Three For Today ... The Selling of Iraq

As Bette Davis vamped in ''All About Eve', "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"

Despite Andy Card's warning, The Bush Grindhouse has launched, yet again, it's Selling of Iraq and there's going to a whole bevy of bumpy nights before this thing is settled.

• Did the Congress, during its' August vacation, find a backbone?
• With Rove gone, does the Bush Grindhouse Smear Machine continue to paint anyone who opposes giving The Commander Guy whatever he wants still work?
• How big a jingoistic spin with the long, greatly-awaited Petraeus Report (keeping in mind the recent revelation that it will be written by the Bush Grindhouse) be next month?

Holy Quagmire Batman, how will we ever win the “defining struggle of the 21st century?!”

It ain't looking good.

Two days before the Bush Puppet, Ayad Allawi, offered the latest Administration plan, under the guise of his own great vision for Iraq, Abu Aardvark offered an update on the failed Emergency Political Summit in Iraq, which gave a very bleak view of any hope of a political breakthrough that would send Iraq down that glorious road of Democracy.

"The failure of this emergency summit should be receiving serious attention because it pretty much guarantees that Iraq's political system will be mired in sectarian deadlock when September's showdown in Washington over Iraq policy commences."

Then, almost as a counterattack to the Allawi scheme, the New York Times, looking to build up it's anti-war Karma points, presented the OP-ED "The War As We Saw It", from seven U.S. Soldiers who have, or are, serving in Iraq.

More bleakness.

"To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched ..."

"What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side ..."

"At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably ..."

And then, rather remarkably, there was a sane suggestion, that, perhaps, will shine a spotlight on the Bush Grindhouse's marketing efforts.

Jeralyn Merritt, over on her great blog, 'TalkLeft", had the post "How to Present the Petraeus Report", detailing a proposal from conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt that asks the Bush Grindhouse to allow Golden Boy, General David Petraeus, and his sidekick, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, to be interviewed about the report by the "New Media".

This would include television, print and blogs, both liberal and conservative, pro-war and anti-war.

Quite likely, this suggestion came close to causing a short circuit in Dick Cheney's - he, the great prognosticator - new ticker.

They could count on some of the suggested participants to carry their flag, but not being able to control the questions ... Taking the chance of Petraeus or Crocker strolling off-message ...

Great idea but I think you could bet your deck of "Personality Identification Playing Cards" that the Bush Grindhouse will not endorse or go through with it.

Bonus Links

McClatchy Newspapers: Despite violence drop, officers see bleak future for Iraq

Glenn Greenwald: How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given?

Three For The Taking Today ... The Foreign Policy Brouhaha

Hmmm ... This may just have to become a regular feature to offer our faithful readers ....

It was one of those posts, that had a number of links that lead to other great posts, filling in and expanding the context, further showing what an utter disaster the Bush Grindhouse has visited upon our country, and the rest of the world.

We point you first to Glenn Greenwald's "The foreign policy community", illustrating how all the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds that have led us into the horrible invasion and occupation of Iraq, and who continue to sing the praises of it, are the same ones attempting to control the discussion on our future foreign policy.

Which, of course, touches on the live wire shooting off sparks from Senator Barak Obama's comments the past few days, as to how he would conduct U.S. Foreign Policy, and the War On Terrorism, that has been amplified in the past few Democrat Candidate debates.

Greenwald offers the link to a The Atlantic post that contains a memo from Samantha Power, the Founding Executive Director, Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, firmly standing behind Obama in her missive titled "Re: Conventional Washington versus the Change We Need" and Powers hits it out-of-the-park reaffirming the above-referenced disaster.

Greenwald then closes it out with an "Update", asking "Where was the Foreign Policy Community -- our establishment "scholars" -- when all of this was happening?", which leads to a great Digby post "The Banality Of Dick Cheney's Evil" and yet another sizzling indictment of the current foreign policy.

After reading these, you don't have get a brain cramp, wondering why an awful lot of people around the world don't like us very much.