Shocking Peek Behind the Scenes (NY Post, via Buzzflash)

Every time something like this surfaces — a glimpse behind the curtain
at the true world of politics, the pettiness, the vanity, the cynical
sham — it’s like one of Gore Vidal’s novels come to life.

No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program (WP)

Well,
so what? Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction either. As we
have seen, absence of evidence means only one thing to the Bush Regime:
“It’s clobberin’ time.”

From the ever-emininently quotable James Wolcott, flaying the sorry hide of Michael Leeden:

“The fact is that Ledeen and his neocons got the war they wanted, it was waged according to their blueprints, and it’s their fuck-up, their moral responsibility, their historical bloodstain, their arrogant, ignorant, blundering, inexcusable mess.”

That’s Pat Robertson, of course, calling on his good Christian friend, George W. Bush, to murder Hugo Chavez, elected leader of the South American nation of Venezuela. (via Media Matters).

In his frothing rant, Pat manages to accuse of Chavez of being an agent of both “communist infiltration and Muslim extremism” — a pretty neat trick. If I may be forgiven a personal note, it reminds me of the very first piece of hate mail I received as a young college columnist after publishing some criticism of Ronald Reagan (who had not yet ascended to bipartisan sainthood

 Below is an excerpt from the newly revised Empire Burlesque, the book-length collection of columns and new material that comprises an alternative history of history of Bush Regime. The e-book version is being updated right now (the current edition ends in June 2004), and should be available shortly.

The piece deals with a point that I think is very important to remember, although it doesn’t seem to get much attention in the dissident media — the fact that whatever happens in Iraq, Bush and his faction have already won. In a very real sense,

 Meanwhile, the “victory” in Afghanistan just keeps on giving. From the NYT’s remarkable Carlotta Gall (a former colleague of mine at The Moscow Times):

GI Death Toll in Afghanistan Worst Since 2001

“This year is already the deadliest for American soldiers in Afghanistan since the war of 2001, and the violence is likely to intensify before the nation’s legislative elections on Sept. 18. Four soldiers were killed Sunday, meaning that 13 have been killed in August alone. Sixty-five Americans have been killed this year…

The War on the Poor was won long ago; now the War on the Middle Class is reaching a crescendo. Evidently the corporatic Right won’t be satisfied until we’re all peons in penury.

The Safety Net She Believed In Was Pulled Away When She Fell. (LA Times)

These are the hells that Bush has created with his “liberation” of Iraq:

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel. (Guardian) Excerpts:

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel

The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon. One of last week’s victims was a young man in a black tracksuit. Like the others he was left on his belly by the blue iron railings at the bridge’s southern

 Alain Gresh lays out “the most glaring scandal of them all” regarding the UN “oil-for-food” program in Iraq. Some excerpts, from The Guardian:

But no committee of inquiry has been set up to investigate the most glaring scandal of all: the imposition of sanctions on Iraq in August 1990 and above all their maintenance after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. These have had devastating consequences on the country and will be a burden on it for a very long time to come.