By Bill Gallagher
DETROIT -- A storm of anti-war protests and
sentiment is sweeping across the nation. Finally, reality and
truth are trumping President George W. Bush's lies. Even the
perpetual propaganda machine of the corporate media can no longer
manufacture consent for Bush's monstrously bad policies and
decisions.
A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping While
most Americans work and struggle with lower wages, a sputtering
economy and rising gas prices, Bush still basks in the Texas
sun in his long summer of content. He prefers isolation and
deliberate disconnection from the grim evidence of his wholesale
failures.
Cindy Sheehan has left the vigil outside Bush's ranch to care
for her ailing mother. But others are in her place, reminding
the world that Bush will never admit his responsibility for
the war in Iraq, its failure and the death of Sheehan's son
Casey and more than 1,800 other Americans.
The Busheviks consider Sheehan's witness to the tragedy of the
senseless war as an irritant, a PR problem that will fade in
time. They've used the usual suspects of right-wing indecency
-- Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity -- to do their
dirty work. Those who question the war must be silenced at best,
or at least discredited and vilified.
The war in Iraq is unwinnable and futile. We can never undo
Bush's madness in starting the war and his sheer incompetence
in not planning for its aftermath. Nor can we stop the insurgency,
the spawning of more terrorists and the instability U.S. military
presence has created simply by "staying the course."
No matter how and when we exit Iraq, more chaos and
bloodshed will follow. The country will fragment and Bush's
insane experiment in nation-building will prove a catastrophic
failure.
The reasonable move now is to cut our losses, save lives and
get the hell out of Iraq in a hurry. Polls show nearly 60 percent
of the American people now oppose the war and 63 percent want
the troops home by next year.
Bush and
his war council will never admit error or acknowledge miscalculations.
They will continue to send Americans and Iraqis to their deaths
as they desperately try to cobble together a political cover
plan they'll camouflage as a successful military mission.
Since no one named Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld or Rove will
die in Iraq, they figure they can continue the carnage until
about this time next summer, when they'll shift the focus to
Iran just in time for the mid-term elections.
Bogged
down in Iraq? Just create a new war with a new enemy and our
"war president" will use the occasion to keep the
GOP in control of both houses of Congress.
Iran, a charter member of the "axis of evil,"
is perfect for the enemy role. Iran is seeking to develop nuclear
materials for power plants, which could conceivably be used
for weapons. The Europeans are working diligently to forge a
diplomatic solution and get Iran to accept international inspections.
But Bush deplores diplomacy, preferring bullying rhetoric and
the threat of force. He horrified the Europeans in his recent
remarks about Iran, declaring "all options are
on the table" and saying that "we've
used force in the recent past to secure our country." Bush's
reckless rhetoric damages any hope that moderate Iranians will
have any influence at all.
But Karl Rove wants a new war to bolster Republican fortunes.
The president's "brain" would like
to concentrate on the next election, but Rove's spending much
of his time trying to avoid federal prison.
If there
is any justice left in our nation, Rove and Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff,
will soon be indicted on felony charges for their roles in leaking
the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
These scum should be charged with treason, but my best guess
is that they will face counts of obstruction of justice and
lying to FBI agents. The trial will expose the pervasive corruption
and ruthlessness of the Bush-Cheney gang, and spur talk of impeachment.
Sworn testimony
will show the Busheviks would do anything to protect the lies
that led to the war in Iraq. We can only hope the grand jury
will look deeply at the motives for outing Valerie Plame and
the central roles Bush and Cheney played in the scheme. They
should be named as unindicted co-conspirators.
Two prominent figures in the scandal merit far more public attention
than they have received so far. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and former attorney general John Ashcroft played critical
roles in the despicable plot, and the grand jury ought to be
reviewing all their actions.
Ashcroft
took a deep personal interest in the investigation of Rove,
his friend and one-time campaign consultant when he was a senator
from Missouri.
Murray Waas in the Village Voice details how Ashcroft at first
refused to recuse himself from the case involving a friend,
a clear conflict of interest, and how troubling that was to
professionals in the Justice Department. Then Ashcroft ordered
the FBI to brief him on an interview the agents had with Rove.
Waas reports investigators told Ashcroft they believed Rove
"withheld important information from them during that FBI
interview." That's dynamite stuff. A former senior
Justice Department official told Waas, "It would
have been a nightmare scenario if Ashcroft let something slip
to an aide or someone else they had in common with Rove ...
and then word got back to Rove or the White House what investigators
were saying about him."
Ashcroft waited five months before he finally recused himself
from the Rove investigation and the White House has never explained
what led to his abrupt departure.
Rep. John
Conyers of Michigan, the ranking minority member of the House
Judiciary Committee, has long argued there has been the "appearance
of impropriety" in Ashcroft's handling of the
investigation. Conyers wants a Justice Department investigation.
"The new information that Ashcroft had not only
refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also
was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating
his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach
that cries out for an immediate investigation by the department's
Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General,"
Conyers urged.
While Ashcroft may have been involved in the cover-up, Condoleezza
Rice's fingerprints are all over the plot to out Valerie Plame
to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who
exposed the hoax that Saddam Hussein was purchasing enriched
uranium from Niger.
Roger Morris, a former National Security Council senior staff
member, has done a masterful job of exposing Rice's treachery
in a report in "Counterpunch" magazine.
Morris argues Rice's "pivotal role"
in the scandal has been "missed entirely or deliberately"
as the media frenzy focuses on Rove and Libby.
Morris
provides an intricate timeline, detailing the events and showing
Rice's involvement.
"Rice,
by both commission and omission, was integral in perpetrating
the original fraud of Niger and then inevitably in the vengeful
betrayal of Plame's identity. None of that spilling of secrets
for crass political retribution could have gone on without her
knowledge and approval, and thus complicity," Morris
writes.
"Little of it could have happened without her participation,
if not as a leaker herself, at least with her direction and
with her scripting," Morris writes.
Rice's
glib one-liner, "We don't want the smoking gun
to be a mushroom cloud," scared the hell out of
people and became a major propaganda lie in the march to war.
Joe Wilson's expose exposed Rice as a liar.
When the time came to attempt to discredit Wilson for speaking
the truth, Rice was ready. "And when that moment
comes, she has the unique authority, and is in a position, to
do the deed. Motive, means, opportunity -- in the classic terms
of prosecution, Rice had them all," Morris writes.
Rice's lies were vital in taking our nation to war, resulting
in the death of Casey Sheehan and, tragically, countless more
to come. A recent "Time" magazine
article is entitled "Can Condi Rice Save Iraq?"
The quick answer is no, but you wouldn't know that reading the
nauseating, puff-piece profile of the secretary of state. We
learn about her exercise schedule, hairdos named for her, her
refusal to e-mail because it's impersonal, and what a wonderful
intellect and perfectionists she is.
We're informed
that Rice's most appealing qualities are "her optimism
and belief in the power of America ideals." Not
a word about the Plame affair and Rice's role.
Rice held an interview last week for reporters and an editor
of The New York Times. Again, no mention of her collusion in
peddling Plame's identity.
Will Rice
continue to dodge scrutiny?
Rice is
a professional sycophant and her public service has been disastrous,
but she's usually given a free pass or promotion, no matter
how badly she screws up. Roger Morris explains why.
"Her manifest failures in the fateful months before
9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National
Security Adviser -- the sheer incompetence and shallowness that
left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or
misunderstood -- should have been enough to have her run from
public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold
on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity
amid the chronic political cowardice of both Democrats and the
media," according to Morris.
With a record of failure, incompetence and treachery, what are
Condi Rice's future prospects? Why, of course, the Republicans
want her to become president.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara
Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News.
His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.
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