But if it takes small, incremental but significant steps to start the exit-Iraq ball rolling, then let's take them -- as long as the effort continues with more meaningful de-funding and withdrawal bills in coming months. In addition, it is essential that Congress pass a bill stipulating that there will be no financial support for any pending Bush war against Iran.
Passing resolutions devoid of legal teeth in them doesn't help all that much in getting U.S. troops, and innocent civilians, out of harm's way. Passing bills that fund the troops' withdrawal, in concert with U.N. and regional stabilizing efforts, can draw the day closer when the U.S. military machine can start rolling out of this catastrophic war, now in its fifth tragic year.
ALBERTO GONZALES, BUSH TOADY
So how does Alberto Gonzales, the "Abu Gonzo" of the headline above, fit into the Iraq picture?
For one thing, to figure out how to stop the Iraq war, first you have to know the key players who took the U.S. into that war and bungled Occupation. My advice is to look for those with their fingers in a whole lot of policy and operational pies. In the current CheneyBush Administration, that translates to Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Bush Himself, Alberto Gonzales, Stephen Hadley, and the ineffectual Bush lapdog Condoleezza Rice. (Previous co-conspirators Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Steven Cambone, Doug Feith, and John Ashcroft have already left the scene of the crime, and would make excellent witnesses.)
What we're witnesssing in these waning days of the CheneyBush Administration is an implosion of the once-monolithic inner circle, with the rest of the remaining crew hunkering further down in the White House bunker, trying desperately to avoid both the stain of history and to stay out of the federal slammer as a result of their crimes and corruptions. (See "Bush Heads for the Bunker.") ( http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/bunker.htm )
Attorney General Gonzales (who, from his earliest association with Bush in Texas, has been his personal legal toady) has demonstrated time and again his willingness to do whatever needs to be done to keep Bush in office. Rove and Gonzales and Harriet Miers, key figures in Bush's so-called Texas Mafia, are stand-ins for the elite, behind-the-scenes powers that prop up this shady enterprise.
And now Gonzales, caught knee-deep in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, looks as if he's a political liability and will be thrown overboard in short order. His key aide, Kyle Sampson, was the designated scapegoat (with Deputy A.G. Paul McNulty the new chosen patsy), but his resignation couldn't stanch the bleeding in this ever-widening scandal, and Gonzales' lies, dissemblings and probable perjuries before U.S. Senate committees requires something more drastic, such as his firing or resignation -- or, failing that, his impeachment.
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