Author: BobHiggins

Did The Rooster Call Up the Sun or Did Rove Get the Last Laugh?
The only certainty my grasshoppers is that the cherry blossoms of spring will become the turd blossoms of summer

Karl Rove also known as “Turd Blossom” in that colorful native patois spoken by the Texas Chicken hawks announced today that he is leaving the rapidly sinking Scow of State that is the Bush administration effective the end of August.

His reason for leaving, taken verbatim from the official Washington departing rats exit speech is of course, to spend more time with his family.

When asked by one of the fully interchangeable talking heads of the White House press horde if he was being forced out, TB replied, “that sounds like the rooster calling up the sun” which I believe is another expression in that curious Pecos dialect that these birds use among themselves. Only Molly Ivins could decipher and translate the curious Texas Pig Latin these guys speak in private. I miss Molly.

In the weeks ahead there will be endless testimonials to Rove as the master architect of two successive (if not successful) terms in the White House and hundreds of references to his intellect and political genius. Genius, when used to describe any aspect of the Bush administration, in any context, I feel, seriously dilutes the term.

Whether he is departing to spend more time barbecuing, dove hunting and billing and cooing with his Texas Rose while writing his memoirs or scurrying out of town under a cloud of suspicion, subpoenas and potential indictments is open to argument. Perhaps, with all the other foul public relations odors wafting around the White House these days they may have decided to set this particular sack of scent outside the door and some distance downwind before the congressional recess is over.

Either way, August is adieu for Turd Blossom, the administration, today, is publicly mourning his loss while beatifying his holy name and as I listen with half an ear the media “analysis” of his departure drones steadily on in the background, as it probably will for days unless Paris Hilton goes on another toot.

My personal favorite memory of Turd Blossom comes from reports of the White House Correspondents Dinner last April when he recoiled from Sheryl Crow. When she and Laurie David tried to ask him if he might consider taking a fresh look at global warming science in light of the reception of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Rove fled, he fled from Sheryl Crow, I will remember him that way scurrying across the room like Little Miss Muffet, in terror of Sheryl Crow.

Before he leaves town there will of course be a round of going away parties in his honor, and he’ll probably be invited to about half of them but I don’t think he will be absent from Washington long, he leaves behind his shield of executive privilege and I seem to remember that there are a few folks in the House and Senate who really want to talk with him.

In his goodbye photo op on the White House lawn this morning it struck me that Turd Blossom, the boy from the west, born in Denver and raised in Sparks, Nevada, has almost none of the drawl one might expect while the guy next to him, scion of eastern aristocrats, born in Connecticut, product of Skull and Bones, has cultivated a Texas two step drawl so dense you could whet your pocket knife on it.

Bush called Rove his friend, in fact, he said, “you could call him my dear friend.” Rove is if anything, the ultimate Bush loyalist, first as an assistant to GHW Bush after having being investigated as a minor player in the Watergate affair. When he was dispatched by Poppy to deliver car keys to Junior in November of 1973, Turd Blossom reportedly fell in love with the Shrub at first sight (politically speaking). “Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma – you know, wow” he recalled years later.

He’s had his chubby little fingers in everything in the administration for the last seven years without getting seriously burned and may have been the only person that Dick Cheney was wary of. There are many, myself included who would love to see him in handcuffs and that may yet happen but I’m not betting on it.

He’ll be around, there will be subpoenas to fight and a book to write, which I think that he should title “Reality is What You Say It Is” the ultimate Rovism, and I wish I could say,

Thank God and Greyhound he’s gone but I’m afraid that it’s not true, we’re stuck with his legacy, pictured below:

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

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Draftees At Drill Preparing For The War To End All Wars 1917

Lieutenant General Doug Lute, the “War Czar” known around the White House as the “General of least reluctance” is talking “Draft.” Expressing his concern at the stress and strain of repeated lengthy deployments on the troops as well as their families the General said:

As an Army officer, this is a matter of real concern to me. Ultimately, the American army, and any other all-volunteer force, rests with the support and the morale and the willingness to serve demonstrated by our ? especially our young men and women in uniform. And I am concerned that those men and women and the families they represent are under stress as a result of repeated deployments.

General Lute, who accepted the position of War Czar after the rest of the General Staff either fled in stark terror at the prospect of accepting such a potentially career ending position or simply hid out in the Senior Officer’s head in the Pentagon until the position was safely filled, did not actually use the “D” word, but, in response to questions from National Public Radio’s Michele Norris on Friday in an interview for “All Things Considered” he definitely left the door wide open in this exchange:

Norris- You know, given the stress on the military and the concern about these extended deployments for an all-volunteer military, can you foresee, in the future, a return to the draft?

Gen Lute- You know, that’s a national policy decision point that we have not yet reached, Michele, because the ?

Norris- But does it make sense militarily?

Gen. Lute- I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another. Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well. It would be a major policy shift, not actually a military, but a political policy shift to move to some other course.

Norris- Do you agree with that assessment that there is a real pressure point in the spring ? that that’s when the Pentagon will face some tough decisions about either extended deployments or reducing the time spent at home?

Gen. Lute- Yes, I do agree that come the spring, some variables will have to change ? either the degree to which the American ground forces, the Marines and the Army in particular, are deployed around the world to include Iraq, or the length of time they’re deployed in one tour, or the length of time they enjoy at home. Those are, essentially, the three variables.

Personally, I read that to mean that there have already been discussions on this at the “policy” level ( else the General would not have let it pass his highly skilled Czarist lips ) and it will likely become Bush’s next “Plan B” in the spring. The Republicans will tag along as will the acquiescent Democrats after a few obligatory public tugs at their Master’s sock, because none of these people want out of Iraq as long as they are being paid so handsomely by those who will ultimately profit from American hegemony in the oil rich region.

I would like to think that drafting a hundred thousand college age children of the wealthy to serve in the Mesopotamian morass would hasten the end of the war but it probably will not. The younger generation of chickenhawks will receive the same deferments as their fathers and the children of the working class will slog off to die in a civil war that will continue into the next decade, probably embroiling Iran in the hideous stew because we want control of their oil as well.

We’re not building the Disney World of embassies in Baghdad to fix traffic tickets, run consular affairs or replace lost passports for the occasional hapless tourist and we’re not building extensive permanent military bases all over Iraq to turn over to the tenuous control of Iraqi security forces who will likely surrender to the first Jihadist who points a weapon in their general direction.

I am being unfair to the War Czar though because he doesn’t like that title, preferring instead the title of Deputy National Security Adviser (Asst to Stephen Hadley) or Assistant to the President (Junior):

Norris- I’m just curious, What do you think of the term war czar?

Gen Lute- It’s actually an unfortunate term because it doesn’t describe my job at all.

Norris- But it’s often how people describe you.

Gen Lute- That may be, but it wouldn’t be my choice of how I describe the job. What I’m trying to do here is actually facilitate the very hard work that’s taking place on the ground and link it to the very hard work that’s being done here in Washington across the departments of the executive branch with the priorities of what’s required on the ground reflected in the efforts here in Washington. I’m in charge of about 15 people. Now that’s not exactly very czar-like, but what I am able to do is make sure that efforts are aligned properly.

Editor’s note: HUH? Is that a job?

Norris- Well, you know what they say in Washington sometimes ? that power is concentrated.

Gen Lute- [Chuckles.] Well, I have 15 very qualified people, and we’re working very hard to do our best to contribute to this effort.

All of this I take to mean that the draft is coming, and Canada had best be prepared for another influx of young American expats, possibly beginning next spring.

I also learned that it only takes two months for a highly trained General Officer to pick up the irritating habit of using the words “hard work” in nearly every paragraph if you place him in the company of those who spent their Vietnam years as Yale cheerleaders, members of the Cornell Glee Club, or simply having “other priorities.”

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

‘War Czar’ Concerned over Stress of War on Troops

Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a Look

Selective Service plans “readiness” tests for military draft

Bush War Czar Considering Military Draft

Kollwitz, The Propeller

Having shown over the last seven months, since taking control of the legislative branch that they are at least equal to the Republicans when it comes to avarice, the Democrats set out this past weekend to demonstrate that, when it comes to cowardice, to blatant, unmitigated, ass covering politics they are every bit a match for Republicans.

Who impeaches the Congress? What in our Constitution protects the citizens of this country from a completely rogue government? When all three branches have abrogated their constitutional obligations, who will stand up for, who will represent the people of the United States?

Where must we search, to whom do we go for protection from the power of the wealthy corporate classes who are stealing our wealth, our livelihoods, and our future, who are spitting on our laws and our history as they sacrifice our Children and Grandchildren on the profane altar of their greed, in their eternal wars for profit and power?

Where is the opposition? Where do we go for redress of grievances when every institution of government is in the hands of the enemies of the people?

After suffering through five long years of watching a rogue executive blow it’s nose on the American Constitution and wipe it’s feet on our laws and bill of rights, it was with some relief and a glimmer of hope that I watched the election results last November as the Democratic party was returned to control of the legislative branch of the federal government. The pendulum is returning to the center I told myself, surely it will soon move to the left and show benefits to the working people of this country again.

I was somewhat apprehensive of course, I wrote several pieces warning my fellow Democrats to clean their own house and to do so loudly and publicly, to show the electorate that they were worthy of the public trust and to be on guard against the toxic infections of the corporate lobbyists and special interests that had so corrupted the Republicans they were replacing.

My voice and the more powerful and eloquent voices of others with the same message might have been crickets chirping in the wilderness, they could not be heard above the howl of the bitter wind driven by the building stampede.

The great headlong rush was on. The Democrats looked like the riotous crowds of Pamplona in their frenzied dash for campaign funds, for their rightful share of the political plunder that had, for so long, been denied to them. Like the mobs of Pamplona except they were chasing after the bulls, racing madly down the streets of our capitol, through the storied halls of our public monuments, their larcenous rotting hearts exposed, their shameless, greedy, grasping palms outstretched, drooling mouths at the ready, eager to suck at the poisonous teats of public corruption and corporate largess, it was a sight from hell.

The relief of last November is now long forgotten amid in the fear and loathing of July, the wars continue unabated, the so called opposition party has joined in dividing the spoils and trampling the law, the hope is gone and, I belive, it is time for every American who cares for this country, for humankind to face up to the sickening and unavoidable reality of our times.

The government of the United States is thoroughly and completely corrupt. From top to bottom, from one side of the aisle to the other, at all levels, whether we look at the federal system or in our statehouses, our government, our institutions, our military, our courts and schools and regulatory bodies, each and every one, has fallen under the control of criminals. And they are being aided and abetted by the treacherous and treasonous majorities of both of our so called political parties.

We need not travel 12,000 miles and comb the dusty caverns of remote mountain ranges, or the empty blazing deserts of Arabia in a search for terror and evil. All the terror, all the fear, all the evil we could ever desire to discover is centered in the chambers of our government and commerce and the evil hearts and minds of those who control them.

The government of the United States now operates under the careful tutelage, direction and control of enormously powerful international corporate interests which have no respect for the people of this or any other nation, not their laws, not their values nor their common histories and least, their humanity, their very lives.

The only interest of these piratical, plutocratic vermin is to take the labor from our backs, to strip the fruit from our trees and the crops from our fields, to mine the ore and pump the oil from our earth, to discover a way to steal the water from our seas and the very light from our sky and make it their own, to control it all, to control it all in their thirst for profit, in their worship of Mammon, of Moloch.

Look not to the media, the self exalted press, those journalistic guardians of the past, have become the corporate stooges of the present, the once independent protectors of the people no longer exist, they were bought, bought and sold in the same trades as the judges, as the preachers, the pastors, bishops, and the healers, bought as cheaply as the public servants, their souls are owned by the houses of wealth and power. All the saviors have sold us out, there is no one to save us but ourselves.

I find no further hope in the ballot box, another election of the darlings of the captains of industry, be they the favorite of the energy or drug companies, of the hedge funds or the arms merchants, I see no prospect for change from them and feel no desire to entrust the future to those so beholden to the slave masters of the past and the prison guards of the present.

I see no alternative, to wait further is to wait in vain, to continue on the path of non involvement, to ignore the evil that confronts us is to accept the shackles of our slavery willingly. We have only one strength, the strength of numbers and of the rightness of action against tyranny, for it is tyranny that we face.

If the law does not restrain the tyrant, it need not restrain the oppressed.

Some may call this the ravings of a paranoid mind, so be it. If my reaction to the reality of the world being created in our name, the reality of the sights and sounds of the miserable poverty, the continuous promotion of death and destruction, to the cries of the displaced and the maimed, the weeping of the mourners amidst the laughter of those who manipulate events to their own private ends is deemed paranoid then I accept the diagnosis. I welcome it. I am afraid, for myself, for my family, for my country, for my fellow man.

This government has stirred the fears of the populace for years, they toiled mightily to create a state of paranoia and keep it in the forefront, fear has been their currency. They have succeeded mightily, the populace is afraid and although I fear, in some measure, the danger they point to, I fear much more, much more, those who bear the pointing finger.

It is time I think, for massive nonviolent protest, for marches, acts of civil disobedience, general strikes, slow downs, sit ins, park ins on major thoroughfares, mass boycotts. It is time for people to resort to any nonviolent means of bringing this bloodsucking system to a standstill, to force the criminals into the prisons in which they belong and to transfer control of our government, our institutions and our resources to the people.

Paranoid? Perhaps. Over the top? Maybe.

Is any one else afraid of those who rule over this dark age?

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

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House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill

Americans are just giddy over this “Homeland” thing.

We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years. The main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially al-Qa’ida, driven by their undiminished intent to attack the Homeland and a continued effort by these terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.

The statement above comes from the “National Intelligence Estimate” (NIE) which was issued today by the office of the director of National Intelligence,  Mike McConnell.

I read the so called NIE this morning and the most interesting thing that I learned was that the word “homeland” was used eleven times in a page and a half. The 766 word document that probably cost millions to compile, print, bind and distribute informs me of ….. nothing new. al Quaeda is a threat and will continue to be, and so on, they still hate us. Pardon me, but ho hum.

We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.

We (the people of the United States) have spent an unimaginable amount of money, (500 billion, half a trillion, who’s counting,… not these rummies, they’re way too busy spending) and squandered the lives of thousands of our Children and Grandchildren, as well as the physical and emotional well being of many tens of thousands more during the the last five years. Not a damn thing has been accomplished and these bastards have the nerve to offer “assessments?” “progress reports?”

Every time I hear the word “homeland” or just about any phrase which contains it, like “homeland security,” “protect the homeland,” or “threats to the homeland,” for some reason my blood runs a little colder. I guess the term was first popularized in the wake of the 911 attacks, but even back then it then it made my hair stand on end.

We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge. Al-Qa’ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa’ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa’ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

The level of international cooperation has and will continue to wane. Not because the memory has faded nor perceptions of the threat diverged (what the hell does that mean?) interest is “waning” because most of the rest of the world has come to the inescapable conclusion that the control of the American government has fallen into the hands of liars fools and criminals. Our military itself has said that in Iraq, the major threat is from the radical Shia militias, not from al Quaeda in Iraq. These bastards are lying out of both sides of their mouths and spitting in our faces down the middle.

Maybe it’s just a psychological connection caused by a lifetime of exposure to the now ancient black and white war and spy movies, or a remembrance of the propagandistic documentaries of my youth, growing up as I did during the early years of the “Cold War.” The term never fails to bring to my mind visions of Hitler on the dais, arm raised before the admiring and hysterical crowd, or Stalin, standing rigidly, peering over his mustaches as Soviet armor and missiles parade past the Kremlin, “Homeland” conjures images of Stalinist art or Maoist posters.

As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment. We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.

Back in 2001 bin Laden was “assessed” by these same chowder heads, to be worth a couple hundred million bucks,  now we spend that amount in Iraq in less than a week and most of that money is going into the pockets of those who backed this caper in the first place. At the rate things are going I’m not the least surprised that al Quaeda or Mutaqa al Sadr will have more success recruiting suicidal idiots than we are at recruiting the last kid who wants to die in Iraq.

It is, to me, as if the word itself, represents some distant archetype of terror and madness, contains vestigial memories of barely realized childhood fears and insecurities, dim memories of the saga of war and holocaust, of witch hunts, of persecutions.

We assess that al-Qa’ida’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the US population. The group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices, and is innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles.

Well, gee, I hope to shout that they are proficient, they have been practicing on the proving ground which we provided for five years, and during that time personnel, weapons and mountains of cash have been pouring across every border,  Syria, Jordan, Iran, most of it from Saudi Arabia. The Iraqis want us out, hell everybody in the region wants us out, except of course those who so persistently demand that the Iraqi parliament come to an agreement on the awarding of oil concessions and division of the revenue…. hmmmm.

I don’t like the word, “Homeland” especially in the context that it currently used, nor do I like the collection of phrases which include it that have been concocted by the Goebellian band of spinmeisters and inveterate liars that compose the current concert of neo-con government functionaries and media shills that passes for the press these days.

We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.

This wholly asinine statement reminds me of the months after Bush’s fraudulent State of the Union address and when, in trying to dissemble and back pedal like some little frat boy caught out after curfew, he said that Saddam was guilty of having the “intent” to develop weapons of mass destruction. Is anyone listening to these people?

America is not the Homeland, except perhaps to the Seneca or the Shoshone, the ancient Anasazi or the more recent indigenous people that we gave a fast push across the country and onto useless land that no one else wanted,  until oil and the internal combustion engine came along that is.

We assess Lebanese Hizballah, which has conducted anti-US attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the Homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran. We assess that the spread of radical?especially Salafi?Internet sites, increasingly aggressive anti-US rhetoric and actions, and the growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries indicate that the radical and violent segment of the West’s Muslim population is expanding, including in the United States. The arrest and prosecution by US law enforcement of a small number of violent Islamic extremists inside the United States? who are becoming more connected ideologically, virtually, and/or in a physical sense to the global extremist movement?points to the possibility that others may become sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate. We assess that this internal Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe, however. We assess that other, non-Muslim terrorist groups?often referred to as “single-issue” groups by the FBI?probably will conduct attacks over the next three years given their violent histories, but we assess this violence is likely to be on a small scale.

We assess that globalization trends and recent technological advances will continue to enable even small numbers of alienated people to find and connect with one another, justify and intensify their danger, and mobilize resources to attack?all without requiring a centralized terrorist organization, training camp, or leader.

“I assess that in the paragraph above they are setting the stage for operations in Iran and Lebanon and the preparation of domestic internment camps. But what the hell the last five years have made me a little jumpy.”

We’re not the Fatherland either, nor are we the Motherland (which, I think, is pretty well synonymous, except for that gender thing) Fatherland implies, to me, ethnicity, something that America doesn’t have one of. Instead we have all of them. In our wisdom, and in the liberal spirit of the age at our foundation, we decided to have all ethnicity’s, to be a land of liberty and opportunity for all the downtrodden of the earth. I’m proud of that, so were my parents and Grandparents proud, of THAT.

The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment

will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt

plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local

level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of

terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.

Since I’m in an assessing mood after reading all this high dollar assessing, I will go further out on this limb and assess that the paragraph above this one tells me not to say anything on the telephone that I don’t want Karl Rove reading a summary of in the morning.

Speaking of summaries this whole National Intelligence thing could have been done for a lot less money. They’re always talking about privatizing these things, aren’t they? Had they brought it to us here at Worldwide Sawdust we would have turned the project over to our subsidiary, Worldwide Bullshit. They would have brought that baby in for less than fifty grand.

We also wouldn’t have got it completely wrong, al Quaeda isn’t the main threat facing America, now or in the near future, not even close. We would have assessed instead, that the major danger to America is represented by the people who delivered a “National Intelligence Estimate” and used the word “Homeland” eleven times and the word “America” not at all.

That frightens me.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

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A persistent and evolving terrorist threat

I discovered this morning that the Bush presidency is a success.
Boy, was I surprised.

Bill Kristol explains it all in an article at The Washington Post that gets my recommendation for the Fatuous Nonsense of the Week Award.

He opens by admitting that such an assertion may expose him to some “harmless ridicule” and proceeds to offer two pages of proof as to why such ridicule might be justified.

“Let’s step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let’s look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil — not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy — also something that wasn’t inevitable.”

Sure Bill let’s examine the Bush presidency by not looking too closely at the “unlovely trees” by which I assume that you refer to the death and destruction that follows everything this administration has touched or even glanced at in the last seven years. Every time I hear that bromide about “no second attack on US soil,” I’m reminded of the old elementary school joke about keeping the elephants away, and the punchline, “you don’t see any elephants around here, do you?

It may be that there have been no attacks on US soil because we have thoughtfully accommodated the terrorists of the world by presenting them with such an attractive target as our presence in Iraq. They don’t need to come here to hurt us, we have been expending blood and treasure in copious amounts for something like 52 months in their home ballpark. We’re the ones with the long supply lines, they need only a bus ticket or cab fare from Damascus, Waziristan or Riyadh.

We’re losing over a hundred of our troops every month and probably eight to ten  times that many wounded, while bringing about the deaths, maiming or ruin of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and inviting the continued and well deserved scorn of most of the civilized world, as we merrily mass produce Islamic terrorists by the battalion in Iraq. All told, I think it would be cheaper to fight them here.

But cost is not an issue is it Bill? As one of the principal architects of this criminal madness, I’m sure that you find great comfort in the fact that the lion’s share of the trillions of dollars of public funds being expended in pursuit of empire will end up in select private hands, which is the primary goal of those you represent, more money, more power in the hands of the bloated few and the rest of us standing in line for a minimum wage that you hope to eliminate.

“What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Cheney probably are doing some important things right. The war in Afghanistan has gone reasonably well.”

If after nearly six years “reasonably well” means that Kabul is generally safe for the activities of journalists, arms merchants and drug smugglers, I suppose that’s true, but what about the other 95% of Afghanistan?

Just across the border in the wilds of Waziristan, Osama and his henchman are thriving, living in relative safety, knowing that American forces have other priorities, are bogged down in Iraq and long ago stopped caring about them. They’ve been operating there with impunity ever since our military was directed to allow them to escape from the caves of Tora Bora.

You guys (That’s you Billy, you and Daddy Irving, along with Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, PNAC, American Enterprise, the whole stinking, chicken hawk cesspot),you guys, didn’t want bin Laden then, and you don’t want him now, he’s your rainmaker, you can’t afford to lose him, he’s the driving force behind the enormous profits in your ongoing rape of the public treasury. You need Osama, if he went belly up tomorrow you would have to replace him quickly, the continued existence of the bogeyman of “Islamofascism is the centerpiece of your ballgame.

“But wait, wait, wait: What about Iraq? It’s Iraq, stupid — you (and 65 percent of your fellow Americans) say — that makes Bush an unsuccessful president. Not necessarily. First of all, we would have to compare the situation in Iraq now, with all its difficulties and all the administration’s mistakes, with what it would be if we hadn’t gone in. Saddam Hussein would be alive and in power and, I dare say, victorious, with the United States (and the United Nations) by now having backed off sanctions and the no-fly zone. He might well have restarted his nuclear program, and his connections with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened.

The lies contained in the quotation above have been repeated over and over by every hack, crony and crook in this corrupt administration, by every spineless lickspittle Bush backer in the Congress and by every slimy seditious war profiteer, in every sector of American business, from energy to finance and by a sizable number of the loyalist clergy from the pulpits of the tin hat theocratic right. They were lies in 2001, and they remain lies today. Repetition will not change the facts and those who do the repeating are transparent liars. Please Bill include your name in that column.

“Following through to secure the victory in Iraq and to extend its benefits to neighboring countries will be the task of the next president. And that brings us to Bush’s final test.”

Pity the poor next President as he tries to present other countries in the region (or in sub Saharan Africa; that’s the next stop on the old Empire express isn’t it?) with an opportunity to share in the beneficence we bestowed on their Mesopotamian neighbors. See how they run!

If we sustain the surge for a year and continue to train Iraqi troops effectively, we can probably begin to draw down in mid- to late 2008. The fact is that military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected, and political progress is beginning to follow. Iran is a problem, and we will have to do more to curb Tehran’s meddling — but we can. So if we keep our nerve here at home, we have a good shot at achieving a real, though messy, victory in Iraq.”

When and how, Billy, did you become a strategic thinker, a military analyst, it wasn’t in Vietnam where, I’m sure, like so many other young men of your generation, you were offered an opportunity to serve, it wasn’t in any area of military service was it, no, like Cheney and Wolfowitz you had other priorities.

Oh yeah, they once called you Dan Quayle’s brain, didn’t they? I think I’d try to get that off the resume.

Let me remind you that by mid to late 2008 we will have thrown away the lives of an additional thousand or more young American troops and sent another 8000 or so to enjoy the tender mercies of an underfunded veteran’s health care system. How many more innocent Iraqis will be killed if we listen to you. Oh, that’s right, no one’s counting Iraqi casualties are they? Why start now?

You are so smugly certain with your pronouncements. To the uninitiated, your words, accompanied by the self satisfied grin, have a veneer of respectability and authority, but, to many of us who have been on the receiving end of what you call “American foreign policy” they are just more self serving, chicken hawk, patrician prattle.

Here’s one of your pronouncements of a few years back, at the beginning of the Iraq war, for which you beat your little drum so loudly, and so frequently, you said this:

“There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

Oh? Really?

I hope that there is a special place in Hell for the Goebbels, the McNamaras, the strategic thinkers and systems analysts, all the accountants of carnage and human misery and I hope that you have the opportunity to join them.

But before that lovely and eternal event I would like to see you in uniform, and fallen, after many grueling months of terror and sadness, of heat and sleeplessness and extreme exertion, of living in filth, fallen, grievously wounded, frightened and alone, lying in a pool of your own blood and gore, your life ebbing before your eyes. I would like to see the look in your eyes as you realize that you are about to be the last American to die in Iraq.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

Why Bush Will Be A Winner

Preaching to the choir yesterday in Martinsburg, W Va, Bush recited the same sermon he and his handlers reserve for these carefully controlled and completely choreographed appearances before the faithful.

“We give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence,” Bush said. He added: “You’re the successors of those brave men. . . . Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war.”

I wonder if anyone else noticed that our Revolution against the tyrannical rule of that earlier George, the occupation of our cities and provinces by British troops, his interference in what we regarded as our affairs, and the general mistreatment of our citizenry was, in fact, the polar opposite of  our invasion and occupation of Iraq and the mistreatment, maiming and murder of their citizenry.

We have been at war in Iraq for over four years, in Afghanistan for nearly six, at the same time we have conducted and continue to conduct covert operations in other countries throughout the Middle East including Iran and Pakistan, as well as in several African countries.

The result of what we have wrought has been the death, destruction or displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with the sacrifice of our military forces and our economic future. There has been no net gain for the people of this country or any other.

Along the way great benefits have devolved upon many of our well connected corporations, both public and private, continuing the transfer of public wealth to private hands, (select private hands, that is) which is the core of neo conservative economics and was the central purpose of going to war in Iraq.

We might have more easily invaded Mexico, a country which was equally complicit in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the number of Mexican terrorists aboard the ill fated suicide planes having been exactly equal to the number of Iraqi terrorists.

A war against terror in Mexico, so much closer than Iraq, would have greatly eased the logistical problems we have in the Middle East, avoided stirring up the international radical Muslim community and may have gone a long way to solving our much ballyhooed “immigration problems.”

Here at home, a young man was killed about two weeks ago, Marine Cpl. Derek C. Dixon was killed while serving at a checkpoint in al Anbar province on Tuesday, June 26. Cpl Dixon was from Riverside, Ohio which is about a traffic light from where I sit typing as I watch the rabbits at early morning play outside my office window.

He will be buried today north of Dayton with full military honors, he was twenty years old and looked younger. Cpl Dixon attended high school at the same school I attended over four decades ago. He probably joked and laughed in the same classrooms, walked the same halls and ate in the same cafeteria as I did those long years ago.

Forty one years ago I walked those halls, laughing and joking with Ronnie Fields, one of my childhood friends and a lovable clown of a kid. Incorrigible and disruptive to good order and discipline was the the verdict of the adults who patrolled the halls in those days.

Ronnie was killed in Vietnam early in 1968 long before our young Corporal was born, his name is etched in a marble slab in the sidewalk of the Vietnam Memorial Park, located near the banks of the Great Miami River, within sight of our sadly aspiring little “downtown.” Ronnie’s name is there in a great circle of sidewalk joining the names of other local boys who paid the ultimate price of our folly in Vietnam.

I go there sometimes and walk by the river. I stand under the trees near Ronnie’s name etched there in the marble and listen to the breeze as it crosses the river and blows through the trees, pushing the blazing city air off to the east and I see his face at 15 and 16, the mischief in his eyes above a grin that made you forget every thing else in the vicinity except whatever he might be up to now.

I stand in that silence and think of him and all the others lost and gone, some I knew, most I did not, except in spirit.

I spent several years on a Veteran’s honor guard and have served at more than three hundred funerals and memorial services. In every one I heard the same phrases, the same words, honor and duty and sacrifice, died for his country, service to America, and then, then they play Taps, fire three volleys and go to their homes or to the VFW for sandwiches and beer.

Nothing left at graveside, just another name etched in marble, or concrete, etched in bronze, another memory of a fresh faced young kid laughing with his friends in some high school hallway, just a memory and the wind.

They buried Ronnie almost half a lifetime ago and since that day, so many more, so many more.

They will bury Cpl Dixon today, a squad of Marines in attendance, a Chaplain probably, an Officer in Charge and a rifle squad. The bugle will sound taps, and the riflemen will fire three volleys.

The dreadful finality of the crack of the rifles will startle the senses, bring tears to the eyes, and sobs to the throats of most of those in attendance.
The grief will seem unbearable but it will be borne, once again.

And when final notes of the bugle fade, they will leave
and leave behind another soon faded flag, another memory in the wind.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Vice President Harry S. Truman plays the piano as actress Lauren Bacall, perched on the instrument,
looks on, at the National Press Club canteen in Washington, Feb. 10, 1945.

After extensively researching the US Constitution this morning before I attacked the crossword puzzle I have discovered that the term Vice President appears in that revered and trusted document and its amendments no less than than twenty four times. In no instance does the term appear near the words “shall be an employee of the executive department,” however, the term also does not appear near the words “shall maintain an office in the White House where he will hold secret meetings with the various “Captains of Industry” and where it will be convenient for him, from time to time, to pick up the President by the ears for a good corrective shake.”

I guess what we have here is something historians call a “Constitutional Mexican toss up” which will be decided by the courts long after the deaths of the parties involved.

I do believe however, that a cursory study of photograph of the Vice President engaged at his duties above will convince even the most disinclined observer that the Vice President has historically exercised executive functions.

If anyone needs further research on this please wait until later, I still have to deal with that puzzle.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

The EDSA Revolution, also referred to as the People Power Revolution and the Philippine Revolution of 1986, was a mostly non-violent mass demonstration in the Philippines. Four days of peaceful action by millions of Filipinos led to the downfall of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and the installation of Corazon Aquino as president of the Republic. EDSA stands for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the main highway in Metro Manila and the main site of the demonstrations.

In the last year or so I’ve posted more than a few articles protesting various aspects of the Cheney/Bush administration and their ill conceived, illegal and insane policies and on several occasions I’ve led the pieces with pictures that cast Cheney and Bush in Nazi uniforms. I have no facility with Photoshop so I “borrowed” the images from here and there around the web. My apologies to those unheralded graphic geniuses whose work I “borrowed.”

The pieces were generally well received around the liberal blogosphere but locally, here in Dayton, Ohio I took no small amount of heat for comparing Cheney/Bush and his criminal minions with Hitler and his henchmen. I received some very unflattering comments, some hate mail, more than a few invitations to an ass kicking, mine was intended I believe, and one grammatically challenged death threat.

It is not always a friendly house we play to here in the “heart”land, this crowd can get tough.

I’ve long believed that no matter how great my fears of the criminal depths to which the government of my country has sunk, no matter how bad I suspect things have become, the reality is always, always, worse. much worse, way worse.

That is why I’m seldom surprised by reports of governmental abuse of the rights of our citizens and other human beings around the world and why I wasn’t surprised when I read an article (“The CIA’s torture teachers”) in Salon today in which Mark Benjamin points out the emerging facts in several investigations currently underway which point to the active participation of members (Doctors, I believe) of the American Psychological Association with the CIA and Special Force components of the US military in the criminal interrogations of prisoners being held at Guantanamo and other sites known and unknown around the world.

I also believe that I’ve reached an age and a level of experience at which, if I notice that if someone is pissing in my boots and simultaneously trying to explain to me that it’s raining, I have no problem kicking his ass without benefit of further evidence.

Bullshit, I feel, announces itself well in advance by it’s unmistakable aroma, and my sniffer has only improved with age. And so, I believe, has yours.

This makes me what they call a loose cannon, so be it.

I knew, for example, long before the first court proceeding that Scooter, along with everyone in the VPs realm and the entire “unitary executive” had signed on to destroying Joe Wilson, his wife was just necessary “collateral damage.” And so, I believe did you.

I knew that Bush’s pathetic little sycophant at Justice was balls deep in doing exactly what Karl Rove told him to do the moment I read the first story of the attorney firings in the press nearly a year ago, as, in my mind at least, did you.

And, to the point, I knew when these assholes started beating breasts and investigating and charging and arranging courts martial for a few poor enlisted saps, and hanging fully expendable reserve officers out to dry over their involvement in the criminal abuses at Abu Graib, I knew that the policy directives/orders had flowed like water, down the big hill, always seeking the path of least resistance, right from the headwaters of criminal madness in the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, down through the office of “Gee Willikers” Don, to be signed off on by every cowardly, ass kissing “General” in the sickening group of careerist traitors that passes for military leadership in this Alice in Neocon world, and rolled inexorably on, like some, some, giant nightmare snowballing turd, crushing the hapless, low level few who would be sacrificed so that the dreams of empire could continue on and the profits would not abate. Somehow, I don’t believe that I was alone in my “knowledge.”

This story, of which I’m sure I have not heard the end, coupled with the “The General’s Report” in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh about the downfall of Antonio Taguba, an honest and honorable officer and how he became one of the millions of human casualties of the human filth in neckties who have taken control of my America and Glen Greenwald’s piece this morning about Norman Podhoretz the lunatic who represents the “spiritual” core of this piratical band of psychopaths has pretty much driven my rage level to the ceiling.

I now live in a country that forces brave men like Antonio Taguba into retirement for behaving like honorable men, like soldiers, a country that rewards pathological scum like Norman Podhoretz the “Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

I was right to portray Cheney/Bush as Nazis, but they are potentially far worse.

I’m ready for the barricades. I know it… let me know when you know that you are.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

Eight faces that I’m thoroughly sick of.

Ten faces that make me vomit, projectile style.

Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,

He’s a-runnin’ for office on the ballot note.

He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple,

Tellin’ me he loves all kinds-a people.

He’s eatin’ bagels

He’s eatin’ pizza

He’s eatin’ chitlins

He’s eatin’ bullshit!

Bob Dylan “I Shall Be Free”

I knew this would happen when they started campaigning for the 2008 election five minutes after the 2006 mid terms. I felt it coming, like the feeling I get when I eat a giant sausage sandwich with peppers and onions at midnight, I know that indigestion is in my immediate future.

I’m sick of politics, thoroughly, fed up, to the gills…. Urp!

I know, I know, being sick of politics is like being tired of living, OK so what what what do you do about it? Shut up? Quit bitching? Take up residence in the nearest hermitage? Find a cuckoo’s nest and commit to it?

I’ve been reflecting in the last few days about lofty goals, the dreams and visions of changing the world expressed by the alpha personalities parading before us in this increasingly irrelevant, interminable and irritating beauty contest of a presidential election campaign.

I met a person recently whose goal every day is to help people in one remote village get a second meal each day, just that, help someone who normally eats once in every twenty four hours to get an extra tuna sandwich.

There are thousands of such people who arise each day, not thinking about building a nuclear reactor, desalinating the Indian ocean, irrigating a billion acres of desert, creating productive farmland to feed an entire continent, but simply concern themselves with helping Julius Mukembe provide a second meal for himself and his wife and children as well as the families in the other 17 huts in some remote part of nowhere.

A remote part of nowhere, where a scientific breakthrough is a septic system and mass transit is a foot bridge that enables livestock to forage in new pasture land and cuts hours off the daily task of gathering fuel or food.

A remote part of nowhere where a health care program is clean water, where feeding the hungry means sharing your dinner.

I no longer believe that any of the high class whores depicted in the circus pictures above will do anything that will make life easier or better for the common people in this or any other country. They will not solve a single one of the enormous societal challenges that lie like an enormous weight on our public chest and that lie in wait to restrict our children’s future.

Whether we talk about war and peace, energy or health care, social security or child mortality I cannot find the face of a savior or even a halfway decent prophet in any ring of this circus.

I know that I can trust all of them to say one thing publicly and the opposite when the cameras amd microphones disappear. I know that everyone shown on the stages above has, and will in the future, sell out the interests of the working people of this country and others to the first corporate lizard with with a handful of campaign cash. I hear their phony pronouncements, so carefully crafted by their handlers and spin doctors and reject almost every word I hear.

I am sick of hearing from everyday people around me that “they’re all alike, Republicans, Democrats, it doesn’t matter, they’re all crooked.”

I’m sick of hearing that statement because it’s so damn true. The instant that the election returns were counted last fall my Democratic leadership began groveling at the feet of the same corporate interests that put the Bush/Cheney fiasco in office.

They will provide for the future, trust them, “their future,” but when the pie is sliced and served we will still be eating cake… Urp!

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

Hamatika School

Gwembe valley

October 4, 2002

Dear Aunty Grace

Thank you very much for the food that arrived yesterday. Mother was thrilled to see

it. She cried because she had not seen so much mealie meal for months.

Straightaway she cooked a really big meal of nshima. We ate really well last night

and I still feel full today.

Some days when I’m unable to write at home, too lazy to make breakfast, or just need a better cup of coffe than I make around here, I head for a local Internet Cafe. Java Street is a very pleasant spot run by a gracious friend named Stacy and habituated by a generally interesting and diverse group of people.

Yesterday as I settled in, plugged in the laptop and ordered breakfast I spoke to a couple of the regulars who play chess most mornings trading quick coffee house greetings. As I opened the morning paper I noticed at the next table a very pretty young woman (I’m a professional, a trained observer, it’s my job) wearing a headset, engrossed in her work and seemingly oblivious to the coffee aromas mixed with the lingering memory of burnt toast and the low murmur of breakfast banter wafting in her vicinity.

I wonder where you managed to find all that food? There has been nothing in the

market here for weeks now and the last maize that came was so expensive that we

could not afford it. The harvest from our farm ran out in July, after only a few

weeks. Since then father has been walking to the next village to work as a brick

maker. He gets really tired with the long walk and the hard work but the boss pays

him in food so at least we have had something to eat, even if it is often only one

meal a day.

I decided when I got up yesterday, to not try to write and instead, take care of some of the administrative jobs on the website, fixing links, window dressing, doing a little promotion, responding to comments at other sites etc. I had written several short things in the last week and felt myself reaching, grasping for more, and knew that I should take a day off lest I succumb to my inner literary greed.

Unfortunately he has been told there is no more work after next week

and so no more food. Mother says my brothers and I will probably have to leave

school for a few weeks to look for food in the bush and to help in our fields in the

hope that we get a harvest this April.

I’m not sure how but after breakfast, after the the checkmate at the next table, after the headset was removed, and my busywork was done I caught the eye of the lovely young woman (blue eyes filled with wit and humor, with intelligence, curiosity and charm) and asked her what she was working on.

I hope things are better for you in Lusaka. We always imagine the capital city will

be really rich, with plenty of food and it must be wonderful to be able to watch

television! Lots of my friends want to come there to get jobs and get rich, but I am

not sure, what do you think?

Please write soon

With love

Joy Mweeba

Her gaze was direct, her smile pleasant, if somewhat quizzical, and her tone frank as she explained that she was a graduate student in anthropology, preparing to leave in a few days for a summer research project in Africa.

I heard the roaring of lions, the gentle thrumming of rain on the jungle canopy, the rhythm of distant drums, I was smitten, smitten with Africa and of course, ancient though I am, with this, this, young lady, this girl really, younger than my shirt, so lovely and young so brave and earnest.

Half a century ago, when I was a boy, before high school, before John Kennedy, Vietnam, marriage, a dozen years before the birth of my son there was a great dam built in what once was Northern Rhodesia on the Zambezi River. Kariba Dam among the worlds largest was built to interrupt the flow and harness the power of the mighty river, power that was needed to run the colonial towns and cities in what would become Zambia and Zimbabwe.

As the river rose, foot by inexorable foot behind the dam, as the great fertile valley became Lake Kariba, now one of the worlds largest man made lakes, great efforts were made to save and relocate the wildlife of the area.

The wildlife of Zambia is the stuff of legend, of history merged with legend, Livingstone and Stanley, Great White hunters, safaris, a magnificent remnant of some ancient Eden.

Project Noah it was called, a great relocation of wild creatures which preserved untold thousands of wild and exotic animals who made their home in the Zambezi valley. They commemorated this rescue with a plaque in Kariba.

There were other residents of the valley of the Zambezi, the Tonga of the Gwembe valley, they called themselves “Basilwizi” the river people. They were the river, a part of the Zambezi and the river was part of them, flowing through them body and soul as surely as the blood that courses in their veins.

They had been there for centuries, living, farming in the rich alluvial soil along the banks of the Zambezi, year after year planting and tilling their crops and and erecting rain shrines all over the basin where they performed Mpande, ceremonial rites to ensure that the rains would come and the the harvest would be plentiful and there would be food to eat.

The Noah project neglected to treat the River people with the same care shown to the animals, the same sensitivity in their relocation. The British made promises, promises of good housing, of schools and roads and loan opportunities, their area, the new one that is, would be a showcase of clinics and wells and grinding mills.

Promises

Promises made to nearly sixty thousand who were relocated on higher ground where the sandy soil no longer supported their crops, where no amount of prayer and supplication or appeasement of the spirits would bring the rich harvest of the past or provide fodder for their cattle, their goats.

The Basilwizi, the River People describe now how their shrines are submerged by the waters, “there was no way the shrines and some of the spirits could be carried with us,” they say.

“Life was very good in the Valley when I was growing up. We had more than enough food,” they say.

“If fields could be carried, we could have carried them with us,” they say.

I’ve had breakfast this morning and coffee and writing was easy with the grass and the rabbits, the leaning blue spruce and the breeze blowing through the window from the back yard.

I’m going to the coffee shop anyway this morning ,

I want to find that earnest and lovely and brave young woman.

I want to ask her to be my friend, to write to me and share what she finds in that place, that Africa.

I want a piece of the adventure she is about to embark upon and I want her to share with me,

to share, these Basilwizi,

her people of the river.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust