BUCK DODGERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY:
by Hesiod

Okay. I've had it. Let's get something straight, shall we? The screw ups, miscalculations, lying, corruption. illegalities and all around bad decisions made by the Bush administration, particularly in foreign policy, are all President George W. Bush's fault Not his underlings. Not Condi Rice. Not Douglas Feith. Not Paul Wolfowitz. Not even Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney. They are HIS fault, and HIS fault alone. Not because "the buck stops" with the President. That's the "he's ultimately responsible," line of argument, which in the end is an inherent dodge of responsibility. Why? Because the President can take faux responsibility for the screw ups of his underlings, but still dodge true responsibility. No...the major bad decisions of the administration may have been authored by others, pushed by others, lied about by others or incompetently managed by others, but George W. Bush (make no mistake) authorized, approved and may have even instigated most if not ALL of them Look, at some point, the President of the United States has to make the ultimate decision to go to war. Not even the Vice President can do that for him. It's not a delegable duty. Even if Dick Cheney told our military commanders (we're going to war) they wouldn't have done jack shit without a Presidential go code.

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Apocalyspe Iraq

It's late, but I can't sleep. It's a little warm in here, and Apocalyspe Now Redux is on IFC. This mean its unedited and letterboxed. The resolution isn't as good as my monitor, but it's one of the things I have to buy on DVD. I've seen parts of the redited movie for months, but not in one shot. I've seen the original 10 times, five in theaters. The reason this comes to mind is Iraq. Things are far worse than i predicted. I haven't been following each turn in the erupting scandal because I still have to make sense of it. Something, wrong, horribly and awfully wrong is happening there and I don't mean in the platitude "war is evil" way.

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I couldn't agree more. As bad as I thought it could get, this is much worse. I guess I expected the Army to have some honor. What a mistake.

Zinni on What Went Wrong
Juan Cole

In the wake of Gen. Anthony Zinni's 60 Minutes appearance, it is worth looking in detail at his recent essay on what went wrong.

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Zinni doesn't mince words. Read it and weap. Read all the other posts by Juan Cole if you want to have a clue as to what is happening in Iraq.

Iraq Setbacks Change Mood in Washington
Lawmakers in both parties as well as some military leaders fear the occupation is heading for failure. Bush stands firm, but U.S. goals may be scaled back.

A series of Senate hearings last week showcased the growing fears of many foreign policy experts — a mood some described as "panic." "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure," retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We are looking into the abyss. We cannot start soon enough to begin the turnaround." "If the current situation persists, we will continue fighting one form of Iraqi insurgency after another — with too little legitimacy, too little will and too few resources," warned Larry Diamond, a former advisor to the U.S. occupation authority in Baghdad. "There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw: Quagmire."

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Did Somebody Say War?
by Bob Herbert

As for the Iraqis, they've been had. We're not going to foot the bill in any real sense for the reconstruction of Iraq, any more than we've been willing to foot the bill for a reconstruction of the public school system here at home. There's a reason why Ahmad Chalabi and the Bush crowd were so simpatico for so long. They all considered themselves masters of the con. They all thought that they could fool all of the people all of the time. There's a terrible sense of dread filtering across America at the moment and it's not simply because of the continuing fear of terrorism and the fact that the nation is at war. It's more frightening than that. It grows out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how to drive.

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