Three Left Standing
Bomb Bomb McCain, Bill's wife, Burning Spear Obama

Mighty interesting to observe Bill's wife and Burning Spear Obama grapple for phyrric victory for the US presidential nomination in the Democratic Party. Meanwhile Bomb Bomb has recently returned from a world-wide fact finding tour that resulted in picturing him as more senile than Bob Dole... As McCain's staff tucked him in back home, it breathed a sigh of relief that at least Bomb Bomb did not fall off a speakers platform on the trip.

Bill's wife Hillary is becoming more dreary as she relentlessly plugs away at destroying Obama by throwing everything with her kitchen sink at him. Hillary's husband Bill has questioned Obama's patriotism, even indicated that Bomb Bomb is better suited to be president than Obama.

So it is no wonder fetid right wing hacks such as Limbaugh and FOX's Hannity are doing everything they can do to destroy Obama and promote Bill's wife – to even the extent of urging Republicans to cross over in the state primaries and vote for Bill's wife. Republicans have figured out that Obama is a much harder target than the Clinton team as Obama seems to move forward despite Clinton's massive attacks. You can bet the Republicans have already prepared to attack Clintons' sleaze, past and present. You have to wonder whether Bill has been a good boy since departing office – whether there are some hot pictures ready in the can from his globe trotting. The Republican desperation to nominate the Clintons has reached a feverish pitch.

Bill's wife is not an attractive candidate despite the bright colors of her androgynous pant suits. She is shrill on the stump – her main constituency are post menopausal ladies, apparently disappointed in love and hell bent on revenge. Her high octane style contrasts sharply with Obama's low key approach – Hillary is a propagandist. Obama exudes authenticity.

Most recent attack on Obama centered on his religious affiliation to a black church in Chicago. His black preacher wearing an assortment of African dashikis peddled much of the same overheated rhetoric white evangelicals Robertson and Falwell did after 9/11 – the black preacher essentially blamed white driven US foreign policy; the white evangelicals blamed homosexuals. There was an attempt to paint Obama as a Burning Spear insurrectionist like Jomo Keneyatta. This did not succeed, but the attack pushed the explosive race issue front and center in the election. Race remains an important issue. Clintons and Republicans have pinned their hopes that it will undo Obama's push for the president of the US.

Working class whites are on the front lines on tensions with blacks especially in industrial neighborhoods – black crime – failure of black males to work – extensive welfare – disproportionate unwed mothers – even small things like the perception blacks fail to tip white waiters in restaurants piss off this sector of white society. Obama, though clearly not part of this background, is vulnerable unfairly by racial association. Despite the fact many blacks are not part of this profile, this perception is a hurdle for Obama.

Bomb Bomb just returned from his eighth trip to Iraq. It was a three stooges act. He also went with Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham – these two senators are part of his campaign apparatus, and often appear with him on the stump. Lieberman's role is to secure Jewish money and votes. Uncertain what Graham's role is other than provide hollow assurance to voters in the South and to comfort those unmarried, fat men gun owners. Bomb bomb screwed up badly on the trip when he blamed Shiite Iran twice for training Sunni Al Qaeda – Joe Lieberman corrected him publicly once on the issue. And you trust McCain's judgment on Surge success?

Bomb Bomb may be the unintentional comic relief in this presidential campaign. This trip did not help his fund raising much; Senator Joe must work harder. You got to wonder what Bomb Bomb will come up on his 9th trip to Iraq. One thing is for certain; he better keep his head down and stay away from the windows in the Green Zone as his Surge explodes.

America's choice for the next president at this stage is confounding. With the Clintons you get two sleaze balls for the price of one and lots of special interest influence with more NAFTA type deals; also expect an ambiguous position on the Iraq War and stay the course diplomacy. With Bomb Bomb McCain hundred more years of war, more economic chaos as he will continue to fuse big business with big government – Bomb Bomb is like a coon dog infested with ticks as he is a walking, talking nourishing host for special interests that run his life.

Obama is considered a usurper by the Clinton Democratic Party hierarchy, who believe a good Democrat must wait his turn. You know like the sudden new governor of New York Paterson who really should not be a dog catcher. Burning Spear Obama at least offers hope, intellect and some new faces. Sure, it is the roll of the dice, but Bomb Bomb and the Clintons already have the reputation of tossing snake eyes... Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret.

Admiral Fallon Goes Down With His Ship

Ever since the invasion of Iraq, my opinion of US flag officers in all services is one of disgust; these officers, in the main, put their careers above their integrity. One exception was Army General Shenseki who told Congress that the battle plan for Iraq was seriously flawed; afterwards, his career was quickly ended. Admiral Fallon's recent abrupt resignation was a loss to America, but it restored hope that US military leadership still has elements that prefer integrity to career promotion and survival.

Top US Military leadership is mainly composed of graduates from the national military academy system. Patriotism is imbued into the graduates with a strong allegiance to a chain of command that emanates from the president as commander and chief. It is apparent that during their education process a normal synapse between judgment, duty and loyalty is severed. Otherwise, how can you explain the failure of this leadership corps to raise serious objections to the military fiasco in Iraq as it proceeded. Even an eighth-grade student playing battle checkers knew better. (Failure to prevent widespread looting and secure Saddam's ammo dumps – duh.)

This appalling failure of flag officer professionalism was compounded as many took lucrative work on retirement on the cable and network news shows as military experts. Their main task seemed to justify the military disasters. You do not see them on TV much anymore. The military experts who mainly survived this time are below flag rank and were less politicized.

These talking head generals and admirals were followed by another wave of more flag officers saying mea culpa for following stupid orders blindly. The publishing of two books on the Iraq war, COBRA TWO and FIASCO, no doubt prompted their epiphany. You can find some of them now bobbing their heads on stage with Hillary Clinton at campaign rallies. All blame Rumsfeld for their failures. While on active duty, they conducted themselves as Chihuahuas, but transformed themselves into Doberman Pinchers on retirement.

On March 11th of this year the USS Admiral Fallon hit a political reef and subsequently sank. The admiral went down with his ship. Fallon had consented to interviews in ESQUIRE MAGAZINE that were published on that date. The article was titled MAN BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE; it portrayed Fallon as a man who believed in political engagement as opposed to neocon saber rattling. The article was written by T.P.M. Barnett whose giddy, almost immature piece projected Fallon as the bulwark against more wars promoted by GW Bush's neocons. It further demonstrated that Fallon was a pragmatic, strategic thinker who had no time for the neocon political voodoo, and democratic messianism. This clash of ideology was enough for the White House to have SECDEF Gates fire Fallon. The admiral and his staff bear some responsibility for letting the story get away from them.

With his resignation, Fallon,apparently wanting to salute pro forma, claimed that there were no policy differences between him and the White house; this is nonsense. It is clear that Fallon wanted troop draw downs in Iraq soonest and to be circumspect on Iran; the admiral sat on the Administration's darling General Save US Petraeus who has been muzzled until a few days ago when he popped up in the news after Fallon no longer was his boss at CENTCOM.

Admiral Fallon is a special breed of flag officer seldom found today. He combines moral and physical courage, intellect with sense for action found only in high class leaders. His problem was that he was smarter than the loony tunes leadership in the White House; with the unintended help of the ESQUIRE article, he let GW Bush know it. See you in Valhalla, Admiral – DAMN THE TORPEDOES; FULL SPEED AHEAD. Thank you for your outstanding service. Hope there are more like you wandering around the Pentagon and unified commands. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret.

FYI: Admiral Fallon is a graduate of Villanova University and not a graduate of a service academy. This probably explains his different national sense of duty with the ability to think for himself. He has 1300 carrier-assisted landings and 4800 flight hours. Unlike Bomb Bomb McCain, he has not crashed three aircraft and was not shot down. Also, his father was not an Admiral.

White Flag or Surge?
Iraq

White House Press Office is now headed by the fourth person in GW Bush's seven-year term in office. Instead of the usual dyspeptic male, the White House fielded a well dressed, pretty female, born in 1972, named Dana Perino. She is pleasant to the eye but callow, and regularly embarrasses herself and her office. She was recently on FOX NEWS and popped off that she cannot remember when she was last asked about Iraq. Well Toots, let's talk about Iraq.

Occupation of other countries by an alien force is always a dirty business. Native populations are killed in large numbers by the invaders. Occupiers try to change the native outlook by forcing indoctrination. Quisling regimes and security forces are developed at bayonet point, but fall apart as the bribe money ends or self revulsion over exploiting your own people for a foreign power has its own final corrosive effect.

Collapse of WHITE MANS burden colonialism was a fact in 20thc. The super organized Nazi war machine with its SS forces and gestapo killed massively to suppress uprisings – remember Czechoslovak village of Lidice and later the Warsaw Uprising when over 250 thousand Poles were killed in 2 months. This was in addition to thousands of European Jews murdered for racial reasons that had little to do with the internal security of the Nazi occupation. The Nazis are remembered in Jewish Holocaust and Russian military museums as the defeated. SIC TRANSIT GLORIA.

It has been over five years since the US invaded, occupied and destroyed Iraq. At this stage Iran is a big winner along with US and foreign war profiteers – by most estimates there are over 180 thousand war contractors feeding at the US trough in Iraq; this is in addition to coalition forces. We are now in a surge strategy that has reduced coalition casualties, but Iraqi deaths remain high as US fails to provide local security.

Under no circumstances should the surge be considered as a winning strategy. For this to occur, there must be an implicit acceptance by the Iraq people of the NEW AMERICAN ORDER. This does not remotely exist. The surge is the first major step to US withdrawal; few in the administration admit this openly. The US has methodically armed Sunni, Kurds and some Shiites; has bribed nearly every group not to kill Americans. Even the violently anti-American Shiite El Sadr takes his bribe, renewed every six months. He is now whining that some of his bloods no longer take orders from him and are striking out on their own.

The Iraqis have figured out that the US is going to withdraw based on a new US president's campaign promises, so why die when all you have to do is wait. While you wait, you get arms and walking-around money. You can settle old scores once the Crusader departs. The Iraqis now are demanding more and more regularly from the US. And the US pays.

There is no way the US can sustain the rupture to its economy as the foolish war drags on – now at 12 billion a month. Smarmy former presidential candidate Edwards has promised a study on the interrelationship between the Iraq war and the destruction of the US economy. Get on with it. LESS TALK – MAKE IT HAPPEN. Had Edwards focused on that issue, he may still have been a contender. Instead, he repeatedly fed us mawkish bullshit on his mill worker origins.

It is clear that the Republicans with Bomb Bomb McCain as their standard bearer will make terror and the Iraq war the main thrust of their campaign. So the Republicans have to kow tow to the Iraqis to encourage them to behave or Bomb Bomb will be seriously undercut by bloody events on the ground. The US will have to bribe Iraqi tribes more and more as the election heats up – it is unique when the victor pays tribute to the conquered – inverted imperialism. Thank you GW Bush.

Some exit strategy. But you take what you can get. Eight US troops killed in one day this week is tragic and sobering – apparently bribes cannot get to all the insurgents.

Bomb Bomb makes a big deal that he is our grandfather of the surge – no white surrender flags this time from our former POW, but his surge has set the stage for the departure of US forces by empowering the Iraqi tribes and enabling them to influence the US presidential elections on a grand scale. Once the US armed those tribes, the situation is irreversible; withdrawal was unintentionally set in motion. Even General Save Us Petraeus knows this – there are rumors he now wants out to head NATO.

So Ms. Perino these are Iraq issues on which our gutless media should focus. The expectation that you can field questions on Iraq is low. If you never heard of the Cuban missile crisis, there is little hope you can grasp the complexities of Iraq. Anyway, bet there is not one red blooded congressman or senator in Washington who would allow a woman with your looks and style to pay for her own drink – that has to be worth something. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret

MARCH COMES IN A LIKE A LION – KOSOVO

According to superstition, if the first day of March is miserably cold, it portends an early, mellow spring, with March going out like lamb. Too bad this analogy cannot be applied to political events, because this year March came in as a full blown gale and politically will go out with the same shivering force. March also provides predictions linked with the Ides Of March, a time of deadly foreboding stemming back to the soothsayer's prediction of the bloody assassination of Julius Caesar.

President Bush kicked off March by announcing that he does not intend to reduce US troops in Iraq any further while he remains in office. He also advised the American people that he has recognized the separatist state of Kosovo that declared its independence from Serbia. His administration rejected a Congressional request to pursue a grand jury investigation of contempt against his presidential advisers Bolton and Meyers. GW Bush even had time to attack Obama for his readiness to engage foreign enemy leaders in dialogue. Meanwhile the price of oil busted the 100 dollar a barrel record as we watched the dollar sink to its lowest rate against the Euro. The US economy continued to tank. It has been a busy and fruitless March so far for Mr. Bush and America.

The issue of Kosovo has been obscured in the US press as it focuses intently on the US elections, Iraq, and the economy; ironically, this fracus may have a longer lasting impact on the US as the other problems are resolved or fade.

Kosovo is an ancient Serbian province that the Serbs carelessly permitted Albanian illegal aliens to enter. The population of Serbian lands by Albanians was a gradual process until this minority out-populated the Serbs, who went North into metropolitan Serbia. Finally, confronted by armed Albanian insurrection, the Serbs decided forcefully to eject the Albanians from Kosovo. The US and NATO intervened to prevent this, with a massive bombing campaign of Serbia; as a result, the Serbian Army pulled out of Kosovo and came to terms with NATO and the European Union. Under these conditions, Kosovo remained part of Serbia until the recently declared unilateral independence by the Kosovo Albanians.

Mexico, with its hordes of illegal aliens in the US, is gleefully following this US support of Albanian illegal aliens' creation of a separatist break-away country. Mexicans still do not form a majority in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Texas and Utah, but given the open borders and the Mexican fecundity, this is a matter of time; especially true now that the MELTING POT concept in the US is moribund. US recognition of Kosovo sets up a rational for illegal Mexicans to argue to separate large chunks of the US as they achieve a majority in Southwestern states. If the US is helpless to close its borders, what will it do with an armed Mexican insurrection inside US borders, justified by historical precedence ?

This drama of independent Albanian Kosovo is not over. Serbs are not like the US Democrats in congress who roll over with every GW Bush provocation. The US embassy in Belgrade was recently burned; anti-US demonstrations by Serb minorities are breaking out in European countries. And Russia with a long historical religious bond with Serbia is sworn to interfere as a Serbian protector. GW Bush and his morons could find themselves in a Balkan war based on their usual stupidity as countermoves by the Russians go into play... GW Bush may have to pay a high price for getting a street named after himself in Tirana, Albania and his visage on an Albanian postage stamp.

On 1 April 2008 GW Bush intends to curtail all US military and economic aid to Israel unless it suspends construction of Israeli enclaves in the West Bank and Arab parts of Palestine – APRIL FOOL. Colonel Robert E. Bartos USA Ret