Greasing America's slide

Anyone else out there gettin' these ominous feelings of déjà vu? I mean, Iran as another Iraq?

From last week's news, it's pretty obvious we're being prepped all over again. Bush & Blair's conspiracy which ramrodded us into war with Iraq was so successful, the administration is greasing us once more. From the strutting of our Secretary of State, the former "Chevron Oil Tanker Condoleezza Rice" of pre-Iraq war "mushroom clouds over America" fame, it must be that time of year again. In a dangerous testosterone rush, she declared, "there's not much to talk about" regarding Iran. Sound familiar?

If the position of Secretary of State demands a person of diplomacy, why didn't Bush appoint one with some? Answer: Because it's not America's place to seek solutions through delicate negotiation, compromise and treaty. No, under Bush treaties are for the weak. They are to be avoided and violated. Threats and intimidation are the job of Rice.

Bush's diplomacy comes from folks working in places like Alliant Tech Systems' munitions plant in Edina, Minnesota, and other citizens around the nation who earn a decent living and support their kids and families by manufacturing the tools of Bush's delicate art of diplomatic give-and-take that maim and kill other people's kids and families. They make the cluster bombs and depleted uranium tipped shells used to rip nations apart. With our tax dollars.

Never mind that it's the opinion of our National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte,that Iran has no nuclear weapons and has yet to obtain the material to produce them. You are being prepped for war. And if you're as scared as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld try to keep you, you probably can't wait.

In Bush's State of the Union, he directly addressed the people of Iran by calling them, “a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people”. (Bush should know, for he was also describing the state of his own nation.)

Bush went on, “Let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom.” Here, I think Iranians have seen enough images of "free Iraq" under the aegis of American empire to contain their ectasy.

"As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." (NOTE to Iranians: Translated means - "Holy shit! Be afraid, be very afraid!")

Somehow, having witnessed the Bush administration's modus operandi executed on Iraq, where Sadam did everything Bush wanted but prostrate himself before the Emperor and lick his boots, I have little optimism there's anything Iran can do to avoid Bush's ominous upcoming "diplomatic" efforts.

Also add Rumsfeld's adamant assertion on the state of the U.S. military's strength last week. The example he chose to cite was the way they just marched into and took over Afghanistan and Iraq with no resistance. That was three years ago. And looking at those two nations, I wouldn't exactly call 'em conquered.

Today's military is stretched far beyond its capabilities, can't meet recruitment numbers, causing Rummy to impose a "stop loss" policy denying 50,000 armed forces members their rightful discharges if they so choose. (Gotta just love your American freedom, right troops?) While Rumsfeld may see the cup as half full, it looks three quarters empty to me.

But Rumsfeld's reassurances as to our military preparedness should give us deep insight into his pathological delusions. Greasing Americans for our next war, he's called the Iranian regime the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism. (A title I mistakenly thought the U.S. claimed.) But I'm just wondering how many unfinished wars Rumsfeld thinks we can have ongoing with a military stretched to its breaking point?

Whatever Saddam Hussein was, he wasn't an extremist zealot on the fanatical fringe of dysfunctional human logic like our current megalomaniacal leaders are. And the difference with our upcoming "diplomatic give-and-take negotiations" with Iran will likely turn out radically different than our "cake-walk" over Iraq.

Iran has the benefit of Iraq's experience. From it, they've learned how not to negotiate with Bush. They'll not likely wait for Bush and his this-time-ally, Israel, to steamroll "liberty and democracy" over them like Saddam did. Iran has its own zealous extremist leadership. Bush may find "diplomacy" more challenging with Iran, with the results far less satisfying than the Iraq ecstasy he, Cheney, and their defense minister, Rumsfeld, are now drowning the nation in.

Well, after yesterday's yawner--The Super Bowl--I felt so sedate I decided to call it a night. Cozying into bed early, I discovered I couldn't find my Eleanor H. Porter copy of Pollyanna. No problem. I'd read an article or two I'd downloaded from the web onto my e-book. Unfortunately, the last thing I read was by William S. Lind entitled "The Next Act".

Never being into war gaming, I'm not much for strategies and possible outcomes after their employment, but peeking into the future of possibilities has always been fun to contemplate. This is what Lind delineates in his article. Of what could happen next in our latest lust for war. Of our over-extended, undermanned military in Iraq. Of an antsy Iran anxious to confront its seemingly unavoidable fate. Of Syria, feeling very much the next in line for the Bush regime's delicate diplomacies.

"Beware the Ides of March!" Lind concludes. The possibilities "could give us a whole different situation, one in which our current slow defeat would accelerate sharply." It was an easy leap from this flashpoint of events to imagine World War III. Suddenly, I wasn't sleepy anymore, thinking of old men like Cheney and Rumsfeld with their reckless little fingers on the fate of the world.

I wish I could be more accepting of current conditions like many Americans. But then I remember the admonishments of Paul Craig Roberts in my recent blog, It's What Americans Want, that "half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information." That "America has become a rogue nation, lying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris." That a "terrible catastrophe awaits."

Well, despite the increasing number of ill portents out there, there's some comfort in knowing others share in my nightmares, unlike the other half of America living in, what to me is, blissful ignorance. One of whom, no doubt, probably has my missing copy of Eleanor H. Porter's Polyanna.