Shock and Disgust

This weekend the New York Times reported that the travesty of the Bushwar on Iraq began at the very beginning. Those who got their news from those embedded TV reporters may recall the air strikes on leadership positions at the start, especially the much publicized precision munition bunker buster bomb suddenly sent to get Saddam and end the war before it began. Only Saddam wasn't there. That's not the news, though. The news it's taken more than a year to report is that the bunker wasn't there either.

This was one of fifty strikes on "high-value" targets, to get the Iraqi leadership. All they got were lots of civilians, and exactly no leaders.

The report says that Rumsfeld required any attack that might result in the deaths of 30 or more civilians to be approved in advance personally by him. The military made requests for some 50 raids. Rumsfeld approved them all.

Human Rights Watch reported, "attacks on leadership likely resulted in the largest number of civilian deaths from the air war." The report was authored in part by the guy who had been in charge of this operation. He said the campaign was "an abject failure...We failed to kill the HVTs and instead killed civilians and engendered hatred and discontent in some of the population."

Perhaps this is one reason that military leaders have joined diplomats, many who served in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, are going to announce this week---probably on Wednesday---that they oppose the reelection of Bush II, for the good of the country.

Both of these stories will make news this week, though they'll have to fight for attention with the ongoing battle between Ashcroft and the Senate Judiciary Committee over memos on the President's right to order torture, the stories saying that the highest ranking U.S. General in Iraq personally approved of torture techniques used against prisoners, and the ongoing violence in Iraq that is thinning out the newly selected government.

Then there are the film premieres---of a documentary showing a very rabid, out of control right wing conspiracy to mount a media coup against President Bill Clinton, and at the end of the week, a 700 theatre release of "Farenheit 911," which will contain the first film footage most Americans have seen of the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

And June is supposed to be Bush's good month.

Update/P.S. And we forgot several other items that each alone would be enough to dominate the news in normal times: VP Cheney on the hot seat for 1)corruption while prez of Haliburton, 2) corruption while VP on behalf of Haliburton and 3)his office illegially outing a CIA agent and endangering her life...

Then Sec. of State Powell had to go on Meet the Press with his mea culpa for the administration's report on terrorism that boasted that worldwide terrorism was down, thanks to their genuis policies, their determination to stay the course, their----what's that? Terrorism didn't go down, it actually went up---like WAY UP? Well, that's different. Never mind.