(Knock-knock on door to the Star’s Dressing Room)
“Hey, Osama! Osama! You’re on in five! And we’re going with the Fire of Allah bomb speech, got that?”
Ok. To take the mind game a step onwards. Imagine what it’s like to be George W. Bush right now, as reality finally, finally sinks in: no matter what he does during his remaining two years in office, there’s not going to be a rabbit in the hat for him any longer. His reputation is shot. Which takes us down the path Billmon and Lind are pointing to: what havoc remains to be wrought in the name of Centuries American?
@Clueless Joe. The army is already lost. They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to new conscripts (which is why there was uproar at Kerry’s “joke”. It hit painfully close to home.) The world’s most sophisticated electronics can’t be operated by people who find a K-Mart DVD player daunting. Full spectrum warfare is turning into no spectrum going nowhere, and fast.
It appears that the Resistance Movement in Iraq (let’s stop calling it an insurgency, since that is international law language that Rumsfeld wants us to use) are aiming to break October’s record as far as intensity of attacks on the U.S. is concerned. The start of November has been vicious – the U.S. would never allow its army in-country to be mauled, but the retreat and the Force Protection measures required would not be a pretty sight on international television screens.
Can you imagine how bad it actually is there, when the British in Basra had to evacuate their consulate? The British? In Basra? That’s the good spot.
Bush & Blair’s Excellent Adventure is no more – and these two buffoons will be spat upon by military men for decades. As to Repub support for Bush – it’s finally dawned on them that their Golden Boy is the Anti-Midas, and they can’t get away from him soon enough, as they realize where it’s all headed.

Posted by: SteinL | Nov 3 2006 9:35 utc | 3

Stein,
One thing to remember which makes it worse. That “consulate” is actually the military headquarters of the entire occupation for the entire south. The chain reaction is starting. Did you catch the reports that the Danish contingent has had to abandon its base and move closer to the airport?

Posted by: markfromireland | Nov 3 2006 10:03 utc | 5

Iraq:
Turkmen and Kurds in conflict in the North.
Sunnis starting to work with the U.S. as the Pentagon is too late in understanding how the Shi’a have tricked them.
Shi’a turning against the U.S. due to suspicions about Rumsfeld going for a Hail Mary Sunni Resurrection Pass. (Anyone heard of any death sentences against Saddam lately?) What Rove thought would be a stimulus for the U.S. elections will ignite Iraq, so it’s put aside for the moment.
Iraqi oil, rebuilding, privatization, etc. severly placed on hold.
What the U.S. thought were its useful idiots in the government have turned against the U.S. playbook and are now following their own wishes. (Leading to calls for the “disbanding of the government and the installation of a strong-man). What are they smoking at the NeoCon think-tanks? Who needs a think-tank that issues suggestions that are valid for a week, at most?
Security around Saudi oil installations is doubled-tripled-quadrupled as it dawns on Cheney that he truly has unleashed the genie in the Al Qaeda’s bottle as far as cheap oil for his cronies is concerned.
Iraq will go down in history as a miscalculation of hyperepic proportions, and the architects behind this one should be placed in Guantanamo on a full-term “Albert Speer Special” tour.

Posted by: SteinL | Nov 3 2006 12:36 utc | 7

Jony b cool: Your points are all valid, but I just don’t see how this would stop Bush from doing something stupid if he really wanted to. Short of the military actually revolting and stripping him from power, that is.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 3 2006 14:48 utc | 9

@9
Agreed. Bush could ultimately do something stupid to provoke a conflict with Iran. But the military has variuos options for thwarting Bush’s designs, short of mutiny or revolt. One way is they continue to undermine Rummy on his competence & fitnness to continue as SecDef. They can also hinder Bush (and buy time) by dwelling on procedural & logistical obstacles.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 3 2006 15:23 utc | 11

There is still a strong belief among many that Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and the other residents at the Fuhrerhauptquartier are only acting. All politicians posture and exaggerate; boys will be boys, and politics is also theatre — but these people wouldn’t do something as insane as widen the Iraq war. They wouldn’t put the country further at risk, or needlessly throw away young lives and destabilize a tottering economy. They’re sober, rational men. Even Condi.
That mistaken assumption — How could we know the Leader was this koo-koo person? We never saw it! Not until the Russians were 300 meters from the Bunker! — may return to haunt some people. But I’m afraid Democratic control of both Houses of Congress (and I profoundly hope that happens) will not only free the Peevish Sock Puppet to do… whatever … it may force him into action before the first session of a new, Democratic Congress.
Subpoena and Oversight power would effectively slow our spiral towards the drain. But, an unamed FHQ staff member recently noted that The Leader’s response (and Fat Karl’s) to an overwhelming Democratic victory would be an increase in Presidential Authority as this country has never seen in its history, coupled with legal action designed to contest any move the Democrats might make, all the way to a Supreme Court packed with … sober, rational judges.
(And Fat Karl can give a speech before a huge crowd of hand-picked Rethug faithful: “Do you want ‘Total War’?”
Meanwhile, Iraq — which just won’t conform to the Fox-generated script, whicb said Democracy sets in just before the last run of commercials — continues to move towards “Chernyobl” on the Chaos-meter. It’s falling apart. Not only can the center not hold; there is no center.
Nearly every ordinary Joe and Jane understands in some fashion that an attack on Iran and Syria = Bad. The bulk of our Regulars and combat-experienced Guard and Reserves would be effectively surrounded and in terrible jepoardy.
But, waist deep in the Big Muddy, the damn fool says Stay The Course! It Doesn’t Mean ‘Stay The Course’! And all the communiques from Central Command sound like: “November 4: 6th Army has reached the Volga on a broad front. Resistance is confined to small bridgeheads and our troops continue forwards”… And they sleepwalk forward, towards another November 19th.
(Yeah, this is a fairly bleak assessment. Doing this tea-leaves thing with a friend about the future, a friend said to me, “It isn’t that you think the glass is half empty or half full — you don’t even see a goddamned glass.”)

Posted by: Austin Cooper | Nov 3 2006 16:17 utc | 13

I guess it would be too much to hope for, that there be enough of a majority in the house and senate to impeach the whole effen executive branch for high crimes and misdemeanors, within forty-eight hours.

Posted by: pb | Nov 3 2006 19:17 utc | 15