Yep, Still Talking About The War

The AP has a story announcing that the President will address the nation this Wednesday at 9pm to announce his new escalation (oops, I'm sorry, I meant 'surge') plans that everyone already knows about anyway. But buried in this routine story are some nuggets of note.

#1-

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Monday that Bush "understands there is a lot of public anxiety" about the war. On the other hand, he said that Americans "don't want another Sept. 11" type of terrorist attack and that it is wiser to confront terrorists overseas in Iraq and other battlegrounds rather than in the United States.

Whenever I read shit like this, I wonder why some White House press corps reporter doesn't run up to the podium and smack Tony Snow upside the head. It's 2007-- who's still falling for these cheap, bullshit Iraq-9/11 connections?

It really shouldn't have to keep being said, but it does. There were lots of areas after 9/11 where terrorists were... Afghanistan was the biggest one and we went in and then the White House quickly lost interest. Iraq wasn't one and the White House rushed in based on pre-9/11 agendas and have, in their botched execution of this war, made the global terrorism problem worse. And that's just the watered-down cliff notes. Tony Snow knows that, but it's literally his job to lie on behalf of the President. He does that. And it's the reporters' job to call him on it. They don't do that, and they should.

#2-

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved about $500 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorism-fighting efforts. The White House is working on its largest-ever appeal for more war funds — a record $100 billion, at least. It will be submitted along with Bush's Feb. 5 budget.

Your tax dollars at work, courtesy of the party of fiscal responsibility wasteful war spending.

#3-

Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a 2008 presidential candidate, said increasing troops would be a "tragic mistake." But he contended Congress was constitutionally powerless to second-guess Bush's military strategy because lawmakers had voted to authorize the commander in chief to wage war.

"As a practical matter, there's no way to say, 'Mr. President, stop,'" said Biden, D-Del., unless enough congressional Republicans join Democrats in persuading Bush that the strategy is wrong.

And this moron wants to run for President? There is so much that is wrong here... from his assertion that, because congress authorized the war, that they have no right to "second-guess" it now to his incorrect statement that congress has no power to stop an out-of-control President. Now some in congress may wish to avoid the ways to do that-- targetedly cutting funding at the easiest as Pelosi has suggested; impeachment and removal at the more severe end-- but that doesn't mean they don't have the power to. They are a co-equal branch of government; it's their duty to check and balance the President. That Biden seems purposely ignorant of that really makes me wish the person chairing the Foreign Relations Committee was not a triangulating presidential candidate.

And from across the pond, the UK's The Independent newspaper delivers supporting evidence for the obvious fact that was dismissed by war supporters in 2003... oil was a big issue of this war-

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972...

*gasp* I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!

More-

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals.

And we are only two months or so away from the 4th anniversary. It's been worth it, no?

[PS- I can't recommend enough Glenn Greenwald's American Conservative article on the historical revisionism that's been used by war supporters to hide their records.]