Nothing said by Chalabi or his lame, tame and too easy to blame intelligence sources was believable. The man had a record of dishonest behavior as long as his reach, which hopefully may have finally exceeded his grasp. Although he still appears to be in charge of Iraq's banking system. A job he apparently won in the same way that Haliburton won their contracts in Iraq, he earned it. At least he earned it in the eyes of the Bush Administration; some of the rest of us have doubts. The very real question is, how did he earn it? Apparently he earned it by telling Cheney and the other Chicken Hawks in this naïve Administration exactly what they wanted to hear, precisely when they wanted to hear it. But how did Powell get caught up in the little charade of lies and ignorance that permeated the run-up to this messy little war? He certainly ought to have known better after a stretch of successful bureaucratic infighting following his early military career. Was he just honoring his commitment to the Commander in Chief like a good soldier? Or had he really used up his quota of luck and finally lost the capacity to duck at the right time?

The story of Powell's attempt to sell this war to the UN will help define the history of this war for future generations. This war has turned out to be overreach of the most unwise variety that a powerful nation can commit. It is fiscal overreach, military overreach and political overreach of the highest order seen in the last one hundred years. It rivals the hubris of Russia reaching for Afghanistan at a time when they could not even feed and house their own population. It exceeds China reaching for Tibet and the USSR trying for a cheap missile base in Cuba in the 1960's. It is far worse in regard to the consequences of failure than Vietnam or Cambodia or any of our quiet dirty little wars in Central America. It matches, in its stupid failure to recognize real circumstances, our insane expansionism in Iran using the Shah as a replacement for democracy. It certainly excels in its brutal capacity to demonstrate the thrill of incompetence leading to the agony of disastrous results.

"Oh but we're building schools and roads and helping put Iraq back on its feet", yes I can hear you, those who call progressives Marxists when we talk about the role of government in commerce. Those "conservatives", among us, who apparently have no grasp of the value of conserving power, seem to have the loudest voices. The power to inspire and lead, that we have traded for a fleeting moment of triumph on an aircraft carrier, is one casualty of this war. It was a pitifully empty moment that seems agonizingly contrived in the light of visceral real events that followed on its heels. The point of kicking Saddam out of power had to be to stabilize the nation of Iraq if it was not to protect ourselves against his WMD. Do you really see any stability there today? The biggest city in Iraq is still a war zone. Some of the other cities there are no longer under our control, nor are they under the control of any recognized authority. Is that order?

Yes our troops are sacrificing their lives and flesh to rebuild the nation of Iraq. Sadly, it is a nation that was never built, merely drawn up in Britain, and bullied into being. It is divided between three opposing ethnic forces, Sunni's, Shiites and Kurds. None of their historic or religious interests support sharing a national government. That is one reason why brutality has crept up on every regime that held power there since Iraq's inception. To keep them from cutting one another's throats required brutality. Every regime in control there has been brutal, including our own. We have thankfully little stomach for torture and brutality in this nation. That is one of the reasons that we will not dominate Iraq, we are not willing to be brutal enough to totally quell the uprisings by killing enough men women and children to crush the Iraqi people.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. What part of that simple statement don't our "conservatives" who led us into this little adventure understand? Is it the part where we are dumping the cost of this war and more on our children in unpaid bills? Is it the part where we are creating a world more divided and less willing to follow our lead than at any time since WWII? Is it the part where we are using our military power in a vain attempt to prop up the current structure of the vital international trade in oil? Is it the part where democracy is something that people demand, not something that you impose on them? What are our patriotic and beloved but incompetent "conservative" leaders missing here?

One thing that is already clear, none of these guys can hit the "curveball". None of the Bush Administration can even hit the slow pitch thrown by Chalabi. They couldn't even see the lack of truth in his posturing because they were so busy adding spin to his pitches themselves. If he actually told Iran that we had broken their codes and could read their secret communications, then he is what he always was, a man in search of power for his own purposes. How could this pack of ninnies running our government let him know such a bit of information? Did they mistake him for a pal just because he smiled at them and told them how smart and powerful they are and how he wants to be their friend?
Chalabi's supporter, the fellow they called "curveball", that played the role of an insightful Iraqi patriot for our neocons, conned their pants off. I am frankly more amazed and more totally embarrassed by this President and his followers than at any time in my lifetime. I would take Nixon back in a flash, even disgraced and dead both, he could do better than this. Ronald Reagan would be embarrassed too if he could still understand what they are doing. Even "Wet Willy" Clinton could give the nation more reason to stand up and salute with pride than these "conservatives".

Was this new failure of the Bush Administration really the slip of someone's tongue in a drunken moment of camaraderie? Whether this failure was caused by drunken folly, or mere naiveté, the whole, "company of fools", in charge of this mess needs to be replaced. Every; shallow thinking, narrow minded, arrogant damn fool one of them needs to be removed from power. The only way that will happen is if we elect John Kerry President. That is a choice I would not make if there were any other way to remove the current cast of clowns. Not because Kerry will not make a good President, but because I disagree with him on some significant social and economic issues. They all pale in comparison to the unmitigated disasters we face on every national and international front. At least the word on Kerry is that he can kick a curveball into the goal, and that would be a vast improvement over the Chalabi lovers who just believe everything they are told. God bless you all and keep you safe, especially from the type of fools that believe what they choose, not what is real.