We can help with that bowel obstruction

Juan Cole does not think Admiral Fallon's resignation is about Iran but rather Iraq:

My guess is that the real reason for moving Fallon out is not Iran but Iraq, and that he is being made to step down for the same reason that Donald Rumsfeld was. He does not agree with the long-term troop escalation or 'surge' in Iraq. He doesn't believe that counter-insurgency will work in Iraq in the medium term. And as an admiral, he has his eye on potential trouble spots such as Taiwan and North Korea, and is frustrated that the hands of the US are tied as long as it is bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.

Having such a big dissenter as CENTCOM commander is inconvenient for the Republican Party at a time when John McCain is admitting that if he fails to convince the American people that the surge is succeeding, he will lose the presidency. That is, Fallon may have run afoul not of Cheney on Iran but McCain on Iraq. This may be Bush's first favor to the Republican nominee, who after all had a career as a naval officer himself.

Digby takes a much darker view:

I have often observed that one of the biggest problems with the march to war in 2002 (aside from the obvious immorality, mendacity and illegality) was the fact that the Bush administration pissed away any mystique the US ever had about it's intelligence capabilities. One of the reasons a powerful country should never show its hand like that is that when they turn out to have been lying they have no credibility the next time. (Just like when our mommies told us not to cry wolf when we were four year olds.) It's hard to imagine that anyone believes the administration now, but I have recently realized that a new credibility has replaced the old one --- the credibility that sociopaths have when they threaten to kill you. You know they are capable of anything. This is the foreign policy of crazy that little Tommy Friedman enthusiastically recommended after 9/11 (and which Nixon and Reagan also used, to a lesser degree.) They proved they meant it with Iraq.

...

If the Bush admnistration attacks Iran as lame ducks, based upon another laptop full of questionable secret evidence, they will have proven that the office of the president of the United States is basically a four (or eight) year dictatorship. But then, it is, isn't it? As long as he has 34 solid Senate cronies in safe seats, he can get away with anything. If he has a 72 year old would-be successor who is unlikely to get elected, then he might as well go for those oil fields while he has the chance. With oil over a hundred dollars a barrel and rising, an economy on the brink and an approval rating in the 20s, this would be the perfect time shoot the moon and show the world exactly what the unitary American president is capable of.

Click on Digby's name above and read the whole thing.


It is way past time to take our nation back from the crazies.

UPDATE:
If you are still constipated after that (1) bless your heart; (2) ponder this: Secretary of Defense Joe Lieberman.

Thought that would work!

--the BB

The War President

Bush is trying to work out a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq that would not only extend the time for US troops to be in that country but would bind us into it. It also contains little goodies like immunity for contractors (can we all say "Blackwater"?). It is also being worked outside the normal route for treaties that would require Senate ratification. I am not certain it's even legal. But that has never stopped GWB, possibly the greatest criminal alive.

You can read about it in dday's article at Hullabaloo, plus the other article about how the WH is using the AUMF* to justify this creative agreement.

In the second article, dday writes this:

They're really grasping at any straw they can, and considering that Congress has failed to hold them accountable for this whatsoever, they'll probably get away with it. And by the way, this is not just about Iraq; this is about making sure that any other potential war doesn't need Congressional oversight or authorization, either. If they need an October surprise to win the election, they don't want to have to mess with any pesky "laws" in order to make it happen. So the precedent of using the 2002 AUMF is also about a pretext to use the September 20, 2001 AUMF for Afghanistan to strike any "terrorist" anywhere in the world. And we know who comes up with the definition of a terrorist.

Emphasis mine. And if that doesn't scare the bejeebers out of you, you are not paying attention.

*Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002