cognitorex

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Worse than all the losses to America from the criminal incompetence of Kristol/Bush/Cheney etc was that they set out to enthrone Chalabi as the new Iraq leader. It turned out that he is thick as thieves with Iran and simply 'played' these guys. I mean, like, if their plan had come to fruition we would have been even worse off. It boggles the mind.

Labels: Bush, Cheney, criminal incompetence, William Kristol

Labels: bush cheney, criminal incompetence, foreign policy, legacy

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The story's told that once upon a time George Bush, Rummy and Darth Vader happened to visit a Mosque at evening prayers.
Rummy turns to Cheney and says, "Why does the President seem so happy?"
Cheney faintly lights up his malicious leer and says, "He thinks they're repeating ally, ..ally."

Labels: allah or ally, Bush, criminal incompetence, Iraq

If the public has hugely come on board that 'victory' in Iraq is ephemeral or bullshit as it were, then the Bush Propaganda Commissariat has rightly jettisoned the phrase for the new word 'success.'
That in itself is newsworthy.
GOP jettisons concept of victory.

Labels: Bush, criminal incompetence, Iraq victory comes a cropper

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By Bloomberg News
July 31, 2007

Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party said President Bush's plan to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and five other states in the Gulf is misguided and myopic.

Mr. Bush "is obviously gifted in the way that he always picks exactly the wrong approach in foreign policy and security matters," Hubertus Heil, general secretary of the Social Democrats, which is in coalition with Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats, told a news conference in Berlin yesterday. "It's short-sighted and irresponsible" to distribute weapons in the Gulf region.

Weapons of Messopotamia Destruction , WMD

Labels: Bush, criminal incompetence, faith based initiatives, foreign policy

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To be a brilliant lawyer, or a brilliant mind requires parsing nuances in an intricate web of logic, sort of like a chess player seeing several moves ahead.
I frankly don't think Gonzo has this kind of mind.
Also, if he ever did have abundant perspicacity, imagine the effect of spending years around the W' who eschews acutely competent aides and reduces complex planet consequential events to aw shucks and ayups.
Also, like Scooter, Gonzo has spent years now around the likes of W', Rove and Cheney where truth has been reduced to a discussion point anathematical by its nature to their causes. If these guys had consciences and knew when they were lying, they would all probably have developed spastic tics by now.
I'd say "God help them, they know not what they do" but then children would stare and shun me to see my ears twirl and hear low exorcistical moaning erupting from my viscera d' veritude.

Labels: criminal incompetence, gonzales, impeachment, Leahy, lying, Specter, subpoena

(A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?)

Labels: Bush, Catholic. Catholicism, criminal incompetence, inquisition, World Peace

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And there was the point in W's remarks last night to the Press where he said, "I asked the Military (Tommy Franks) if we had enough troops to do the job, including doing the job after we had defeated Saddam and the answer was yes."
His Father, the CIA, General Shinseki and Colin Powell told him the truth which he ignored or in the case of the General Shinseki, he fired as he rushed pell mell into the neocon nightmare.
Now he is reconstructing that he at least asked the right questions, that the debacle is not his fault. This is actually quite sad.
If he admits the truth that he, in conjunction with Cheney, Rumsfeld and many others, for reasons still not wholly understood, deliberately went against the advice of the majority of experts then he has to say, "I am to blame."
It is a hell of a choice.
He can admit the truth that his plan and planning was incompetent and made America less safe and less respected. He can admit the truth that he, as Commander in Chief, in the end, bears the ultimate responsibility for this horrendous misadventure.
Or he can cling to a concocted excuse that once upon a time, after he had dispensed with all contrarion voices, that he did ask a General "Do we have enough troops?"
The whole world knew prior to Bush Jr.s' elections that he had in his lifetime established no record of integrity, courage and character.
We should not expect him to display such ethical fortitude now.
It's sad for George W.. It's sad for his family. And it's sad for America and all Americans.
Craig Johnson

Labels: blame, Bush, criminal incompetence, Iraq

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The majority of Americans, both highly informed and barely informed, are now comfortable stating that George W. Bush is incompetent.
The politically active voters are fully aware that what once passed for a Bush strength, that he rarely changed course, has now been unveiled as the cornerstone of his incompetence.
Over and over again he and his crew have offered political slogans in lieu of reasoned action policies only to be dragged to ignoble defeat and capitulation to the forces of reason allied against him.
An image comes to mind for me. Ten pounds of propaganda in a five pound bag, our very own "blivet" presidency.

Labels: Bush, criminal incompetence, Iran, propaganda, stay the course

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I just spent two days in a Veterans Hospital. For the record, the care was AAA excellent. My roommate, who also has cardiac issues, was an Omaha Beach veteran.

I saw him watching FOX News, and my being of the ilk that I had just marched on the Pentagon, I approached him warily.

Imagine my joy and surprise when he said that the cartoonish GOP bag man Sean Hannity made his blood boil.

His summary of Bush and Iraq was resignedly profound and bespoke his witness of slaughter as a youth..

"I simply do not see how killing other humans ultimately benefits the human race. There has to be a better way", he said

My point here is that we need a peace plan for the Middle East. To match the complexity of the tribal, religious, cultural divide existing between Islam and secular and Christian capitalistic forces extant elsewhere the plan has to be a hundred year plan.

This plan would feature cultural exchanges, guest worker visas (both ways), peace corp initiatives, student exchanges, etc. to accommodate rapprochement. A hundred year plan to accomplish peaceful co-existence should be "the Mission."

Without a clear vision of what the U.S. and others want to accomplish in the Israel-to-Iran region, staying in Iraq and leaving Iraq are equal. Both moves have no merit for the future of global peace and community without such moves being taken in the context of a century's long plan for peace.

Labels: criminal incompetence, iraq war, Omaha Beach, peace, Swift Boat Veterans, vets against war

Among all of Dick Cheney's distasteful contorted facial expressions the one that was most chilling and evil, which I wish that I had not seen, was the leer he transmitted to a GOP faithful audience when he disclosed that AQ in Iraq now numbers fifteen thousand.
His leer fully transmitted that he used the propaganda lies, that AQ was connected to Iraq, to get our guns and oil companies into Iraq. It also transmitted the, to him, deliciously evil twist that the lie has now morphed into the truth.
That AQ is now several thousand strong in Iraq is a grotesque result of the pathetically naive Neocon misadventure. It's also a plank in their arguments that we need to stay.
"The dolts, (meaning the American public and the MSM), don't have a clue as to what evil we will employ to accomplish our goals," is what the leer beams to the mightiest of the Bush base.
...as the sunlight flickered on the cross in his lapel...

---Craig Johnson---
(photo source: The Future of Television)

Labels: benumbed citizenry, Cheney, criminal incompetence, depraved indifference, faith based initiatives, impeachment, Iraq, mercenaries, neocon cabal

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(Let's listen in on a White House conversation.)

Bush: Hey. Have you come up with that Czar guy yet?

Under qualified evangelical Lackey: We're having problems Mr. President. We inputted high profile names and created a values' friendly list of those that hate gays, family planning and abortions; then we cross referenced this list to those that would be willing to let the Rove propaganda section politically sloganize any major ideas or pronouncements they might have: then we tested the then remaining candidates as to could they swallow their most heartfelt opinions if those opinions might be in disagreement with yours, praise Jesus.

Bush: And? Who did y'all come up with?

Under qualified evangelical lackey: Harriet and Brownie top the list for those currently available. George T. was on it but he's now left the sanctuary. Alberto and Condi got top grades too, but well, they already work for you.

Bush: Well, can't you tweak the inputs a little to get more names? Did you hear that? I said, "Tweak the inputs a little." That's pretty savvy, isn't it. "Tweak the inputs." I like that. I'm not as isolated and uninformed as people think I am. Am I?

Labels: Bush Admin, criminal incompetence, czar, faith based initiatives, propaganda, war czar

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It is well documented that the State Department prepared a post Iraq invasion plan that pointed out the likelihood of Sunni on Shia civil strife/slaughter. And now George Tenet painfully divulges that the CIA had a written inteligence section outlining and warning of the likely sectarian carnage. These documents were either shelved and ignored or appended to the tail end of the rigged, or politically "fixed", intelligence that made the positive case for war; the positive case that the administration demanded.
The Military general staff was forbidden on pain of being fired from preparing a full G-4 or post-invasion plan which would with 100% certainty have warned of this civil slaughter danger. Political expediency demanded that our Marines, our Army and our Navy front line warriors be sent into battle unprepared.
There is a crime in this duplicitous action to send human targets into battle but hide the known consequences to meet political ends.
This action ended up causing thousands of deaths and injuries to purposefully unprepared U.S. troops. This crime is called 'Depraved Indifference.'
All mankind now knows that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld organized a propaganda network which cherry picked intelligence to deliberately deceive the American public. (That somebody from this large organized propaganda cabal, in this case Cheney's Chief of Staff, was eventually convicted of felonious behavior should not be surprising. But those who support a Scooter pardon should be made to publicly declare that they are in essence declaring that they support, then and now, the propaganda program that lied American and Iraqi citizens into this spiraling deathtrap called Iraq. But I digress.)
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld et al not only cherry picked false fear-based intelligence that led to this conflagration they also deliberately buried the the dangers that our troops would face.They put the troops in harms way.
Plenty of documentation exists that the neocon cabal purposely chose not to 'Support our Troops' by providing the normal and required prewar planning.
Had the political agenda of the neocon cabal been made subservient to proper war planning, thousands of our troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis would not now be dead or maimed.
This depraved indifference should have its day in court.
Craig Johnson

Labels: Bush Admin, cognito_rex, craig johnson, criminal incompetence, depraved indifference, impeachment, Iraq, Libby, propaganda, support the troops, war crimes

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Thinking about money, ethics, Bush and the GOP, maybe we're all missing an obvious point. Instead of instituting impeachment proceedings against our two top ranking incompetents why not offer them plutonium parachutes ( uhm, not the Russian kind).
It is no longer the American way for CEOs to quit for for reasons of moral, financial or leadership ineptitude.
In keeping with this, offer Bush and Cheney a billion dollars each to step down (and be prepared to go to two bil to close the deal: plus a hundred mil each for Alberto and each Cheney on the payroll.)
This is oligarchic morality.
Hold your nose. It's cheap at ten times the price!!

craig johnson

Labels: Bush Admin, ceo salaries, criminal incompetence, golden parachutes, impeachment

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It seemed odd that the three month extension was announced prior to briefing the troops. It also seemed odd that it had no political content attached to it. It made me wonder if Gates had his own agenda and was walking outside the politically lockstep Bush administration.

Now I learn that the extension, which highlights a broken military and more Bush/Cheney incompetence, was leaked before it could be tuned up in the GOP propaganda shop.

I absolutely love it. It makes me laugh.

The briefing to the troops should be,"Sorry guys that we have to increase the chance of your tired asses' dying by 25% on this rotation but we've screwed this occupation thing up from the beginning and well, we're sorry."

The result of the leak appears to be the odd victory for truth over the Soviet style propaganda apparatus pronouncement we have come to expect from 'reality central', i.e. the White House.

"It's all the fault of the people that are trying to bring you back home," they could have said.

Labels: Bush, criminal incompetence, extension, Iraq, tour extension

There is ample evidence that the INC of Chalabi and Habib (they who brought us "Curveball", nuclear evidence , etc,) duped the US into attacking their enemy, Saddam's Iraq.
Feith, et al, were of course so smart, as they circumvented our intelligence community, that they accepted misinformation from Iran, transmitted top secret plus information to Iran and paid out tens of millions of dollars as they were being played by Iran.
Under what I call "Rules of the Playground" it would serve Iran right if the egoistic fools they lured into Iraq now set their cannons on Iran.
The fact that this administration first decides what it wants to do and then sets out to collect only the data that supports that mission should scare the living crap out of Iran.

(background data below)

"Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says"
By Knut Royce, 5.22..04, Newsday

WASHINGTON — The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that for years Iran has used a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) to funnel disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi ...(and Habib who furnished false info to the US including "Curveball" and top secret plus info to Iran ) ....by furnishing through his Information Collection Program (ICP) information to provoke the United Sates into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source who was briefed on the conclusions of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Labels: criminal incompetence, Feith, Iran, Iraq/ foreign policy, Neocons

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"My guess is that ..the forces that we liberated by invading Iraq were so powerful and so uncontrollable that virtually nothing the United States might have done,...would have effectively prevented this (present) disintegration." (JOHN BURNS)

History of Planning: The Generals were forbade from writing a comprehensive post war plan under threat of being fired. The State Department's 15 Volume post-war plan and analysis was effectively trashed.

Since day one of the Iraq fiasco my mind frequently offers up what I call the "Einstein Exception." All time is relative.
Whether the mission in Iraq was to install a friendly government by force thusly cementing a US presence in hydrocarbon central or to vanquish a threatening regime it makes no difference. What makes a difference is that the amount of time available to plan a successful liberation was in no way constrained.
The speed at which the invasion was executed, which precluded comprehensive post-war planning, was itself the greatest element of incompetence.
I strongly argue that John Burns' argument is revisionist hogwash. It ignores major significant facts in evidence and is therefore, as a cogent argument, null and void.

(reference below to post war planning debate)

RUMSFELD FORBADE PLANS FOR POST WAR IRAQ.
Original news report, Daily Press, Virginia.
Paraphrased, General Scheid said that preparing a Phase 4 Plan as to handling the aftermath of defeating Saddam was not allowed, not even to be discussed on punishment of being "fired."A Phase 4 Plan would have tipped Congress and the public that Iraq would be or could be a very murderous multi-year extended engagement. Rhummy et al apparently considered that they could only tell the voters more palatable news that we would be warmly welcomed and that it would be a short engagement if no one planned for or was even allowed to outline the obvious and known probable downside contingencies.
The message, again paraphrased, was "Shinseki's honest estimate of troop needs and all normal post occupation planning are (to use a good fascist word) verboten. The lie that the Iraq mission will be easy, complete with flowers from the liberated, will be sold to the public and we do not want any negative scenario planning documents to see the light of day."
"The book "Assassin's Gate" tells the same story, i.e. that the State Department could not get a direct charge for preparing a post invasion plan and what was prepared by way of Phase 4 by the Army, de facto, never saw the light of day.
To summarize: the leadership of the United States prevented our entire Military and each and every one of our now dead or disabled troops the benefit of a normal, complete and required invasion plan in order that their hyped story for the public would not be subject to "smoking gun" evidence that they fully knew of the issues embodied in the maelstrom of post invasion Iraq.
Thousands of our troops and tens of thousand Iraqis are now dead in the service of deliberate and malicious lies. I can not remotely imagine the searing anger and bitterness a parent might feel if their child was now dead due to this act of calculated incompetence.

(Hat Tip Shaun Kikoshouse for Burns reference)

Labels: criminal incompetence, Iraq/ foreign policy, John Burns