Just Two Ways in Which the Bush Criminal Empire Is Ruining Our Country

First, there is this little matter of using the wife of someone who criticized one the administration's lies about why we should invade Iraq, that being that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger. That "someone" was Ambassador Joseph Wilson, once ambassador to Gabon and also a former acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War in 1991, whose actions won him high praise from then-president George H.W. Bush. Now that Karl Rove has been thoroughly fingered as the source for the outing of Wison's wife as a CIA agent (and fingering is going to seem quite pleasant compared to the prodding he'll get as this thing widens...and then there's prison life--ba-da-bum!), the White House spin is shifting to say that Rove did what he did only to discredit Wilson because Wilson was lying about who sent him to Niger and what he saw there.

The single largest charge against Wilson's credibility? That his wife recommended him for the mission. Given his background, it doesn't seem at all like the boss forcing you to take his ne'er-do-well son-in-law as your new supervisor, but that's the spin the White House and its whores keep making. They're intimating nepotism, but unfortunately for them, Wilson was possibly among the very best qualified people in the country for the mission. The White House just didn't like the results, because it directly contradicted their increasingly hysterical claims about Iraq's capabilities. Remember the "mushroom cloud" that Condie Rice and Chimpie kept saying would appear over us if we didn't invade?

So let's just weigh the credibility of these two men. Joseph Wilson is a lifetime public servant who put his own neck in harm's way on behalf of those in his charge, even showing up at a meeting with journalists in Iraq in 1991 wearing a noose around his neck. "If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own fucking rope," Wilson was reported to have said, staring down Hussein who had considered taking embassy personnel hostage. Wilson was also, as mentioned, ambassador to Gabon, and was familiar with the people, the culture, the politics, and the officials who were in a position to know something about their uranium supply and who might be in the market for it. He had also served as President Clinton's national security advisor on African affairs. He has had a stellar career, been honored by Republicans and Democrats alike, and has demonstrated courage under fire.

Then there is Karl Rove, fired by George H.W. Bush from his campaign in 1992 for leaking material to (surprise!) columnist Rovert Novak. He is known for his ruthless campaigns against Republican and Democratic opponents alike, the apotheosis of which was perhaps the smear campaign that took down John McCain in the South Carolina primary in 2000, after McCain had wiped the floor with Bush Jr. in New Hampshire. Rove's brilliance and "total war" approach in any campaign has proven quite successful for Bush Jr., who by any measure is a second-rate intellect wrapped in an adolescent's temperament. Given Rove's penchant for scorched-earth retaliation against opponents, no one expects Bush Jr. to be the one to put the brakes on.

So if Rove attacks Wilson on the basis that his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame recommended Wilson as envoy to Niger, given his extensive experience and service, how does that discredit Wilson? And since it is Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove (that's Chimpie's nickname for him) doing the leaking of these allegedly damning charges, why should anyone believe him, he who orchestrated the campaign that claimed that John McCain collaborated with his torturers at the Hanoi Hilton while he was a POW?

You make the call. Here's the the Los Angeles Times' Robert Sheer has to say about it:

In the end, though, what Rove's leak and Novak's column really exposed was the depravity of the administration's deliberate use of a false WMD threat and its willingness to go after anyone willing to tell the truth about it.

"Depravity" is exactly the right word.

So now we're in Iraq. And the upshot? The Army is stretching to the breaking point. According Chicago Tribune piece,

According to the RAND study, the strain on the Army is so great that combat units are spending one of every two years deployed on overseas battlefields, instead of one of every three years, as called for in troop deployment guidelines.

These frequent absences from the U.S. and the exposure to combat not only have a negative effect on recruiting but interfere with the Army's ability to train troops in new skills or have them available to deal with contingencies elsewhere.

So are we stronger or weaker now after this ill-conceived war? Are we safer or in more danger?

And this takes us back to the crime that Karl Rove has committed, which is only one of many that were committed in leading up to the greatest, and international crime, of illegal war. Rove tried to suppress through intimidation and denunciation any report that contradicted the desired intentions of the Bushits to invade Iraq.

And even if there are a few of you hanging on to this notion of "pre-emptive war" as legitimate, you might want to take a gander at the U.S. Army website which contains a report by a military historian and analyst.

America will likely be unsuccessful in the war against terrorists through military superiority alone. A doctrine of preemption without a substantial nonmilitary component may well place the United States in a strategic box similar to that of Dulles’s massive retaliation: undertake military operations on the scale of a national invasion or do nothing at all. In practice as much as in policy, America’s defense doctrine must include, as the National Security Strategy outlines, more sophisticated and nuanced diplomatic initiatives and humanitarian programs, efforts designed, in former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s words, “to reduce the underlying sources of terrorist motivation and recruitment.”

With our military stretched to, and beyond, its limits, what seems like the most prudent path? More invasions based on more lies to feed the grandiose and increasingly insane dreams of glory for deserter George "Chimpie in a Flight Suit" Bush?

Now the iron is hot. This administration must be taken down. Bust Rove, impeach Bush, and send the whole criminal gang to the cells they deserve, or to the gallows, if the International Criminal Court dictates that it be so. This is our country they're destroying. It's time to take it back.