Riverbend rocks!

My favorite Iraqi blogger, a young woman whom I've often cited, is a nominee for an important nonfiction award for her blog, Baghdad Burning.

I'm not alone in being confused about what's being reported in Iraq

My preferred expert, Professor Juan Cole, is too.

Who's on first?

Here's BBC's report of some of today's attacks in Iraq. It lists several players: "insurgents," "the Medhi Army," "armed militias," "Iraqi military," "Iraqi police," "Sunnis at prayer", the "US Army", and of course the ubiquitous "innocent bystanders," who likely comprised most of the dead. Can you figure out what happened?

The problem with being a blogger/writer

is that you're expected by others--certainly you expect yourself--to come up with a word to describe the type of person who would do this. Trouble is, like concepts such as infinity and eternity, the human mind cannot conceive of it.

Veep visits

From Metaphor we learn of the list of requirements for any hotel suite that Cheney chooses to stay at during "downtime" when he's traveling. Check it out; and don't forget to flood Cheney's Advance Office with phonecalls as faxes, now that you have their numbers.

How to measure "civil war"

Buried in this ABC News article is this paragraph from yesterday:

South of the capital, 40 people were killed or wounded in a big gunbattle near Mahmoudiya, police said. Police said gunmen of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia were fighting insurgent forces, which are primarily Sunni Muslim.

Now, I'm no genius, but it seems that if a "militia" of one religious sect is engaging in a "big gunbattle" with rebels from another religious sect that sounds like a "civil war" is happening. So, I checked my favorite online source, Wikipedia, to see how "civil war" is defined:

A civil war is a war in which parties within the same country or empire struggle for national control of state power. As in any war, the conflict may be over other matters such as religion, ethnicity, or distribution of wealth. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles. Other historians state the criteria for a civil war is that there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not). In simple terms, a Civil War is a war in which a country fights another part of itself.

By my reckoning, the fracas in Iraq is walking pretty malardasquely.

The career of the future in America? Divorce lawyer

This article digests an authoritative essay in Foreign Affairs, the salient point of which is that in the near future there will be a huge "sucking" sound as service jobs leave the US, just as manufacturing jobs are. Globalization and electronics are already seeing the loss of phone-bank jobs and such services as computer tech assistants. In the future, the author says, the only jobs that won't be readily out-sourceable will be crane operators, janitors and--maybe--divorce lawyers. (Contract lawyers will of course be outsourced since there's no personal attention to the client.)

A thrilling prospect for college grads: janitor or divorce lawyer. You'll never guess which I'd chose.

Permanent bases continued

I told you a few days ago that I'd keep you posted on the status of permanent military bases in Iraq. Here's the latest.

Anybody want to join me in an income-tax-refusal protest?

For those of you who don't think war is hell...

check out this story about a particularly effective insurgent. And scroll on down the article for enlightenment about the struggle over the city of Kirkuk, and why, among other reasons, the chances of a "unity government" are truly chancey.

Body counting

Here's an article that places the number of dead and wounded American soldiers in perspective: The number of deaths has lately fallen but the number of woundeds has commensurately increased. One additional factor that I read somewhere but can't now find is this: Because this is a desert war--with less risk of infection and similar hazards of a moist environment--and because we control the theater, allowing us to remove wounded soldiers swiftly from battle to treatment facilities, the ratio of deaths to woundeds is quite low. In earlier wars our present total of 19,588 Iraq casualties (17,269 wounded, 2319 dead) would read more like 6,000 dead and 13,000 wounded. It's good news, except that it means a much greater number of severely maimed survivors who will require a lifetime of medical attention.

Me--a Dixie Chick fan?

You betcha. (If the lyrics don't inform you whazzup with the song, click onto the album site which explains it.)

News coverage of Iraq

Bush/Cheney and their camp followers complain that the news coverage of Iraq slants toward the car-bombings and the battles with insurgents instead of toward the positives in the country: building of schools, digging of sewer lines, whatever. Well, Bush/Cheney, you "gotta understand", you folks have conditioned us Americans to react to dramatic events, you've indeed created a political base upon such a culture of fear and destruction, that you surely can't complain that that same culture drives the media in its war coverage. After all, you're the ones who started Shock&Awe, who placed reporters in the tanks of our Army, who reveled in the filming of the toppling of Saddam's statue. Why now, when the war drags on, do you fail to understand that Americans love that stuff--the gore and violence--more than some bricklayer's tale of constructing a school?

Besides, it's gore and terror that the MSM--your best buddies--cover daily here in the US. Are you saying that the MSM should do differently in Iraq? We never learn of a new turnoff being constructed on highway 101--certainly not by TV coverage--so why should the US public be interested in such construction in Iraq? Borrrrring.

He who lives by Shock&Awe shall, hopefully, perish by it.

Postscript--Herewith is the text of a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that tracks the foregoing and that might, maybe, get published since it meets the 250-word limit of the paper and is, of course, brilliant.

Bush/Cheney/Rummie,

You complain that news from Iraq is slanted toward the negative—the deaths, the violence—resulting from US occupation: car-bombings, kidnappings, insurgent attacks. You complain that sufficient coverage isn’t given to “positives”: reconstruction of schools, sewers, bridges. Well, fellas, let me tell you why this is.



First, the “positives” aren’t very positive. Most projects consist of our rebuilding—at outlandish cost—infrastructure that your invasion demolished. Second, many aren’t proceeding, because the cost of keeping rebuilders from being killed has swallowed the money.



Third—the fundamental reason the reporting focuses on violence—is because the Americans who constitute your political base relish it. They don’t tune in to watch road-building and dam-building. They want drama: violence, that’s their fare. Telecasts of government projects? Borrrring. And fellas, you’re no dummies, you know the culture of your base. Indeed, for five years you’ve exploited it. Bigtime.



You trumpeted the horror of 9-11 to justify the invasion of Iraq. You invented “Shock & Awe” to market the bombing of Baghdad and reveled in its coverage. You embedded reporters with our troops to convey the blood-rush of war. You purveyed photos of Saddam’s sons’ corpses and of Saddam’s humiliation. You touted these images and they served you well. Indeed, they’ve kept you in power.



But now, fellas, your time’s up. The marketing of violence you’ve used to support your political position will now, let’s hope, bring an end to the occupation and, let’s further hope, your tenure.

A bad rap

Senator Feingold's censure-Bush resolution has been relegated to the MSM loony-bin, and certainly hasn't become the focus of many other Democrats' urgings. But check out this Newsweek poll on the subject. (Scroll down to the second question in the Newsweek poll): forty-two percent support censure against fifty who oppose it. And that's without meaningful hearings about the wiretapping. Recall, only the author of the wiretaps, Attorney General Gonzales, has ever testified about it--and he said nothing about its breadth or details, simply mouthing its legality. Pat Roberts, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who's in Bush's pocket, wants to bury the wiretap issue with some soft "advise-the-Congress" legislation; and so the public's right to know now depends on Republican Senator Arlan Specter, who has said he's unpersuaded about the programs' legality and wants to know more. He has the power, through the Senate Judiciary Committee, to call for hearings and a full-scale investigation of the program.

We can only hope that Specter sticks to his guns, because if so the American public will come to understand that this is a vast, ongoing intrusion into our communications, all done without judicial protection, and Feingold's resolution won't look quite so wacky after all. Maybe even some of the hang-back-until-it's-safe-to-jump Democrats (I'm talking about Hillary Clinton and her ilk here) will jump on board, and maybe, just maybe, in the next Congress we'll get the resolution passed. Sometime, somebody's gotta slap the chimp's face. Just once, to see if he can handle it.

I'm awaiting my Time magazine

for a detailed account of this massacre by our Marines, but here's a sketch, apparently supported by a videotape of the dead Iraqi victims, including a three year old child.

I might add that in addition to this atrocity from November 2005, there's apparently a more recent one, from the last day or so, that I will link to when I'm able to find the account of it on the Internet.

Here it is.

In a nutshell

Here's whazzup with Iran in the fewest possible words.

A story worth following

The House passed the huge military appropriations bill last week with a significant amendment, sponsored by the few "good guys" in that body, an amendment barring the use of appropriated funds for establishment of permanent US bases in Iraq. There was hardly a mention of the amendment in the MSM, even though it passed unanimously, and was a rare victory for California Congressperson Barbara Lee, an American heroine. (I didn't catch the news of the passage of the amendment, that's how under-reported it was.)

But of course it's not over. The bill still must go to the House/Senate conference committee, where Republicans rule, and which is supposed to "iron out" differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, but which can often result in significant alteration of, addition to, and subtraction from, legislation. Let's keep an eye on the fate of Barbara Lee's amendment, shall we? Given the state of public opinion about the Iraq war, it's not going to be easy for the Republicans to delete the amendment in committee.

Am I nuts?

I managed (without gagging) to watch a bit of Bush's speech and Q&A session in Cleveland earlier today. Here is AP's report of the event, so sketchy and silly as to be worthless. True, Bush said very little new (although his demeanor was remarkably glib, given the seriousness of the questions he was asked by a not-entirely-friendly audience, for once). But I picked up on one item that astounded me. He said--without equivocation, without hesitation--that the US would use its "military might" to protect Israel from Iran. Now I don't know about you, but I was unaware of any treaty under which the US is bound to do so, and even if so, any such action would have to be authorized by Congress, not by the unilateral decision by the executive. Maybe I missed something, but does Bush really think he has the constitutional, or Congressionally authorized, power to make war on Iran to protect Israel?

I'm going to await the blogosphere's reaction to Bush's statement, because there's been no reaction to it yet--five hours later--by the MSM that I can find.

deja vu

Check out this article from the NYT about the importance of the high turnout in the democratic elections in showing the viability of the new government, with many quotes about how effective it will be in overcoming the insurgency. Date: 1967. The country: South Viet Nam.

Hurray for CBS

Well, whaddya know. 60 Minutes just aired a powerful segment, excerpted here, about the Bush administration's censorship of global-warming science. The witness was none other that a NASA scientist whose credentials were impeccable, and showed the actual interlineations and deletions of his reports, handwritten by "a lawyer, a politician" in the White House, who had been an oil industry lobbyist before joining the White House staff.

At the end of the segment, the reporter said the White House had refused to comment on the segment, and the "lawyer-politician" was no longer in the White House, having left the administration a year before to be hired by Exxon-Mobil. Good stuff.

The "I" word

You see, I'm not nuts. I've been shouting and displaying a sign demanding impeachment of Bush/Cheney for many months--perhaps years--my thinking being that if that word is uttered enough times it will eventually become part of the public discourse. It's a tactic long used used by the Right, perfected by the Bush administration and it works. On this Sunday, there are numerous print articles, as well as TV interviews, in which the word appears. It's unlikely, even in the next Congress, but it "frames" the issue in terms of Bush/Cheney's failures, which, as we all know, is a large part of the process.

What b.s.

Check out the refinements that appear in this article from Islam Online--admittedly not Faux News or even CNN in "independence" (although probably more accurate). First, check out the photos of troops boarding and getting off choppers. How were these taken, since no "embeds" were allowed to accompany the troops? Obviously the Army took the photos, which are pure publicity shots.
Second, note the quoted line near the end.
"There has been no contact with the insurgents," admitted Major John Calahan of the 101st Airborne Division, a unit specialized in helicopter-borne air assaults that spearheaded the attack.

No insurgents. Not even one? Can we have our money back?

BTW--I'm not the only one to notice the appearance of poorly-disguised political hype in support of this assault.

Be (more) afraid, be very (more) afraid

This article about the "current account deficit" (the astounding imbalance between the flow of dollars into the US and the dollars out) is indeed scary. It's beginning to look like the glacier thing, where the process becomes irreversible because its continuing behavior fuels accelerating behavior. There's talk, these days, about so many "tipping points"--in Iraq, in the economy and the environment--that one wonders whether the Democrats are awaiting post-tipping-point in order to act on anything. In fact, one doesn't wonder. It's clear, from the Democrats' tepid reaction to Senator Feingold's resolution to censure Bush for his illegal wiretapping activities, that there are only a few people in that party who are actively trying to save America, as opposed to saving their own chances for re-relection.

Okay, now I'm getting scared--and pissed off

A federal district judge has denied a defense motion to dismiss a prosecution of two alleged terrorist-supporters, and has not only sealed his decision but has denied to the defense attorneys the right to see it. We are talking about the worst sign of fascism, where even the judiciary caves in to the executive, a distinct prelude to what happened in Germany in the thirties. Be afraid, be very afraid. And be mad.

Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?

If the Republican nominee for President in 2008 was Bill Frist? Even a Democrat could beat him.

What else is new?

Bush lied (again). He's skated so many times (most recently when he was caught telling us that federal wiretaps always require a "court order" but hasn't been called to account for the NSA warrantless surveillance program that he authorized, and scores of times re-authorized), that it's hard to imagine that he'll be caught in this outrageous prevarication.

Recall, when he sought to justify the Dubai ports deal, he said that port security in the US was handled by the Coast Guard and US Customs? Well, not so. According to a just-revealed Congressional report, the security at US ports is woeful, and many of the defects in security are due to lapses by foreigners: shippers, distant port operators, as well as US port operators who don't report to any federal entity.

Goodbye Knight-Ridder

It's going to come down to Reuters, the (London) Times, the Telegraph and Independent of UK, plus some of the foreign press--disseminated by bloggers--to be responsible for the news now that Knight-Ridder's on the block.

Update: Here's the report of the successful bidder for Knight-Ridder. I don't know what it means in terms of reportage and independence (I gotta tell ya, though, that the San Jose Mercury News is one of the truly independent papers).

Hold onto your hats!

It turns out another Dubai company already provides security to the US Navy and at twelve US ports. It apparently is informed of the movement of our ships, and provides the security barriers at naval installations.

On a cold day...

like today in Santa Barbara (there's snow on the Santa Ynez Mountains, just three hundred yards from my deck!), and I'm delaying my almost-daily run to await a bit of warming, I inevitably find my way to this site, which even on a sunny day is fun. Check it out, including the ever-better Search function. (I put in Kafka and learned a lot about "The Prisoner," saving myself the price of rental of the DVD.)

We have met the enemy and he is us

Or, to put Pogo's quote another way, and the NYT did in a recent editorial commenting on Bush's imprisonment without trial of innocents at Gitmo, "Now America is becoming the thing they sought to end."

Bush, the softie

Ya gotta admit, Busy does give us a lot of humorous takes.

Has it come to this?

A music festival in Germany has refused a performance by a leading rock group because one of their songs, "God is a Pop Star," might be offensive.

The man is a monster

I'm not talking about this man, an injured (check out the extent of his injuries here) veteran from my hometown in Arizona. I'm talking about the man who sent him to war: George Bush.

I can't believe, it; simply can't believe it

A new rationale (rationalization) for our troops' continued occupation of Iraq, presented without comment by CBS talking-head, Bob Schieffer (what else would you expect from that blockhead): Our troops are needed to keep the peace between Sunnis and Shiites, especially the armed militias of each, because neither group trusts the other. So there you go, we've morphed into guardians of Iraq's peace--from Iraqis.

The sum of all fears

A few days after Bush decides to peddle nuclear technology to India, France decides to sell some to Libya. That's Libya, spelled Muammar Qadhafi, until a year or so ago an inveterate international terrorist. And BTW, France has much better technology to sell than the US does. Its reactors account for a large percentage of their power and are more modern than ours by far.

So--off we go, into a new nuclear race, this one pretending to be for "peaceful purposes." What madness!

Oscars, Iraq-style

Riverbend, from Baghdad, awards "Oscars" for roles played by various actors in current events. She's a serious blogger, revealing in this post a sense of humor, cynical, but funny.

Mortal fear

That, and only that, can explain AP's rushing out a "clarification" of its earlier story that Bush was shown in a videoconference to have been told before Katrina's landfall that the New Orleans levees might be "breached." Not so, AP "clarified." Bush was only told that the levees might be "overrun."

Family ties

You gotta read this, but I'll summarize. A group of Iraqi women tried to get visas to enter the US, at the behest of activist organization Code Pink, to tell their stories about the deaths of their families, innocent Iraqis shot by US troops during the invasion/occupation. However, the American consulate refused them visas on the ground that they hadn't sufficiently demonstrated that they'd return to Iraq on expiration of the visas. The stated reason for the denial: Absence of family ties in Iraq.

Okay, here goes: My first out-on-a-limb analysis

Heretofore, I've relied on others' news accounts and opinions about events before I've ventured my own, citing others' of course, as I adopted them. But this time I'm venturing my own opinion without backup, and will await the learned press and pundits' reaction.

The India deal is a tragedy for the American worker. Put aside the nuclear thing--that's already been condemned by those who seek true disarmament, and rightfully so. I'm talking about this "opening of markets, thawing the Cold War" nonsense. Here's what it really means: American corporations will gain a new huge expanse of consumers for their goods, while they pay dirt wages to produce those goods, wages set by the low-level margins that are prevalent in the Third World. The "sucking sound" of American jobs that Ross Perot talked about twenty years ago will become a tornado, a devastating drain of jobs out of America, while American corporations, with their powerful brand-names will profit mightily from this new horde of consumers.

The India deal is nothing but a payoff to giant American companies, a spit in the face of American workers, with Bush saying we shouldn't fear competition, meaning, of course, that the corporations won't fear it because they'll reduce wages to meet it. But the American worker with no health care, a huge mortgage and credit-card debt, and kids to educate? Is he/she supposed to compete with a worker in India/Korea/Malasia/Singapore who's happy to earn the equivalent of $2.00 an hour?

Yes, says Bush. Let the American worker eat cake.

You heard it here first. The India deal is the most outrageous insult to our economic system--trashing our wage-earners in favor of big business--since the days of the robber barons.

Smoking guns

This article reveals that two papers, hand-delivered to and read by Bush in the months before the invasion of Iraq, show his knowledge that (1) the aluminum-tubes intelligence was in doubt and (2) the "imminent threat" of an Iraq attack was unanimously discounted by all US sources. The documents, still secret, have been leaked and are quoted.

Question one: Will this information ever make it to the MSM?
Questions two and three: Who's the leaker, and why the leak?

Baghdad blogging

Here are a couple of recent posts by another Iraqi blogger, a dentist in Baghdad. I feel so damned sorry for these folks, just trying to live their lives while chaos reigns all around them and their world is crumbling.

Citizen soldiers or standing army

Here's a principal reason America has historically relied on drawing its military forces from the citizenry, rather than maintaining a standing army. According to a Zogby poll of our mercenaries in Iraq--what else are they?--have been kept in the dark about their mission.

"One surprising finding in the poll is that 85 percent of those surveyed believe that the US's main mission in Iraq is to retaliate against Saddam Hussein for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Numerous commissions and studies have been unable to find that Iraq played any role in the 9/11 bombings. Meanwhile, 93 percent said that they did not think that removing weapons of mass destruction was the reason they were in Iraq."

Amazing, right? Something to keep in mind when you listen to Bush/Cheney and Rummie and his generals talk about the war: They've lied to the troops, they keep lying to the troops, and so there's no reason to believe they're not lying to us.

Prarie Home Radical

I gotta tell ya, Bush has got to be doing something way wrong if Garrison Keillor wants him impeached.

Okay, What's it gonna take

to persuade Bush/Cheney to stop warring in the Middle East if the major Christian churches can't do it?

A world without America

Imagine--it's 2096, ninety years from now--and America's just another country, like England or France or Russia or Germany--that had its moments in history, but history has moved on.

I ask you: Would you favor such a world--whatever it held--or are you afraid to imagine it?

The price of democracy

One of my favorite sites, although I check into it only occasionally because it's so depressing, is here.

What a revoltin' development this is.

Most readers of this blog won't appreciate the title to this post. It's from a funny 1940's radio program entitled "The Life of Riley" starring William Bendix, in which Bendix plays a hapless husband/father who confronts various social and familial entanglements, most of his own doing.

Kinda like Bush, who has espoused "democracy" in the Middle East and has ended up with Hamas, a "terrorist organization" according to Bush, in control of the Palestinian government, and Muktada al Sadr, who's an announced foe of the US occupation of Iraq, now a kingmaker in the "democratically elected" government.

Let's see: Bush's social security "privatization" won't fly; his Medicare "drug benefit" is a nightmare; his invasion of Iraq is ditto; his "economic recovery" is a boon only to the rich; his environmental program is ruinous. Don't get me started.

What did we expect? This man's a loser, born, bred and being. He's never done well, not at anything he's ever done, except being chosen for jobs he can't perform.

We reap what we sow.

"It's my porty..."

Okay, not a good pun, but "port in a storm" was already taken.

Isn't it delicious? The Right-Wing nuts are braying that Bush sold us out to the Ayrabs; the "jump-on-Bush-for-anything-no-matter-what-its-merits (except the war)"--I'm talking the bitch Hillary here--is braying the same tune, and Bush is backpedaling while talking about how we've got to be fair to our brothers of the desert. You can't make this stuff up!

What an administration. Never a dull news cycle! Makes the Clinton stuff seems tame--and occasional. I mean, even with travel-gate and Whitewater and Monica, the Republicans could only come up with a scandal a month. Here we have one a week, and they're getting weirder and weirder, from "Vice President shoots guy in the face" to "Bushies okay deal to sell US ports to Arabs."

What fun!

Alert

Fitzgerald's grand jury may get a look at some interesting papers, 250 pages of them, in fact. It could be that a second shoe is about to drop in the Plame case.

If you're a Jackson Browne fan

or even if you're not, check out this song and video.

Really scary

To me the most chilling part of this awful report of the killings in Iraq yesterday is the story about the 47 dead bodies found beside a highway. Apparently, some group (who knows of what, if any, affiliation or identity or purpose) set up a fake roadblock and then mowed down the drivers who stopped. Imagine the terror when, driving along with your family, you spot a roadblock ahead. You can't turn around, and you can't accellerate, for fear of it being a "legitimate" roadblock set up by the US, who routinely shoot at any cars that do that; and if you proceed and it turns out to be a fake roadblock, you're dead.
I suppose all you can do is slowly approach, invoking Allah, bigtime.

The state of the nation

There are many ways to measure how the US is faring, among them its position in the world, its freedoms and security, and the truthfulness, fairness and good will of its representatives. Okay--we're in terrible shape on those counts. But what about our economy, specifically, the condition of our wage-earners, the middle class that for decades has made the US so vital and strong?

Well, I gotta tell ya, it sucks. Check out this report which, from top to bottom, lists scary data about our citizenry. The median income of the middle class is stagnant, its net worth is stagnant, its savings is nonexistent, its debt is at sky-high levels, and the gap between rich and poor is higher than ever--by far. And this is no crazy-liberal report, this is the Federal Reserve's annual fiscal report, as digested by an Associated Press economic reporter.

As it suggests, when the real estate bubble bursts, and as interest rates and inflation rise--as is already happening--the middle class is in big, big trouble. Let's hope they have enough gasoline money to get to the polls.

If it walks like a duck...

Let's see. One hundred twenty-seven dead Iraqis today, slain in various sectarian bombings and shootings throughout the country, but it's not a civil war. What is it, then. A platypus?

On the ground when the bombs went off

Here's an authoritative report from someone who was there (albeit in the Green Zone) when the bombs went off in Baghdad, wrecking the Shiites' major mosque. Read the entire post, please, including the ominous language of Shiite Cleric al-Sistani at the end. If that doesn't mean civil war, I don't know what.

For another on-site report, this from a resident of Baghdad, read this. Does it sound ominous? Kinda like a quote from Anne Frank's diary, maybe?

Call me crazy, call me stupid

In fact, you can call me sick and cynical and things like that, but get this:

You know how I've been saying (posting) repeatedly for years that the continued strife in Iraq is just what Bush wants, because it perpetuates his power and allows the US to remain there, build bases, exercise its dominion over the area. (A corollary being that Osama bin Laden wants it too, because it serves his purpose of fomenting and training his functionaries.) Well, I still believe that's what Bush/Cheney/Rummie and the NeoCon bureaucrats had in mind to begin with, for the first couple of years after the invasion.

But now I think they've had enough, and now earnestly want the battling and bickering between the Iraqis to end because it's becoming an albatross for Republican candidates in the upcoming Congressional elections.

Well, too bad, gang. You've gotten on a horse you can't get off. At this rate, with mosques being bombed, with Sunnis and Shias attacking each other daily, with the Iraq government unable to come up with a cohesive administration, there ain't no end in sight to that nation's unsettled state, and all the reconstruction and investment in the world ain't gonna change that, certainly not in time for the midterm elections in the US, and not even for the presidential elections in 2008.

Well, the cynical part is this. I want the strife to continue now. I want the Iraqis to go through the same turmoil that other democracies have had to endure in order to prevail. France? Ten years of hell, followed by empire and finally relative peace and freedom. The US? Fifteen years between the earliest stirrings and adoption of the constitution, with the War of 1812 as a capper and a bloody civil war to follow. Mexico, Latin America, South America, Africa, Asia--name a nation (besides, maybe, Canada) where the transition to cohesion and democracy was other than turbulent and protracted.

Why do I want this? In large part so that we can get Bush and his gang of warmongers out of office, but also because the situation in the Middle East can no longer be papered over by our Western ways. When the Brits drews the lines in the sand and created various "nations" after World War I, it gave no regard to the aspirations or allegiances of the indigenous people. In Iraq, for example, it lumped together Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds and Assyrians, and told them they were a nation. Well, now we know better. The Arabs have no historical connection to the Kurds, indeed, have strong antipathy; the Sunni Muslims have strong objection to core beliefs of the Shia Muslims, which have been exacerbated by the U.S. occupation; the Assyrians and Turkmen have their own allegiances in the north and northwest of Iraq, and on and on.

Yeah, if there's to be a semblance of cohesion and cooperation in Iraq, it's going to have to come from the Iraqis, not from extortionate pronouncements by the occupiers, and not in a matter of months. Unfortunately, for Bush and the NeoCons, not in a matter of years, either.

Bluffing

Condi and our ambassador to Iraq are telling the Iraqis that they'd better get their act together or we'll pull out our resources, financially and otherwise.
Right.
We'll leave a failed state, to be taken over by terrorists, leaving a hotbed for anti-US militants.
Right.

I love this. Love it even more than the Cheney/quail shooting

Bush's latest blunder, letting Dubai take over our ports. What an idiot lives in the White House!

Shell game

Bush's previous budget cut so much money from research for alternative fuels that the Department of Energy had to lay off 5,000 employees from one of its facilities. But today, Bush is visiting the facility to give a speech to tout his new-found love for non-fossil-fuel sources, and so that facility, really quick, dredged up some money from other projects and hired back the 5,000 researchers in time for Bush's visit. Now that, ladies and gents, is straight out of Goebbels' handbook.

No surprise at all

Jack Straw, British Foreign Minister, makes another "surprise visit" to Iraq, this time to try to iron out wrinkles in the post-election governance. And you think your job stinks? Imagine waking up in the morning to head off to Baghdad, wearing your three-piece suit, to try to make nice with the same folks whom your soldiers have just beaten up on tele. I think I'd rather stay in bed.

Coverage of coverage?

I'm listening to (can't bear to watch) a television show on CNN the subject of which is "was too much coverage given to the Cheney shooting incident?" I suppose next week the networks will air programs asking, "was too much coverage given to the question of whether too much coverage was given to the Cheney shooting incident"? And the following week the question will be...

If you don't believe me...

Believe this study of the political leanings of guests on the Sunday morning talk shows on MSM television showing that the guests, as well as the commentators on the CBS, NBC and ABC shows tilt distinctly to the right. No, tilt isn't the word. Nor is lean. It's wallow. It was so even during Clinton's terms, but since Bush took office it's now even more obvious--and now documented.
And, note, please, that this study doesn't include the most-wallowing, and most-watched network, Faux, which is so right-wing that you can almost hear the Sieg Heil's in the background, so safe for the Bush administration that Cheney was willing to appear on it to "explain" shooting his buddy in the face.
Bush and Cheney lie--but the numbers in this study don't. Just watch tomorrow and make the count yourself.

It makes you want to weep

Is it a case of "unintended consequences"? Is it "the price of liberation"? Whatever it is, the widening of the divide between Sunni and Shia arabs in Iraq is a sad product of our invasion. Sad, sad, sad.

Okay, they've finally got my interest

I've so far stayed away (to the extent it's possible) from the "Cheney-shot-an-old-man-in-the-face" story, including the odd sequence by which it was reported, but these latest two observations have me wondering.
First, why didn't they have Whittington airlifted from the accident site to a hospital? As this post points out, choppers are on standby whenever Cheney's at large, and surely if Whittington's wounds were so serious that they in fact did airlift him to a large hospital within minutes of his arriving--an hour after the accident, by ambulance--at a local hospital, why didn't they airlift him in the first place?
Second--and the possible explanation for everything: the shooting and the various delays afterward--is that Cheney was intoxicated by the mixture of drugs and alcohol. He admitted to having "one beer" at lunch (Who in the world has one beer? How many times have cops heard, "I just had one beer, officer"?) Cheney has to pop so many pills that his "one beer" could well have affected his shooting and/or his judgment. To race to the microphones immediately after the shooting would have been impossible.
I have one more observation. There've been raised numerous questions about the "30 yards" between Cheney and Whittington when the shot was fired, focusing on the severity of the wounds and the scattering of the buckshot at that distance, opining that at thirty yards the shot would have been more widely scattered and would not have penetrated as deeply, through clothing, as it apparently did. Interesting, to me, but not conclusive. To me, what's noteworthy is that if Cheney hit a man in the face at thirty yards, he had to be aiming at ground level, not at all skyward. To be sure, quail, when flushed, do fly low, but that low? I think Cheney was shooting at the birds on the ground, that's what. Sounds just like him, just like bombing WMD-less Baghdad.

The Clinton effect

This essay is right on about the stifling effect on Democratic politics of the McGovern effect ("weakness of national security spells disaster at the polls), and the Nader effect (not supporting a centrist Democrat elects Republicans). To which I add the Bill Clinton effect, viz:

Because Clinton managed to win two presidential elections by sliding toward the center on most issues, Democrats believe that's the recipe for victory. What they forget is that in neither election did he win a majority of the total votes cast (Perot's presence on the ballot accounted for this); and they fail to recognize the effect of his enormous charisma, overwhelming both of his adversaries, Bush I and Dole. Gore and Kerry were no Bill Clintons when it came to charisma, that's for sure, but had they truly taken command of the left and those with lower incomes--had they made the elections a class war--the would have won handily.

Abu Ghraib revisited

Finally, some of the additional photos of the prisoner abuse are emerging. (Viewer discretion advised.) I understand there are others, including video, that are even more ghastly. Just in time, too, because the Muslims' outrage over the Muhammed cartoon mess was dying down.

What's in a name?

Like "permanent bases in Iraq." This article by Tom Engelhardt details not just the obvious fact of Bush/Cheney's plan for a permanent presence in Iraq, but the MSM's utter silence on the issue. Like the air war--the escalation of bombing and missle strikes by drones--the "enduring bases" go unmentioned, ignored, while billions of our tax dollars support them.

I can't believe it

After all that sturm and drang last month over Bush/Cheney's illegal wiretapping, and various lawmakers' calls for Congressional hearings, now it looks like there won't be any hearings after all. The dog and pony show the administration put on has cooled the Republicans on the idea, so we'll never learn details of the program, and, for all we know, it will continue unabated, uninvestigated, unknown.

Come to think of it, I do believe it.

Well, whaddya know!

The American Bar Association, my former colleagues (although I was never a member of that particular body) have told the administration that its warrantless eavesdropping on US citizens is illegal. Not maybe, not kinda. But illegal. Good job.

The way it is

I often cite to Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, to learn the status of political developments in Iraq, and it's no doubt a prime authority. Today, however, I found this essay, which presents a wide perspective on the results of the recent choice of Prime Minister Jaafari, and on the prospects for Iraq in the months and years ahead. It's not pretty, not pretty at all, which, as the writer points out is just fine for Bush/Cheney and the NeoCons. Here's the money quote:

"Baghdad - which accounts for 25% of the country's population - has virtually no water or electricity. The Americans for their part may have become more "invisible", retreating from main urban centers, but their air war is even more devastating. The White House/Pentagon policy is now a "back to the future" of turning Iraq into Afghanistan, where warlords, religious or secular, and tribal sheikhs defend their mini-states armed to their teeth, and criminal gangs run parallel to death squads. There isn't a remote possibility of forging a government of national unity under these circumstances. Which suits Washington fine. The only way for the United States to prolong its Iraqi adventure is to perpetuate chaos; Iraq as the new Afghanistan. Few dispute that the US invaded Iraq for its oil resources, mostly untapped, and that it's located in the heart of the world's energy system. Thus, if the US controls Iraq, it extends its strategic power."


This observation comports with my view of the post-9/11 world, as governed by Bush/Cheney. The continuance of a campaign against terr'r, or against anything that they can make Americans fear, perpetuates their power; and so the prospect of another "failed state" in Iraq, a "breeding ground for terrorists" allows them to keep our troops there to control the area and to persuade Americans the administration is protecting us from harm. Brilliant. Big Brother twenty years later.

Searching for a title to this post

"America the beautiful"? "A few good men"? "Support our troops--put them behind bars!"? "Impeachment of Bush/Cheney is too good for them"? "Chain Rumsfeld to the wall!"?
After reading about the Army's criminal prosecutions of those who killed Afghanis by torture, you suggest a title.

A Great White Hope--gone

So--The Democrats are going to hand the next two years, no, make that the next eleven years, to the Republicans, because with actions like this there's no way the Left will get behind any candidate who's favored by the Democratic establishment. Hackett was a perfect candidate for the Senate seat in Ohio: A hard-nosed veteran who opposed the Iraq war absolutely, had already proven his attractiveness in last year's near-win for a Congressional seat, and had previously been urged to run for Senate by the party machinery.

Rove must be loving this, watching the opposition self-destruct.

For any doubters

that the Bush administration's "war on terr'r" is beyond the pale, is internationally illegal (forget about our own constitution, given the recent appointees), check out this UN report about Gitmo. There was never any doubt in the mind of any world citizen that Bush's "enemy combatant" regime, without adjudication, without recourse, was patently illegal. But now that we've been told so by the UN, we're told so by the UN, what will we do? Close it down? Naah. "We're the king of the world!"

History, schmistory

Thirty years after the war in Vietnam was over, we knew--definitively, although most of us suspected it at the time--that LBJ's minions fabricated the "attack" by North Vietnamese gunboats on a US destroyer in order to support the "Gulf of Tonkin resolution" under which our government bombed Hanoi and escalated that awful war that lasted ten years and killed 56,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam and Cambodia. We've also learned that the intelligence that Ike, and later John Kennedy, relied on to justify the CIA's support of the Bay of Pigs invasion was fabricated by anti-Castro expatriates. We've since treated Cuba like a hemispheric pariah, boycotting it economically and dooming its poor to poverty, unending poverty. We've also learned that our CIA, at Nixon's instance, intervened in the coup in Chile to place the dictator Pinochet in place of the elected president Allende, with the result that for decades that nation was ruled by the iron hand of military domination, only lately to have recovered, somewhat.

What good has all this history done? Have we learned anything? Apparently not, because it's clear--it could not be clearer--that Bush/Cheney had already determined to invade Iraq well before the charade they orchestrated before the UN and the American public, that they lined up any intelligence they could find to support that invasion--lying, cherrypicking, prevaricating, propagandizing--and yet those monsters still rule over our military and our nation. What good will it do when we finally write history, twenty years from now, that establishes their perfidy?

We may never recover from our loss of lives, treasure and historic posture from this demonic act. Indeed, we've signaled our decline as a civilization. And Bush/Cheney will never know it. They'll be too busy on the lecture circuit and on fishing trips and quail shoots.

A benefit from Bush's warmongering

is that we Americans are having to learn geography.

Where's the outrage?

C'mon, guys and gals. Get off your couches, hit the streets. The revolution isn't nigh, it's overdue.

Another month in Paradise

Check out this map, showing the 800-plus deaths linked to the insurgency and the occupation in Iraq in January. During demonstations, I hear from Bush supporters that the death toll isn't any worse than a normal period in the United States, for a comparable area and population. Imagine if in California, which is much larger and more populous than Iraq, there were 100 deaths in a month due to police/military conflict with civilians. We'd be at war--which is just what's happening in Iraq, month after month.

Another day in Paradise

Reported today: Gasoline delivery in Iraq is dwindling because of official corruption and mismanagement. Insurgent attacks are on the increase. The number of nations comprising the "coalition of the willing" is shrinking. The utilities services (water, electricity, sewer) are still below pre-invasion levels, even after sixteen billion American tax dollars have been spent to build infrastructure. And the Iraqi police force that the US Army is training is riddled with corruption and incompetence.

In a little over a month, we will "celebrate" the third anniversary of our "cakewalk" into Iraq.

The Gray Lady Speaks

Two NYT stories about Iraq on the same day--one about graft and corruption in Iraq's oil industry, the other about the developing civil war--both contain bad news for Bush's occupation, and demonstrate that at least one strong branch of the MSM is on the job. After years of lapse, the NYT seems finally to have got it: This war and occupation--which it cheered for--is a disaster.

Bodily fluids or alcoholic fluids

Juan Cole, in this post, compares Bush to General Ripper (played superbly by Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove), and based on the latest memo of his meeting with Tony Blair, I must agree. The President is mad, or drunk, or both.

A long, hard slog

Yup, Rummie, you were right. Those few Iraqi troops that have taken over patrols from our military are still getting their bullets and gasoline from US Army trucks. Seems their vehicles aren't safe or capable, are unreliable; and the Iraqis don't have sufficient supplies for their own troops. We even have to deliver their food to them in the field, in packets we've specifically designed to meet Muslim dietary requirements.

Exit strategy? My ass. We don't even have a presence strategy.

Here's an exit strategy

Perhaps not too long from now other states, like Maine, will be unable to deploy any more National Guard units to Iraq because they've all spent 24 months in overseas duty, which is the legal limit on such deployments. The Commandant of the Guard said he was concerned that the Army might begin picking off new recruits from different states to create ad-hoc units of soldiers to serve overseas.
That would be like a football team changing players before every game, he said. "That's the way it was in Vietnam. When I got there, I didn't know a single person. There was always somebody coming and going."

From Baghdad

Riverbend, an Iraqi woman, author of the blog Baghdad Burning, gives us her take on the election outcome. Notice how similar her description of the politico-religious result is to the state of politics and leadership in the United States. I've said before that Osama bin Laden and Bush are their own best buddies, in that they thrive on the terror each of them stirs up. Add in the religious fervor of their supporters and we've got the perfect storm of eternal war.

I'd like to hear feedback on where you think all this is headed, and how it will end.

Mark Fiore

A cartoonist with wit...and amazing talent. Check out this one about the Empire of Georgelandia

Air America

Here in Santa Barbara, we receive Air America via 1340 am station, a ClearChannel outlet.
We get three hours of Al Franken in midmorning, three hours of Randi Rhodes in late afternoon, Stephanie Miller (I think it is) in early morning, with three hours of a non-Air America personality, Ed Shultz, in between. (Shultz is a liberal, too.) In the evening the lineup reverts to conservative talk, which is what is carried all day and night on the other local ClearChannel station, 990 am.
Franken and Miller are, IMHO, tolerable, Shultz is barely so, and Rhodes is, frankly, unlistenable. In sum, Air America is a bust as a competent alternative to the incessant conservative talk shows. A wasted opportunity, a failed effort in the main.

Two exceptions: Rachel Maddow (who's on our local station only for an hour, between five and six a.m.), and Laura Flanders (weekends).

I received this quote by email recently, attributed to Air America, and it's cute, I gotta admit.

"This year, the State of the Union address and Groundhog Day happened in the same week. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog."

You say you want a revolution?

It's times like these that drive people to fill wine bottles with gasoline and throw them, or rocks, or sticks of furniture, at tanks. Or line up in scattered rows against redcoat ranks.

All is calm. The war rages on, the scandals and illegalities pile up unaddressed, the press dumbs down--indeed is dumb--and meanwhile we, unrepresented but right, sit at home and type.

Yeah, Molotov cocktails are sounding real fine right now.

Look out, world!

I'm writing this post from a coffee house, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Goleta, CA. I'm using a T-Mobile Wi-Fi connection. Get down, get down. Now, at any time of day, 'most anywhere, I can place my thoughts on this blog as they arise.

Documentaries

Talk about a growth industry. A local group shows a different film--from environmentalist harrangues to antiwar polemics--each week, seems like. And I get LinkTV which plays similar fare day, night out. Some of them are fine films, some quite lame, but the latest darling--"Why We Fight"--is analyzed by Justin Raimondo, here, and I gotta tell ya, this sounds to me like a must-see movie.

Raimondo tells of an opening scene in which an American father of a son who works in the Trade Center is on a train toward New York and sees the towers in flames, fears for his son and later learns the worst. His reaction: Blind revenge.

Would that have been mine, in a similar setting, with my daughter in the towers? I don't know, but I do recall distinctly my reaction to the news of the attacks. I learned about them on my computer that morning, early, but I didn't have a TV and so didn't follow along all that day and during the next weeks as I'm told so many Americans did. But my immediate reaction that morning, which has continued to this day: "Well, that's the price of empire." Indeed, I think I even mouthed that phrase when I learned on the Internet about the strike on the second tower. Yup--that's what I felt. Not far from "we had it coming." Closer to "we saw it coming," but still not blind revenge, not at all. That's what the terrorists felt vs. the US, toward our nation's decades of domination and, in their view, corruption.

Anyhoo--I'm going to see "Why We Fight" and will report in due course, of course.

I don't get it

Down the coast from here, ten miles or so, is Oprah's place. A castle on a large acreage overlooking the Pacific. It cost her fifty million or so, five years ago. A friend of mine and I were discussing it, essentially wondering What the fuck? Who needs--who even wants--that kind of property? Not who deserves it, really (because no one does), but who would bother? I just don't get it--and now, check out Tiger's latest purchase.

What the fuck?

State of the Union

Bush's speech, portions of, and an analysis of, I heard over BBC World Service radio, was much ado about nothing, except I did get a kick out of his assertion that the US is "addicted to oil." Oh, really? Where's he been during the last three decades, and especially during the last five years as president? Thanks to his administration and the Republican Congress, no action has been taken to alleviate that dependency: policies favoring alternative fuel development have been scrapped, rules to reduce gasoline consumption by cars and to support mass transit have been repealed, and anti-environmental regulations have been enacted. It's galling indeed to watch Bush make a political point out of the very addiction he's caused.

As to the Democrats' response by that Virginia governor? Awful. Wussy, fuzzy, absolutely ineffective. Like a good Democrat.

I don't want to sound stupid, but

I've gotta ask: Given that virtually all legal experts, including me (and this of course doesn't include Albert Gonzalez and his minions) know that Bush's argument that he holds plenary power to order spying during "wartime" is an complete crock, who's gonna tell him otherwise? If Congress "disagrees," what can they do but pass some resolution or even a limiting statute, which Bush will, according to him, be empowered to ignore? And if the courts disagree? Well, under the "unitary executive" theory, Bush may ignore that branch too.

Bottom line: Whether his program is declared "legal" or not by Congress and/or the federal courts, Bush will continue it if he chooses to. Only if the courts somehow influence the military branch--or maybe the US Marshal Service, which is under the courts' jurisdiction (at least I think they still are)--to enforce any decree they enter, will the spying stop.

Oh boy--a full-scale constitutional crisis. I can't wait.

Dysfunctional economy, anyone?

On the same day we learn that Americans are saving money at the lowest rate since the depression year of 1933, we are told that an oil company, Exxon, has reported the largest quarterly and annual profit ever achieved by any corporation, ever. Ever in the history of corporations, ever in the history of profits, ever.

Larry King, the most overpaid person on the planet

Okay, maybe the CEO's of Tyco and Enron are in the same league, but this King dude is a blight on the TV screen. I just watched his puffball interview of former president Bush, including a couple of soft questions about the status of the US occupation of Iraq. When Bush said "it's going well, better every day," King didn't even pause before moving to the next soft question. Meanwhile, the Iraqi oil minister is quitting his job after years of failure; while 50,000 US troops are being conscripted to stay extra months on the ground; and scores of Iraqis--and US newsmen--are being killed and injured.

"Better every day?" Mr. former president? Larry--get off the air, and get a job selling Hallmark cards.

This isn't Spinal Tap, it's wiretap

Bad joke. But with a point.

Despite the MSM's characterization, in response to Bush's PR blitz to support his NSA spying program, that the legality of the program is debatable, it isn't. Not even for a moment is there a hestitation, a pause for reflection, on the point.

So now, let's see how Congress--in particular the Republicans--react; let's see if they act with a measure of courage and truthfulness in the face of the lawless administration. My guess: No.

State of the Union

Bush's approval numbers in the recent polls have dropped again, flatlining in the lower forties. In two days he addresses the nation--I'll not watch it (can't bear it to see his face, hear his voice) but I'll read about the speech afterward--and I'll report on what, if any, effect it has on the polls. A president usually gets a bit of a bounce after the SOU speech--and this one will be followed by the Democrats' filibuster attempt on the Alito nomination--so no doubt there'll be some good news for Bush momentarily. But with all the shoes that haven't yet dropped, from Fitzgerald's Plame-gate investigation to the Abrahamoff scandals to the NSA spying hearings to the ongoing negative news from Iraq and elsewhere in the far- and middle-East, I'm thinking Bush had better come up with another terror threat (or, possibly, and attack) sometime this spring. My guess is that he'll create a crisis about Iran (recall, there's been talk about some kind of action against Iran in March on account of that country's upcoming monetary moves in the form of the creation of a bourse), just about when his poll numbers tank again.

We have met the enemy

and he is the US Army.

"Come home, America"

When you get the time, please read this piece about George McGovern. Actually, make the time.

Just so you know I'm not making this up

I recently sent out an email to a bunch of folks I know reminding them of the existence of this blog, a step I don't like to take, but I've received so little response lately, by comment or independent communication, that I thought the folks would appreciate knowing I'm still alive and still have something to say, all negative, about Bush and his wars and his policies.

I admit my bias, but it's fact-based. Just check out this one post, just this one--representing only a portion of the blogger's entries for yesterday (Tuesday) and you'll see just a slice of what's really going on in Iraq. Bear in mind that the author of the blog, Juan Cole, is a distinguished professor, fluent in Arabic, knowledgeable about the Middle East, with no axe to grind.

Eye-opening, eh?

Reaping what we sow

So now it turns out that many of the Shiites in Iraq--and they're the majority--will rise up against the US occupiers if the US attacks Iran. (Recall, Iran is a Shiite nation with a fundamentalist as its president.) So, if Bush (or Israel) decides to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, the US faces reprisals on the ground in Iraq as well as in international forums.

We've boxed ourselves in. Isn't it time we joined the rest of the nations and sought peace in the world? Isn't it time we announced that we would no longer tolerate American corporations exploiting the natural resources of foreign lands (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAR) by paying off the dictators in those nations?

Isn't it time?

What did we expect?

Much blog traffic is being devoted to Bush/Cheney/Rove's hubristic (a word?) effort to justify the NSA eavesdropping regime that (after a year's delay and over Bush's protests) the NYT revealed a month ago. They've published legal memos and hit the stump at full stride, guns ablaze, in an all-out campaign to support the manifestly illegal practices.

They have no choice. They were caught red-handed, without deniability, and so have no choice but to go on the offensive, and Rove's announcement that the 2006 midterm campaign will be waged over the "war on terror" is his signal to Congress (with all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate up for re-election) that the Republican membership had better get on board the administration's bus or be left behind when it comes to support from the White House.

The administration has been given a few weeks to present its case uncontested because any hearings (and we don't know what form they'll take) aren't scheduled until February. By that time, the Republicans may have been brow-beaten enough to authorize only limited inquiry, perhaps classified, to help Bush escape without significant injury, or maybe even with support in some wavering segments of the citizenry, who'll hear only how vital the eavesdropping is to US security. And those lawsuits challenging the practice? They may get a decent hearing, but if so, they'll take place long after Bush/Cheney are in retirement and on the lecture circuit.

I hate to say I told you so

but remember my post about two months ago about the Iranian Oil Bourse? Well, here's a definitive article, detailing how come the US (or Israel as its surrogate) will find some way to stop Iran from diminishing the dollar's hegemony as the world's reserve currency.

Come March (perhaps even on the third anniversary of our invasion of Iraq), we'll be hearing bombs fall again. Only the last letter of the victim nation's name will change.

Some comfort

My worst nightmare--no hyperbole here--would be a 2008 presidential race between Hillary Clinton and John McCain. I won't explain, because if you've followed this blog at all you know why.

But chances are neither of the will win their party's nomination. Hillary because she's a whore; McCain because he's too much a maverick, as evidence, most recently, by his recent remark that Bush's order for warrantless eavesdropping wasn't authorized. The Far Right doesn't trust him, and without them he can't get their money, their delegates and therefore their nomination, and no doubt the Far Right now controls that process.

A blessing in disguise.