stiftung as akin to a cable news producer's elation that another blondinka has gone missing or in jail so the network can fill air time. We have time to get to all that.

We do, however, hope Joe Wilson's Spirit Quest in the hills above Santa Fe prepared him for this and what is to come. He, after all, just received another 15 minutes of fame and should send a thank you card to the Warlord. A we said before, the universe does not only speak to us, it has a playful sense of humor when it is in the mood.

Your milege may vary, as they say. If you as a reader feel differently and want this blog to spend more time on the subject, please speak up. Though, candidly, what we could add that would be of any value on this compared to the Wilson specialist sites is not clear. We do read every comment and take each one to heart so don't hesitate to provide feedback.

Tags: Scooter Libby, Cheney, Neocons, Iraq, Fitzgerald, Bush, Commute, Pardon, Obstrusction of Justice

Be Not Deceived

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:50:46 -0500

It may look like this to the casual observer, but the damage to the Nation's very core is vast. Healing it will last long beyond the next presidency.

The Roberts' Court surprised the Stiftung in moving this fast, this early. Americans still don't understand the ideology that has been gloating at them through familiar institutions the past 7 years — their anger at Dubya and even Cheney is about perceived failures, not goals or vision. So how to explain the need for a thorough and complete purge to remove those planted into the apparat still devoted to the regime's goals? Who will even think even to mount a purge? Who would know how to do it, anyway, except the Movement itself? Does anyone really believe the feckless Democrats ever could be trusted not to screw it up beyond recognition anyway?

Nonetheless, there is some satisfaction that the Imperial Project is in a tailspin. The Movement's internal destruction has been far more successful than the Neocon strand's Home Depot International Imperial Dreams. If the Movement's various strands continue to gnaw on themselves that is a double plus good. They can even take solace together in the massive damage done to our institutitonal infrastructure and the global community while they nurse those grudges against hateful — but possibly temporary — Reality.

Tags: Cheney, Authoritarianism, extra constitutional, Addington, Carl Schmitt, unitary executive, contempt for democracy, anti enlightenment, Neocons, Imperial America, Hubris