I haven't heard a blessed word about the benchmarks that Iraq had to meet or just the mathematical fact that 11 out of 18 is 61% and change. I guess that qualifies as a gentleman's C in W's Yale, but why isn't our media challenging mini-me about this non-fuzzy math? Woodward's latest book is just the latest evidence that demonstrates that W lied to us and spied on his hand-picked Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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Synonyms for emptiness include blankness and worthlessness. Mini-me McCain's policies epitomize emptiness. The man who voted with W 90% of the time has no coherent foreign or domestic policy-only more of the same. Mini-me knows that the US hates W, but he gave him a spot in the convention and mentioned him in his speech, but then stated "I don't work for a party. I don't work for a special interest. I don't work for myself. I work for you. ". Why then did he vote with W 90% of the time? Was it just a coincidence?

Look at some of what has been divulged just this week. The article "U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says-- Woodward Also Reveals That Political Fears Kept War Strategy Review 'Under the Radar'" at

click here

demonstrates that W lied to us. It should not surprise us that W spied on his hand-picked Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. W perpetrated illegal surveillance on his own citizens. It follows that he would not have any compunction in doing the same to his allies. After all W described Iraq as a dangerous country in a dangerous part of the world.

The article states: "The Bush administration has conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi government, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.
"We know everything he says," according to one of multiple sources Woodward cites  the practice in "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," scheduled for release Monday.
The book also says that the U.S. troop "surge" of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. combat forces and support troops to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the past 16 months."

We were told that the purpose of the surge was to provide security for the
political reconciliation in Iraq. That hasn't happened-consequentially the surge has failed.

The violence hasn't been reduced as a result of the surge anyway, as the article continues "Overall, Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces."

This week Anbar became the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to take control of its security from U.S. forces. Isn't that a failure? According to W's speeches
about holding Iraq to its benchmarks, they were all supposed to be under Iraqi control by now, but someone how or other mini-me is saying that the Democrats are surrender monkeys.

The September 4, 2007 article "Bush's Magic Benchmarks"

http://www.observer.com/2007/bush-s-magic-benchmarks

dealt with how Rove spun reality regarding Iraq and concluded "So now we will be assured that those benchmarks never really mattered or can't really be measured, or something like that. Don't look there! Look over here! It is the traditional cry of the shell game, except that these bets are much too high."

I haven't heard a blessed word about the benchmarks or just the mathematical fact that 11 out of 18 is 61% and change. I guess that qualifies as a gentleman's C in W's Yale.

The article "U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says-- Woodward Also Reveals That Political Fears Kept War Strategy Review 'Under the Radar'" dealt with W as a leader who did precious little leading and as a human being who exhibited laziness and an eagerness to spew propaganda about his failed Iraq policy. Remember W is the man mini-me is tied to in both international and domestic policy.

The article states "The book portrays an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its strategy in Iraq during the summer and early fall of 2006. Publicly, Bush maintained that U.S. forces were "winning"; privately, he came to believe that the military's long-term strategy of training Iraq security forces and handing over responsibility to the new Iraqi government was failing."

Why was he saying we were winning when we weren't and he and his advisors knew differently? It is a tendency mini-me adopted from W.

The article continues "Eventually, Woodward writes, the president lost confidence in the two military commanders overseeing the war at the time: Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and Gen. John P. Abizaid, then head of U.S. Central Command.
In October 2006, the book says, Bush asked Stephen J. Hadley, his national
security adviser, to lead a closely guarded review of the Iraq war. That first
assessment did not include military participants and proceeded secretly because of White House fears that news coverage of a review might damage Republican chances in the midterm congressional elections."

We were told that W did the bidding of his military. Here he is shutting them out and dealing with Iraq as a political, not military matter.

The article continues "We've got to do it under the radar screen because the electoral season is so hot," Hadley is quoted as telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is described as challenging the president on the wisdom of sending additional troops to Iraq. "You're not getting a clear picture of what's going on the ground," she told the president, the book says.
The quality and credibility of information about the war's progress became a
source of ongoing tension within the administration, according to the book. Rice complained about the Defense Department's "overconfident" briefings during the tenure of Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Rather than receiving options on the war, Bush would get "a fable, a story . . . that skirted the real problems," Rice is quoted as saying."

The truth is the first casualty in the fog of war-but we didn't have to be there!

The article continues: "According to Woodward, the president maintained an odd detachment from the reviews of war policy during this period, turning much of the process over to Hadley. "Let's cut to the chase," Bush told Woodward, "Hadley drove a lot of this."

Big bro 43 pushed the responsibility onto Hadley, his national security adviser, who started out this term as the guy who took responsibility for the "16 words!" This administration has no ethics, and its immorality regarding Iraq is staggering, and mini-me is in bed with W with the surge, the latest phase of Iraq.

The GOP always trumpets the hypocritical phrase, "The buck stops here!"

The article continues: "In response to a question about how the White House settled on a troop surge of five brigades after the military leadership in Washington had reluctantly said it could provide two, Bush said: "Okay, I don't know this. I'm not in these meetings, you'll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do."
The book presents an evolving portrait of the president's decision-making. On the one hand, the book portrays Bush as tentative and slow to react to the escalating violence in Iraq; on the other, once he decides that a surge is required, he is shown acting with focus and determination to move ahead with his plan in the face of strong resistance from his top military advisers at the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Any criticism that W failed as a commander-in-chief and "war-time president" is warranted and actually should be increased!

The article continues "In a critical epilogue assessing the president's performance as commander-in-chief, Woodward concludes that Bush "rarely was the voice of realism on the Iraq war" and "too often failed to lead."

During the interviews with Woodward, the president spoke of the war as part of a recentering of American power in the Middle East. "And it should be," Bush said.
"And the reason it should be: It is the place from which a deadly attack
emanated. And it is the place where further deadly attacks could emanate."
The president also conceded: "This war has created a lot of really harsh
emotion, out of which comes a lot of harsh rhetoric. One of my failures has been to change the tone in Washington."

He is trying to return to that lie that he would be a "uniter not a divider." When he started the Iraq theatre of war-which poll after poll the US doesn't consider to be part of the "everlasting war against terrorism-" he lied us into a war of choice that has failed in every aspect. It has cost us too many US military heroes' lives and has raped our resources as he hoped to rape Iraq of its oil resources for his "oil biddness" chums.

Al-Maliki has heard about Woodward's book and has threatened W. That can't help the already tense situation regarding the US Status of Forces agreement with Iraq.

The article "Uncertainty After Anbar Handover -- Fate of U.S.-Backed Sunni Fighters Precarious as Government Targets Force's Leaders" at

click here


amplifies the fact that the surge wasn't the primary factor that has resulted in the recent reduction of violence in Iraq. The Sunnis in the Awakening are being paid by the US. When they stop getting paid they will go back to being the same bunch of Baathist dead-enders who originally fought the US and Shiites back in 2003 , then banded together--along with the "formed as a result of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" al-queda in Iraq, to fight the US and Shiites. When al-queda in Iraq committed too many acts of violence against Sunnis, the Baathist Sunnis rebelled. They started getting paid by the US, but Al-Maliki is planning on paying only 20% of them. The remaining will go back to killing Shiites, and the sectarian violence will continue as it has since before the Ottoman Empire.

The article states "The U.S. military on Monday handed the Iraqi government
control of security in Anbar province, the former Sunni insurgency stronghold
that is now one of the safest areas in the country....
But as Iraqis celebrated the milestone, uncertainty lingered about the future of a linchpin in the effort to secure Anbar and the rest of Iraq: the Awakening movement, a 100,000-person group of former Sunni insurgents who now cooperate with U.S. troops.
The Shiite-led government has recently stepped up a campaign to arrest leaders of the Awakening and dismantle parts of the program, whose members receive $300 a month from the U.S. military. Many fighters have abandoned their posts and fled their homes to avoid detention, stoking fears that some will rejoin the insurgency.
Aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki contend that many Awakening members are al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in disguise. Shiite leaders are also suspicious of armed Sunnis outside their control patrolling the streets. But under heavy U.S. pressure, Maliki has agreed to move at least a fifth into the security forces and train the rest for civilian jobs."

Remember all of the conversation about how disbanding Hussein's Iraq army and how having these Baathist dead-enders being unemployed and armed wasn't good?
Maliki's plan is to make four out of five Baathist dead-enders unemployed and armed. Why won't they go back to killing US soldiers and Shiites? Psychosis is doing the same disastrous things over and over and expecting the terrible results to improve.

The article continues: "We are afraid that half of the Awakening will be left alone in the streets," said Kaleefa Ahmed, a leader of the movement in Anbar province, of the transition plan announced Monday. "If that happens, we will return to square one, with some of our men returning to the insurgency."

To the victors belong the spoils, and as the article continues: "Awakening leaders are already on the run in many provinces. Iraqi army officials said they had arrest warrants for more than 650 Awakening leaders in western Baghdad's Abu Ghraib district. As the men fled to evade capture, residents said that violence has spiked and members of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq have come back."

Some people's freedom fighters are other people's terrorists, the article continues: "Col. Saadi al-Dulaimy, commander of an Iraqi army battalion west of Baghdad, said many Awakening fighters are former members of al-Qaeda in Iraq with blood on their hands and complicity in killings of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. "Today they claim they are part of the Awakening just to escape punishment," he said.

We are allowing al-Maliki to ruin the heroic efforts our boys and girls in the military, conceivably perpetuating the horrors in Iraq.

W was a horror. Let's pray that mini-me doesn't get a chance to continue the failures of GOP governance.

Authors Bio:
Winston Smith is an ex-Social Worker. I worked in child welfare, and in medical settings and in homeless settings. In the later our facility was geared as a permanent address for people to apply for welfare. Once they received that we could send them to facilities in which their welfare paid the bill and provided enough for a meager existence. We also referred people to vocational rehabilitation services. Many of the people who came to us were people who were clearly emotionally ill, but Reagan's slashing of the services for these people caused them to become homeless. One woman I dealt with-St. Jane, believed she was in direct communication with God, urinated freely without using the facilities and she had 47 bags of trash which were prized possessions. She got welfare and was sent to a facility were she could survive. The rule was that our facility could be used 1 time only as we had too many people who thought that the services that we provided we would lift them from the dire straights that they were in. Well, we provided our services for St. Jane around Thanksgiving. On Christmas Eve she was back with her 47 bags of trash and wanted to stay at our facility. I informed my superior of this situation, but we declined to provide services for St. Jane. She slept in front of our facility in a snowstorm. The local rag took the picture and excoriated us for what we did. The local welfare department asked her where she would like to live. St. Jane said Chicago because she liked the wind. She knew on one there. She and her 47 bags of trash of were carted onto a train for the windy city and never of again. The local welfare department was glad to get shed of her. Social welfare in the mid-1980's was geared to blame the victim. Ill people were sent home from hospitals were no one was going to help them because social welfare budgets were slashed by Reagan. Bush 41's â"thousand points of lightâ" was just another way to shaft the weakest in our society. Bush 43's faith based initiative was just another attempt to reduce social welfare services. Reagan's â"Just say Noâ" was the pinnacle of hypocrisy. No services for those who desperately needed them under the guise of tough love.

Obviously I became burnt out by too much indifference regarding our weak and weary. I couldn't look at desperate people and could not get myself to say that what I could offer them wouldn't really help themâ"”it would only get them out of my office to be another person's problem, until the local welfare department carted them away.

I had little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started. Growing up in the 1960's caused me to understand that the GOP used war to attract right-wing extremists to vote for them. When â"Tricky Dick'sâ" secret plan to end the Vietnam War unfolded into elongating our presence there for 8 years I knew that I would never believe a GOP war-monger again. I dislike Obama's plan to escalate our presence in Afghanistan and see it as a craven attempt to placate the GOP. Maybe he'll reduce the GOP's attacks against him, but it will at the expense of alienating his base.