IRAQ CIVIL WAR-- 3 YEARS OF INCOMPETENCE AND MALFEASANCE COURTESY OF GEORGE W. BUSH

I suppose the warped and criminal minds that surround Bush may tell him it's a civil war when Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson come storming out of Basra and lay siege to Fallujah. 'Til then... well, you know... Clear the decks! Clear the tracks! You've got nothing to do but relax. Blow a kiss. Take a bow. Honey, everything's coming up roses! Never mind that anyone whose head isn't planted firmly up his own posterior knows that the Iraqi Civil War started many months ago; Bush will never, never, never admit it. It would be like asking for a war crimes tribunal be convened-- against himself and his closest associates.

Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of Bush's unprovoked, illegal attack on Iraq, a country in no way connected to 9/11, the perpetrators of which are still running loose and planning more mayhem while Bush pursues other objectives for entirely different reasons. The U.S. has managed to stumble across Saddam Hussein in a hole-- having been tipped off by some Kurds-- and most people would agree that the world is better off without that bloody despot (although the head of Israel's Shin Bet, their version of the FBI, says that the Middle East was a safer place before Bush started meddling than it is now). Having taken out Saddam, we now have a civil war, an ungovernable territory in the heart of the Middle East, sitting on one of the world's largest oil reserves. Over 2,300 Americans have been killed and tens of thousands more grievously wounded. No one knows for sure how many Iraqis have died but if the 100,000 mark hasn't been reached yet, no doubt it will any day now. The country is in a complete shambles-- I shudder when I think of Colin Powell's warning to his learning-disabled boss that "If you break it, you own it"-- and as we race towards spending a trillion dollars on this fiasco, the U.S. is isolated and reviled the world over. In the time since Bush stole the election in 2000 until now, the U.S. has gone from being th most popular and beloved country in the eyes of the world to being viewed-- accurately-- as being the most dangerous and, by far, the most hated. Thank you, George W. Bush, incompetent and thief.

Yesterday the former Iraqi prime minister who Bush claimed was a fount of knowledge and wisdom about what's the true haps in Iraq, Iyad Allawi, told the BBC that his country has now descended into the depths of... a civil war. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." Well, George W. Bush knows just what a civil war is-- Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Allawi told the BBC that "the cycle of violence would soon spiral completely out of control." The hack politician that Tony Blair has installed as Britain's current Defense Secretary, the incompetent John Reid, screeches that anyone who mentions "civil war" is siding with the terrorists. At least no one can say the two allies are not in sync in their propaganda efforts!

Monday will be the third anniversary of lies, deceit, malfeasance, mass murder and, more than anything else, sheer unadulterated incompetence. As Iraq has spiraled into a bloody and vicious civil war, orchestrated by Donald Rumsfeld. The civilian death toll is now estimated to have crossed into the 6-figure area-- more deaths than in all the terrorist strikes of the last century. According to yesterday's HOUSTON CHRONICLE, "'In Iraq it is no longer a matter of definition — "civil war" or "war" or "violence" or "terrorism." It is all of the above,' said one familiar with all of the above, Beirut scholar-politician Farid Khazen, a witness to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war." Another source, far more serious and knowledgeable than Bush's band of incompetent liars and jackals, calls it "a chaotic mix of anti-U.S. resistance, Sunni-Shiite communal bloodshed and Islamic-extremist terrorism."

And how many more billions did the rubberstamp Republican Congress just give Bush and his bandit crew to stay the course with? Was it another $91.9 billion + whatever else he might want + $50 billion they already gave him for this year? I think something like 70 congressmen voted against this madness. Most of the money seems to be going not to fight anyone but directly to Cheney's company, Halliburton, and other GOP-connected corporations. You want to watch the genesis of the war and occupation? Just follow the money. Sucking up billions for itself is the only thing the Bush Regime has proven itself competent at.

Meanwhile Cheney's assessment of the occupation and civil war in Iraq is... bizarre. On FACE THE NATION this morning an exchange with Bob Schieffer gives more than a hint about why our nation is in the piss-poor position its in right now.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic. But I remember when you were saying we'd be greeted as liberators, you played down the insurgency ten months ago. You said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic statements may be one of the reasons that people seem to be more skeptical in this country about whether we ought to be in Iraq?

CHENEY: No, I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality.

Reality means something entirely different in BushWorld than it does in the real world. Remember how they were bragging about how they could define reality? They never learn. Nor do they suffer; the rest of us do.

With the characters who infest the Bush Regime at every level focused on vacuuming up every dime they can, malfeasance and incompetence are the hallmarks of his dark, disastrous and catastrophic chapter in American history. The Bush family has long been a criminal enterprise, trading with our country's enemies for their personal gain. One of the grandfathers, Prescott Bush, nearly went to prison for trading with the Nazis and some of his assets were confiscated. And now the ill-equipped spawn of these ruthless practitioners of greed and avarice has managed to worm himself into power in the country that was lenient towards his family. (By all rights, the Bush grandpa should have been shot as a traitor.) Will anyone bring criminal charges against George Bush for the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars this time, for his unsavory relationships with the criminal families who control Saudi Arabia and other make-believe tyrannical "countries" on the Arabian peninsula? Will anyone confiscate the ill-gotten assets this time?


EVENING UPDATE: EVEN WITHOUT ROBERT E. LEE IT'S A CIVIL WAR-- AND THIS ONE IS MORE BLOODY AND CATASTROPHIC THAN EL SALVADOR OR EVEN ALGERIA!

Although the cowardly "moderate" Democrats-- led by scumbags like Rahm Emanuel who are great when it comes to pulling no punches and showing no mercy when it's time to attack independent-minded progressives inside the party like Christine Cegelis, Dave Lutrin, Brett Wagner, Jan Schneider, Jerry McNerney, Gretchen Clearwater, et. al.-- are afraid of being called traitors so they loathe ever mentioning "civil war," Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has less trouble calling it like everyone already knows it is. Today he told George Stephanopoulios on ABC's THIS WEEK: "I think the former Prime Minister (Allawi) is correct. I think we've had a low grade civil war going on in Iraq for the last six months maybe the last year-- our own generals have told me that privately George, so that's a fact." Jack Murtha's not afraid to say it either but the Emanuel-Democrats have run away from him like he has the plague and every new Democratic candidate that backs Murtha gets a DCCC challenger.