Bush’s religiosity is fake.
He is being pressured – and to a certain extent believes what he is told. And when he says no options are off the table, that is exactly what he means. He doesn’t know how the situation will develop or what he may be called on to do.
Between his need to be ‘strong, right, moral, true’ garnering the laurels due a hopefully adored war president, and his fear of responsibility, hard to assume in a situation he does not fully understand, he is utterly lost and at sea, and thus angry, and bored.
Angry at life, angry at those who put him there, angry at having to decide, carry the can, posture. Bored with empty long argument, tiresome meetings, impatient with PR and its constraints, the *** jounalists and TV, counting on Condi, that spark of understanding and homage. Any decision is better than none, being kept on standby is painful.
So, Billmon’s flight forward – yes….
Ahmadinejad, as the underdog, with cards up his sleeve and his will, mentality and domination -leadership status- intact, is in a quite different position.

Posted by: Noisette | Apr 19 2006 21:25 utc | 3

Karl’s moving down the bureaucratic ladder instead of up, so hopefully he isn’t in a position to make a nuclear war part of his GoTV strategy, even if he wanted to.
Sorry to say, but I’m really worried about this recent demotion. For all of Rove’s nastiness, he is actually the only realist (ie. non-ideologue) in the Bushie bunch. I think he has been the one trying to engineer a pullback on Iran because he knows the political calculation just doesn’t add up right now. Certainly, recent reports in the Times that have tried to ratchet down the rhetoric appear to have Karl’s fingerprints on them.
Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘revolt of the generals’ didn’t have something to with Rove trying to discredit Rummy. After all, why else would all these guys risk their pensions unless someone in the Administration with enough standing promised them cover?
My guess is that Rove the politico took on Rummy the bureaucrat in a DC cage match, and Rummy won. So now, with Rove out of the ‘policy’ spotlight, Rummy (and Cheney?) have clear sailing for their attack plans.
I hope I’m wrong.

Posted by: Night Owl | Apr 19 2006 22:14 utc | 5

Sort of a replay of “won’t use WMD unless backed into a corner.”

Posted by: zeph | Apr 19 2006 22:46 utc | 7

Now you would think this lust for the world’s ending would give the Armageddon cultists an incentive to root for the Anti-Christ instead of against him.
Brilliant!

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 19 2006 23:48 utc | 9

Bush’s religiosity is fake…
Between his need to be ‘strong, right, moral, true’ garnering the laurels due a hopefully adored war president, and his fear of responsibility, hard to assume in a situation he does not fully understand, he is utterly lost and at sea, and thus angry, and bored.
I think this is absolutely correct. Bush isn’t a true believer. But boy does he know how to play to them.
Remember, the first Bush administration referred to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney as the “crazies.” Well, Dubya and Rove may now be the only thing that stands between us and the crazies doing whatever crazy bullshit thing they are dreaming of doing – truly a scary thought.
Here is more from the Dubya’s visit to Cleveland that Billmon refered to:

The crowd rises as President Bush walks on stage, in front of a thrown-together backdrop of Cleveland’s cityscape. Bankers hold aloft videophones, trying to capture the moment in a few hundred grainy pixels.
As everyone takes their seats, Bush warms up the crowd with a short monologue. He talks about his invitation to speak in Cleveland. Bush claims City Club directors told him, “We believe in free speech, so you’re going to give us a speech for free.” When he laughs at his own joke, he sounds just like Will Ferrell.
Above the stage hang two giant flat screens which broadcast his talking head like misplaced props from Orwell’s 1984. The effect is creepy…
Then comes the Q&A.
Bush points stage right to a woman standing a few rows back. She wants to know if the president, as a Christian, believes the war on terror is the beginning of the Apocalypse?
Again, the Will Ferrell laugh. “I haven’t really thought of it that way,” says Bush, before launching into several minutes of stump-speech-level rhetoric on security. He then tries the other side of the room.
A man standing there asks the president how he could restore confidence in his administration after invading Iraq over weapons that did not exist.
Whoa. Tough crowd…
Visibly worn after facing unusually relevant questions, Bush looks out at the crowd and says, “Anybody work here in this town?” He probably means it as a joke, suggesting we should return to our jobs and leave him alone. It falls flat, though, in a city not long ago dubbed the poorest in the nation.

Posted by: a-train | Apr 20 2006 1:33 utc | 11

Bush’s religiosity is fake..
Apparently, Bush rarely even attends church. Not exactly what you’d expect from someone willing to start a nuclear war for a religious principal.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 20 2006 2:00 utc | 13

Following on this line of thought, I have often wondered if this was not the most corrupt administration ever, except that within the current climate of privatization they have been able to keep most of the corruption legal, or the illegalities one level below them.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 20 2006 3:33 utc | 15

A crazy OpEd in the NYT – Here comes the draft:
A Peaceful Call to Arms

THE American public needs to be prepared for what is shaping up to be a clash of colossal proportions between the West and Iran.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt masterfully prepared Americans before the United States entered World War II by initiating a peacetime draft under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.
Now, President Bush and Congress should reinstitute selective service under a lottery without any deferments.
…
President Bush has the perfect credentials overseas to execute this move, and little political capital at home to lose at this stage. Polls confirm that a wide majority of people in many countries view him and the United States as the major threat to global peace. Why let them down on this count? Go with the flow.
…
President Bush should therefore consult with Congress about reinstituting selective national service by lottery for all young males and females. After 9/11, President Bush missed an opportunity to ask America’s citizenry to make sacrifices in the form of military service, homeland defense and conservation that many would have accepted. Instead, he asked people to continue shopping to prop up the flagging economy.
We should not fumble the opportunity now to begin selective service again, while the Iranians and others are watching. It may be our last best chance to avoid war with Iran.

That guy must be absolutly nuts.

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2006 4:19 utc | 17

“When politics and religion ride in the same chariot, there’s an awfully good chance that bodies will end up going under the wheels.” (Billmon)
And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope, a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “To the captives, come out; and to those in darkness, be free.” (Bush, Mission Accomplished speech, May 1st, 2003)
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me, to preach good tidings unto the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.” (Isaiah 49.9)
But this is what the LORD says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.
I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” (Isaiah 49.25-26)

Posted by: galloping cat | Apr 20 2006 4:21 utc | 19

Zbig’s doing his part. He came out today & called from troops to be removed from Iraq. This is the only link I can find. He’s actually a bit concerned that it may adversely impact xUS global position – kinda late for that, isn’t it? And was a bit concerned that attacking another country over in nowoman’s land might get xUS elites a bad reputation over there.
How late is it to worrry about reputation of Americans in the world? A friend’s son has worked for Doctors W/out Borders for last 10-15 yrs. all over Africa & So. Asia, building, staffing & running clinics. Clearly he did a superb job. 1-1/2 yrs. ago they could no longer send him out ‘cuz he was an American. He joined a Dutch/Belgian(??) outfit, doing similar work. He may no longer be able to get placement through them either. He’s coming home – game’s up – Americans are persona non grata. Wonder if the Peace Corps still exists?

Posted by: jj | Apr 20 2006 4:43 utc | 21

We don´t need no fucking UN:

[Rice] said the UN Security Council had a number of diplomatic options at its disposal, but warned that the United States could chose to act alone or with a coalition if the crisis is not resolved through the
United Nations.
“The right to self-defense does not necessarily require a UN Security Council resolution,” Rice said, noting that the United States went to war in the Balkans without one.
“It is important to note that the president doesn’t take any options off the table,” Rice said. “We are prepared to use measures at our disposal- political, economic or others to persuade
Iran.”

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2006 6:13 utc | 23

Scott Ritter says

when I speak of Iran, I say be careful of falling into the trap of nonproliferation, disarmament, weapons of mass destruction; this is a smokescreen. The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change. It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.
…
You’d be surprised what kind of plans are being hatched up right now—plans that include covert action; plans that include massive aerial bombardment, according to Seymour Hersh’s recent article in The New Yorker; plans that include massive aerial bombardment that incorporate the possibility, or some would say the probability, of nuclear weapons. And if you go to the School of Advanced Military Studies in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as I have several times, you’ll see the maps on the wall clearly indicate an American interest in pushing forces into Azerbaijan. Why? It neighbors Iran. Why is that important? The shortest route to Tehran is down the Caspian Sea coast, [where] the Army is planning an incursion right now.
…
None of the pundits that appear on TV, none of the ill-informed people writing op-eds have a vote in this matter. The only votes that count are those who have the authority to order military action and implement those orders, and that’s the president, his inner circle and the military, and they are preparing for war with Iran as we speak.

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2006 10:37 utc | 25

James Reston Jr. (for non-Am. barflies, he’s the son of Scotty (James) Reston, a beloved late-NYT columnist for decades), author of “Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors”, has an Important piece in USA Today. Great that this is out there for the masses.
As I read it I had thghts. similar to Billmon’s, in that I was frustrated that he didn’t try to sort out what’s real & what’s cover for other – domestic & contain China – agendas.
The ‘American Inquisition’
Through the mist of time, the Spanish Inquisition has come down to us as one of the most barbarous periods in all of history. Its viciousness peaked in the late 15th century, during the reign of the messianic “Catholic kings,” Ferdinand and Isabella.
Paranoia gripped Spanish society as the Inquisition coincided with a Christian war against the Muslims of southern Spain. Clandestine trials, secret prisons, rampant eavesdropping, torture, desecration of Islam’s holy books, and gruesome public executions created an atmosphere of pervasive terror. Suspects were assumed to be guilty, with no recourse to a defense, to a jury, or to a legitimate court.
In the chaos now roiling the Western world, does any of this sound familiar?
It is time to ask whether the United States, with some of these same touchstones, is entering a period of its own peculiar Inquisition. Of course, there are no burning places for heretics in America now. No Tomás de Torquemada presides over this period of internal anxiety and investigation.
But the word, inquisition, is not exclusive to Spain in the Middle Ages. It is a useful term for historians to characterize phases of history that are distinguished by religious intolerance, by Christian holy war and Islamic jihad, by racial profiling and xenophobia, by show trials, and by snooping of secret police.link
I hope that the combo of the author, and pub. will give it some traction.

Posted by: jj | Apr 21 2006 3:50 utc | 27