Cheap buffet of history

Commenter Anne over at The Carpetbagger Report had this to say this morning:

“So…we’ve reached the point where whatever we are being told about the occupation – from death rates to numbers of car bombings – is not to be trusted, and should probably be viewed as little more than propaganda designed to make the average person believe that things are going in the right direction. All of this is in advance of the long-anticipated September report, which now appears will be written by an administration that has already shown that it views information, intelligence and hard facts as equivalent to items on a buffet menu, and they need only choose those bits that make whatever point they are currently trying to sell.

“While I would never suggest that we should ever accept without question everything the government tells us, it is still a sad day when it has reached the point where we cannot believe anything they tell us. We can’t trust the FDA to keep us safe from bad drugs and bad food, we can’t trust the EPA to keep us safe from pollutants in the air, in the water or in the ground, we can’t trust the mine-safety people to actually make sure the mines are safe, we can’t trust road and bridge infrastructure, can’t trust the toys and other goods we import, can’t trust the Department of Justice to be fair in its administration of justice, can’t trust that we won’t be disappeared to a black-site prison to be tortured and never seen again, we have no expectation of privacy in our phone calls and e-mails, and we cannot trust one word these people utter about what is going on in Iraq. Not one.

“Who do we trust? Are our choices soon to be between totalitarianism and anarchy? I’m sorry, but neither of those is my country, and I am angry and frustrated that it has been allowed to get to this point.”

I'm with Anne. Her comment was made in response to the news that in spite of the huge, multiple car bombings in Iraq yesterday that had, at last count, killed 250 people dead and injured some 500 more, “U.S. officials” say that the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capitol (they’re only counting Baghdad, it seems) were down by a whopping 50 percent in July. They’re not counting yet this month at all, I guess.

McClatchy Newspapers called the official on their numbers-fudging, pointing out the fact that

“... U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don’t support the claim.

“The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to the McClatchy statistics, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same.”

Along with this lovely news, as Anne notes we now learn that the Great Gen. Petraeus’s report on the success or failure of Bush’s petulant “surge”in the war, which we were told he’d be writing up to present to Americans in September, will actually be written by the Bush administration itself. The general will only provide the data. He won’t even actually present it.

The Bushies will buffet-browse the general’s data and present us with a greasy fried-chicken, mac & cheese and soft-ice-cream-with-sprinkles Super Surge Meal to keep us gorged and quiet. It’ll be tasty but filled with empty calories and cancer-causing chemicals, and most Americans won’t notice until they’re too bloated to move.

Does anyone really think the Bushwhacked report won’t tell us to keep being patient, that progress is being made, and that it will continue to be made as long as we don’t rock the boat?

I think it’s important that we not forget that the “surge” was not being discussed at all prior to the November 2006 elections; in fact, Americans were calling, more and more loudly, for a withdrawal of troops from the catastrophic war BushCo started in Iraq. It was also clear in November 2006 that the American military was strained to its limits and was starting to break down. That was (and still is) a problem so dire in consequences that to ignore it is more than foolish, it’s suicidal. Finally, the war’s cost in American and Iraqi lives, not to mention national treasure, was already astronomically high.

And so, with the election, American voters told the Bush administration and Congress in no uncertain terms that it was high time to remedy the situation. We wanted America out of Iraq. We were disgusted and angry. We were determined to force changes in America’s leadership and our country’s slow spiral down the toilet hole of history. We were successful.

But in response, the Bush administration blew us a great big raspberry, thumbed its nose and announced the “surge.” Instead of starting a drawdown, Bush coldly ordered tens of thousands more soldiers into the battle in Iraq. He told us after the fact.

At the time, I saw it as a kind of punishment from this moronically evil president to the people who’d had the temerity to insult him and attempt to start cleaning up the horrible mess he’d made. I could almost hear him saying, “They want their kids and spouses home safe from the war? Well hell, they’re not the boss of ME! I’ll show ‘em – I’ll just send even more soldiers over there -- and not only that, I’ll make ‘em all stay there even longer, and give ‘em even less time to rest up between deployments! Pansies! And just in case the damned People didn’t get my message, I’ll just keep on underfunding the VA and let the wounded rot once they’re back home. Hah! The people think they can tell me what to do? Screw ‘em all! Suuuuuurge!”

The new Democratically-controlled Congress, on which we’d placed all our hopes, gawped, stuck their thumbs up their butts and did nothing to stop him. They complained that their new majority wasn’t major enough. They couldn’t do a darned thing about the situation. Sorry about that, America.

Since then they’ve made it clear that they can’t or won’t do anything about anything, except wring their hands and whine a lot so we’ll think they’re busy. They make vague threats they don’t follow through with. Naturally, BushCo just sneers at them, and why not? No one’s going to make them accountable. And so now the CW is that if we want to see our soldiers home from Iraq, we’ll just have to wait until Bush’s term in office ends and hope to hell that a Democrat is elected president in his place.

But will having a Democratic president in the White House make a difference? I’m beginning to think it won’t. America is too far gone.

Shrill? Me?

When the Congressional bill funding the Iraq war on the condition of limiting its duration reaches the Decider’s desk, he swears he’ll veto it, saying that timetables for withdrawal will endanger our soldiers fighting in Iraq. He also says that by setting those timetables and thwarting his will, it will be the fault of Congress if vital funding for our boys and girls Over There is late or falls short of that needed.

In reality, all he has to do is sign the damned thing and the money will go to fund the war. If the soldiers now in Iraq go without over the next several weeks and months for lack of funding, it will be George W. Bush’s petulance and lunacy that causes it.

But I have a question. So far, I’ve read nothing that even asks it, let alone answers it. Maybe someone out there can answer it for me.

In the past, when Bush disagreed with a bill approved by both houses of Congress, he just appended a quiet little signing statement to it which said, essentially, that he doesn’t have to follow the law if he doesn’t want to, since he’s the Decider and all, and of course he knows best about these things.

He’s avoided vetoing bills he didn’t like for six years in this manner. So why all the fooferall now? Why doesn’t he just sign the bill, add his secret signing statement to it afterwards, and then ignore the law as he pleases? Given Bush’s prodigious use of signing statements, his demonstrated contempt for the people of the United States and for the rule of law, why is Congress wasting time with any of this?

Is it all just a smoke-and-mirrors exercise, taken to quiet us down? Or perhaps to distract us from noticing how Bush is getting all his ducks in a row for the next big move in the war against terror, an attack on Iran?

Most people seem to think that Bush wouldn’t actually start a war with Iran. It would be folly. We don’t have enough soldiers or materiel for a ground war there. The military is already mostly broken and medical support for those wounded in the current war is floundering badly. And the cost of this new war – on top of the huge cost of the current war in Iraq – would break America’s back.

These are the arguments – good ones, all – that I hear when I touch the scary subject of Bush’s dreams of a trumped-up war against Iran. If Bush and his cronies were sane, I’d agree. It would be a crazy, disastrous, even doomed thing to do.

But Bush and Co. aren’t sane. After six years of being allowed to do everything they wanted to do without consequences, they’re drunk with power. And now they’re facing the loss of that power as the new, Democratic congress begins to exert oversight and attempts to put the brakes on.

Starting a new war would have the effect of refocusing all attention on that and taking it off the madness of the last six years. So we don’t have enough soldiers or materiel to launch another war? No problem – Iraq is very close to Iran. Just deploy the soldiers there – pull them right out of Iraq and let the Iraqis slash each other to death if they want to. Use air power – we’ve still got a lot of that – and sea power, something that could be used against the Iranians in a way it couldn’t against the Iraqis. There are thousands of airmen and sailors out there who are sitting on their thumbs with little to do while the Army and the Marines try to fight a senseless ground war against insurgents. Get them out there fighting. And if there still aren’t enough soldiers to get the job done? Well, hell. There’s the draft. That would provide a huge influx of warm cannon fodder, wouldn’t it.

And of course, in the end, there are always those lovely nukes.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want this. I want our soldiers home, and I wish the bill the Senate is preparing to pass would make this coming June the deadline for getting them out of Iraq, not a bloody year from now. Each day means more needless deaths on both sides of the conflict. And I'm horrified at the very thought of war against Iran. But this is the form my nightmares take these days. If I'm shrill, it's because I can't help it. There is a well-established precedent for it.

So what to do? It seems to me that until both houses of Congress, with the will of the people backing them up, actually slam on the brakes and impeach this wicked moron and his cabinet – throwing them out of office and pressing criminal charges – things will continue on just as they have. America will continue to be ruled by a king, not a president. King George will do exactly what he wants to do through subterfuge and secrecy. And if he starts a new war, the America we all know and love – already badly wounded and dying the death of a thousand cuts -- will cease to exist.

Update: Seems that as I was writing this, the Senate passed the war-funding bill, complete with timelines:

"In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008."

Only two Republican senators had the balls to vote for the bill. Kudos to them. We'll see what happens now. I wish I could be more hopeful.

*Thanks to the talented Heretik for permission to use his powerful graphic image.

Loose the dogs of war ...

It’s springtime! Wartime!

Throughout history, nations have waited if they could for the cold and hardship of winter to break before launching new battles and starting new wars. It’s sensible – proceed to the fight while the weather is cool, but not frozen, hoping to win before the oppressive heat of summer requires greater supplies of water to keep the troops moving. As the months move forward from spring, food is easier to get, less of it is required for human energy and shelter is not as vital. Life burgeons; death seems far away.

And armies can move more easily and much faster in the spring and summer. In our modern times, aircraft fly at much less risk and launch missiles with greater accuracy -- in spite of all our high technology -- when the weather is good and the skies are clear. The onset of fall and winter forces a gradual reduction of hostilities in conventional battle. Armies hunker down and commanders concentrate on chest beating, saber-rattling and inobtrusive maneuvering for strategic placement and tactical gain in preparation for the spring ahead.

We saw this strategic mindset take place, almost like clockwork, when Bush started the Iraq war, which had its fourth dark anniversary last week. Now, with the seizure of 15 British soldiers by the Iranians for allegedly violating Iran’s maritime boundaries – an insult the British deny – the scenario for war against Iran is being set.

Throughout the late summer, fall and winter American warships moved toward and arrived in the Persian Gulf, ostensibly for “exercises.” Harsh words and threats were volleyed back and forth. The “nuclear option” was bandied about. American ally Israel stated that it would not hesitate to launch nuclear weapons against Iran, should Iran be provocative toward that tiny, bristling nation. Iran’s progress on its own nuclear power capabilities, supposedly in order to meet its civilian energy needs, continued in defiance of international threats and sanctions. There were rumors of American and British special forces penetrating Iran’s borders on intelligence gathering missions. As all that happened, America accused Iran of helping Iraqi insurgents with bigger and better bombs – accusations which could not be proven, but nevertheless influenced popular support for some future, punitive action against Iran.

Far brighter minds than mine have been warning for some time now that placing armed carrier groups in the narrow, shallow gulf is folly, an "international incident" and possible trigger for war waiting to happen. This is obvious to any thinking person – I thought of it the moment I heard they were headed that way.

Now, that incident has occurred. Here in America, our media – and thus the people – are focused on our lying Attorney General (America’s top lawmaker – hah!) and the House’s passage of a bill that sets timetables to bring our troops home and end American involvement in the civil war in Iraq that we started. Few are watching what’s happening Over There. Is it any wonder that Bush is, against all logic, refusing to abandon Gonzales and calling glitzy press conferences regarding that issue and the Democratic bill to bring our troops home? Not to anyone who thinks. It’s smoke and mirrors, a dodge, a bluff, a time-waster. Because when the missiles start flying against Iran, U.S. Attorneys fired for political reasons and ineffectual congressional bills will fall by the wayside as America is forced to rally and support the new -- and far more ominous -- war of opportunity against Iran by men who have cudgels for brains and ATMs for hearts.

Springtime is here. Time for war.

Hometown hero

A hero lives in the mobile home park at the south edge of the burgeoning “upscale community” for which I used to edit the weekly newspaper.

It’s the only mobile home park in town -- exclusive, if you will -- nestled nearly out of sight in the high, rolling foothills of the area. A seasonal creek, rich with frogs, water skaters and wildlife, shaded by live oaks, runs along its western edge.

The park has been there since the community was no more than a few isolated housing developments just off Highway 50, served by a single grocery store and gas station. It’s a small, very neat grid of single-wide, double-wide and dinky “manufactured” homes set along the narrow, paved lanes. Nearly every space has a patch of lawn or a little garden, variously decorated with bright plastic whirligig daisies, venerable rose bushes and temporarily abandoned children’s toys. At the front of the park, where the newer, nicer residences are visible from the feeder road, there’s a playground for kids with a big expanse of soft green grass.

Marine Cpl. Jeff Landay is officially on active duty, but at the moment he’s living quietly with his unemployed parents and five siblings in the mobile home park. He’s 19 years old, a graduate of the award-winning local high school two miles from his home. The school is surrounded by half-million and million-dollar homes overlooked by a members-only country club and a fabulous Robert Trent Jones, Jr., 72-par championship golf course. SUVs are the preferred mode of transport.

Landay, the local hero in this story, might still be in Iraq today, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s slowly recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) suffered in May 2006 near Fallujah.

I don’t use the word “hero” lightly. From a story in Village Life, the local weekly newspaper, published Dec. 13, 2006:

On May 21, Landay’s platoon was on a routine patrol. They struck a small IED, but there was no damage. They continued their patrol, but when it was over, elected to return to camp using an alternate route.

Debris blocked the road. As Landay navigated his Humvee, in the lead, around the obstacle, there was a powerful explosion that blew the vehicle off the road and 50 yards down into a shallow ravine, where it came to rest.

The explosion mangled the Humvee’s left front side.

The rest of the platoon watched in horror. They could not radio raise any response from the five Marines inside the damaged Humvee, which was now isolated from the platoon, and in what the Marines call a vulnerable “kill zone.”

Seconds stretched into minutes as Landay’s platoon watched the ravine for any signs of life. Then, they saw brake lights flash on the stricken Humvee.

Badly injured, Landay got the Humvee’s remaining three tires pointed back up to the road. With a last surge of adrenaline, he gunned it back up the ravine to the road and relative safely.

“It really saved all their lives, because they [the rest of the platoon] can’t get out there to get them without backup,” said [Landay’s stepfather Glen] Yaeger.

When Corpsman Luis Rodriguez, “Doc Rod,” reached the Humvee, “it was a disaster,” he said in a telephone interview. “It was smoky, and we had to get the guys out.”

The worst injury was to Cpl. “Cheeks” Ramirez. Attempts to resuscitate him failed. When Rodriguez got to Landay, it appeared that he, too, was a fatality. There was major head trauma and no pulse.

Everyone thought Landay had driven his Humvee to safety and died.

But Rodriquez applied CPR and, miraculously, got a pulse. Landay stared breathing on his own.

“Doc Rod brought Jeff back to life,” said Yaeger. “They got him to a hospital within 20 minutes, which probably saved his life again.”

His injuries were grave. “It’s a miracle he’s here,” said Yaeger. “The doctors are unbelievable.”

The explosion crushed Landay’s skull, broke his jaw and damaged his liver, spleen, kidney and shoulder.

Both of Landay’s parents lost their jobs in the months after he was wounded, his mother because of the massive amounts of time off she needed to spend with her wounded son while he was hospitalized at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland and later, at the Veteran’s Administration hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. His step-father was laid off due to down-sizing at his place of employment. Since the story appeared in Village Life, the family has received help in the form of individual donations and poker-party fund raisers sponsored by a popular local barber. Still, the family is struggling.

According to a follow-up story in Village Life published last week, Cpl. Landay is currently getting his medical treatment through the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., roughly 60 miles away from his home. This latest treatment is not for the TBI in particular, but for his jaw, which didn’t reattach well after his initial series of surgeries to repair the damage to his head. He recently had surgery in which they redid the reattachment and, incidentally, removed some shrapnel which was still embedded there.

Thanks to his mother, Michelle Landay, who stood up to the military medical board at the Palo Alto VA hospital, Landay may soon be able to go to the Marine Corps’ Wounded Warrior Center at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where he can continue his rehabilitation and recovery from his TBI before being reassigned on active duty or medically retired. He was originally denied placement at the WWC by the Palo Alto VA board because, head-injured and physically and emotionally wrung out, he wasn’t being “cooperative” enough.

Michelle Landay raised hell until they reevaluated her teen-aged son and changed their minds.

Landay was featured in the recent ABC News documentary on the military’s medical and follow-up treatment of soldiers wounded in Iraq. Bob Woodruff, the network’s news anchor who also suffered a TBI when an IED blew up next to the tank he was riding in during an assignment in Iraq back in February 2006, interviewed the young Marine. From Village Life:

“Woodruff first spoke with Jeff Landay at Bethesda Naval Hospital in October 2006, shortly after doctors installed a critical ‘bone flap’ over the missing portion of Landay’s skull. In an interview which those who know the young marine find difficult to watch, Woodruff asks Landay simple questions, but a frustrated Landay can’t find the words to reply.

‘He couldn’t’ talk yet,’ said Yaeger. ‘They [ABC television news crew] came out again last week and filmed in our home, and at the El Dorado Hills Sports Club.’ The footage shows Landay working out with his father in the gym, smiling and answering questions more clearly.”

You can see Woodruff’s ABC interview with Cpl. Jeff Landay here.

Cpl. Jeff Landay isn’t old enough to drink, but in this crazy, war-without-end era, he’s old enough to serve his country in the Marines, suffer grievous injury in a war without a purpose, and face a rough and very uncertain future.

Landay isn’t the only local casualty of the Iraq war in his community. Lance Cpl. Brad Shuder died by enemy mortar fire on April 12, 2004, also near Fallujah. Shuder was a graduate of the same local high school as Landay. He was 21 years old and it was his second tour in Iraq.

***

The recent revelations about the terrible follow-up medical care being received by injured soldiers from Iraq at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center were shameful. Cpl. Jeff Landay is relatively lucky, since his treatment has been through the much smaller Marine Corps. Yet when he was moved to a VA hospital, he ran into trouble.

I have a great respect for the care given to veterans through VA hospitals in spite of all the horror stories. They do the best job they can with inadequate funding and staffing, a bureaucracy that boggles the mind and a great deal of inefficiency.

Years ago, after being discharged from the Air Force, employed but without medical insurance, I went to a VA hospital for treatment of a ganglion cyst in my right wrist that had first shown up while I was on active duty. After two separate attempts to get rid of it by needle aspiration while I was still in the Air Force, it had returned. While it was rarely painful, and normally these odd growths don't cause any serious problems, the ganglion I had was causing my hand to suddenly loose grip strength at random moments; I’d learned never to pick up my small daughter or heavy pots off the stove using my right hand because I couldn’t trust it.

I was accepted into the VA medical system and an appointment was made. But when the VA doctor who examined my wrist told me “you should just smack it with a big ol’ book,” I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. He simply sent me on my way with no treatment or any better suggestions.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a letter from the VA three months later, telling me they’d decided I was 20 percent disabled by the ganglion and would, from now on, receive $60 per month in compensation.

I didn’t argue. I was a single mom and broke. That extra $60 helped with rent, child care and groceries. But after six months, the VA payments stopped without explanation. I didn’t inquire – I didn’t really want smack-it-with-a-book-level health care. And I never heard from the VA again.

About a year later, after I’d found a job that included medical benefits, I went to my new civilian doctor, who referred me to a specialist, who was in turn appalled at how much strength I’d lost in that hand due to the ganglion. When I told him what the VA doc had said, he goggled, then told me that “smacking it with a book” was an old treatment from the past that was, obviously, painful, not very effective and apt to do even more damage. I was amazed that it ever was an accepted “cure.”

Since repeated needle aspirations hadn’t been successful, he removed the ganglion cyst in an out-patient surgery at a local hospital a few weeks later. I’ve never had trouble from it since. I believe my hospital co-pay at the time was about ... $60.

Mr. Wren, who’s 80 percent disabled due to an injury suffered while he was in the Army, has been receiving all of his medical care through the VA for several years now. The local VA medical center is new and about 40 miles from home, but it’s a lot closer than the one I was sent to outside San Francisco before this one opened.

It’s been a rocky road for Mr. Wren. The care he’s received has been erratic. Sometimes it’s excellent. Sometimes it’s indifferent. A few times it’s been downright awful. The center is always crowded with veterans from all walks of life and of all ages, the majority of them from the Viet Nam or Korean war eras, like Mr. Wren. It’s a new building and a nice facility, and they have some state-of-the-art equipment there, but frankly, it’s a depressing place. The staff are overworked, tend to indifference, and the system is overwhelmed.

Mr. Wren sometimes has to wait three months for an appointment; if he needs to be seen quickly, he must go to their emergent care clinic, which operates along the lines of a civilian emergency room. Unless the complaint is life-threatening, patients can wait six or seven hours to be seen, more on weekends. And once he has been seen, the usual response is to send him home with a small amount of medication, if necessary, and instructions to call for an appointment with his VA primary care doctor – which he might not get for three months.

Needless to say, he doesn't go to the emergent care clinic for a cold or the flu.

They’ve lost his records many times, changed appointment times on him without notifying him, and put him through a nightmare tangle of paperwork, bollixed-up communications and even mailed him medications meant for other patients.

He’s also been the recipient of many expensive tests and is mailed a drugstore of remedies every month for pain, depression and even indigestion. It took them almost two years to diagnose his sleep apnea after I first mentioned to him that sometimes he didn’t breathe for long stretches at night, and wondered if his window-shaking snoring might be an issue. Sleep apnea, I reasoned, keeps the sufferer from falling into deep, restful sleep, which might have something to do with his ever-increasing pain. Still, it was another year before they finally got him in for a sleep test and two months more before they issued him a CPAP machine.

Fortunately he didn’t die in the meantime, and now he breathes all the way through each night and I sleep better, too. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have any effect on his pain level.

The great thing about VA medical care for veterans is that it's free.

For all its good and bad points, the VA is the only medical care many veterans have to fall back on. They served their country, many of them during wartime, many of them suffering debilitating injuries. They deserve the best medical care a grateful nation can offer them. And to the VA’s credit, it tries.

But now this whole, creaky, overwhelmed military medical system is being inundated by a new generation of wounded soldiers, many of whom will probably need care for the rest of their lives, like Cpl. Landay. It’s good that Congress and the White House are moving to improve the conditions at Walter Reed’s Building B and taking a look at the rest of the military and veterans medical systems, but it can’t happen soon enough.

Now we hear that, despite more than 70 percent of the American people turning against the war in Iraq, our military involvement there will likely last through fall 2008 or beyond. Eighteen more months. More than 3,000 soldiers have lost their lives over the last four years and many, many thousands more have been injured, some of them grievously and permanently. Will our leaders really allow another 3,000 to die before they end this travesty? Will they allow thousands more of our young people to be injured while the military and veterans medical systems here at home, vastly overloaded, spits them out like rotten teeth for lack of funding, facilities and competent staff?

If they do, I want to know why.

***

Update: If you'd like to send a card or letter to Cpl. Jeff Landay, snail-mail to:

PMB 173
Cpl Jeff Landay
4354 Town Center Blvd, Suite 114
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

Pre-empt Bush

President Bush evidently feels that the resolution Congress passed in 2002 allowing him to wage “pre-emptive” war in Iraq gives him the authority to do the same with any other country he believes could be a threat to the U.S. Currently, that country seems to be Iran. Next year, it could be Canada. Or England. How about North Korea? Russia? Venezuela? Brazil? Cuba? China?

Here’s what I’d like to know. Rather than pussyfoot around, trying to come up with non-binding symbolic resolutions to bring troops out of Iraq and, hopefully, keep him from ordering a pre-emptive attack on Iran, why can’t Congress pass a binding resolution to pre-empt Bush?

Don’t laugh. I know that’s why the Founders added impeachment as a way to stop criminal, rogue action on the part of the Executive branch.

But so far, the Democratic Congress is dragging its feet regarding the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, though with the stakes so high for America and her constitutional democracy, I’m not sure why. Seems to me that the time to do this has come. If they wait even a few weeks more, it could be too late.

No doubt someone better versed than I in politics and the Constitution could explain it to me.

And yet ... we’re facing a disaster of huge proportions, should Bush finagle a way to attack Iran. The pieces are slowly falling into place, just as they did with Iraq. In February 2003, Powell addressed the U.N. with his speech full of falsehoods and fantasies, and Bush said that he hadn’t decided whether to go to war, that he’d pursue all diplomatic options available. Of course, along with the lies he and his Republican enablers made up to convince us to go to war, he also lied about that. We were in Baghdad in early March.

Sadly, some of us never believed those lies. Our voices were ignored, or worse, we were called unpatriotic. Or traitors. Just like ... now.

Bush is saying the same thing. We’re moving into the middle of February. In March, the weather is better in the Middle East – not too hot yet, not too cold – just right for another nasty little war. Bush tells us he’s not really thinking about war with Iran. Why should we wait for him to prove that he’s lying again?

Faced with a leader who spouts whoppers with stunning regularity to the people who trust him to lead, and who leads them into disastrous, criminal wars of aggression, isn’t it time for the other branches of our government to simply step in and say, “no more”? Can’t Congress, at the very least, swiftly pass a binding, emergency resolution that reduces this particular presidency and vice presidency to the status of figureheads, there in name but without the power to do anything more than dress up in flight suits and purple robes and strut around in a padded room? Then the adults could put out this three-alarm fire of a war in Iraq and, sharing leadership powers equally, get to the long, grim work of mopping up the mess. In the meantime, both parties could work on bringing good candidates to the 2008 presidential election.

If the CEO of a corporation behaved the way Bush has, a competent board of directors would fire him -- and they wouldn’t wait until he’d bled the company dry and started torching the buildings. But we aren’t talking about companies that make widgets. Bush, Cheney and their enablers are frittering away Iraqi and American lives as if they’re nothing but playing pieces on a board while we, the ones who could stop them, do nothing, hoping against all hope that they aren’t insane after all.