War Addict! Two Rogue Head's of State and Their Democratic Enablers

I signed on to the Internet this afternoon and of course was immediately taken to my "home page" setting on Internet Explorer. No not here believe it or not, but the Huffington Post. The main head line for this day reached out and slapped me repeatedly. This can't be real can it? Apparently it is as the headlines proclaimed; New Covert Ops Inside Iran! The article is about Seymour Hersh's piece in the New Yorker and it's description of the White House's continuing effort to start a war in Iran. Now hold on there you say, Bush can't do that without Congresses permission so it ain't happening right? Wrong. We all know this administration's track record in interrupting the law, Constitution, or even deny the existence of the law and Constitution.

In an interview on CNN's Late Edition Seymour Hersh more fully explains his story, and the seven page read in the New Yorker is a must. In the end Hersh notes that this current Democratic Congress has gone along with Bush/Cheney on these missions, though very secret in their nature, they have been providing the funding, therefore basically authorizing this Administration's actions. What makes this so concerning is this little note by Hersh:

The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail differs from the White House’s. One issue has to do with a reference in the Finding, the person familiar with it recalled, to potential defensive lethal action by U.S. operatives in Iran. (In early May, the journalist Andrew Cockburn published elements of the Finding in Counterpunch, a newsletter and online magazine.)
The language was inserted into the Finding at the urging of the C.I.A., a former senior intelligence official said. The covert operations set forth in the Finding essentially run parallel to those of a secret military task force, now operating in Iran, that is under the control of JSOC. Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference. But the borders between operations are not always clear: in Iran, C.I.A. agents and regional assets have the language skills and the local knowledge to make contacts for the JSOC operatives, and have been working with them to direct personnel, matériel, and money into Iran from an obscure base in western Afghanistan. As a result, Congress has been given only a partial view of how the money it authorized may be used. One of JSOC’s task-force missions, the pursuit of “high-value targets,” was not directly addressed in the Finding. There is a growing realization among some legislators that the Bush Administration, in recent years, has conflated what is an intelligence operation and what is a military one in order to avoid fully informing Congress about what it is doing.
“This is a big deal,” the person familiar with the Finding said. “The C.I.A. needed the Finding to do its traditional stuff, but the Finding does not apply to JSOC. The President signed an Executive Order after September 11th giving the Pentagon license to do things that it had never been able to do before without notifying Congress. The claim was that the military was ‘preparing the battle space,’ and by using that term they were able to circumvent congressional oversight. Everything is justified in terms of fighting the global war on terror.” He added, “The Administration has been fuzzing the lines; there used to be a shade of gray”—between operations that had to be briefed to the senior congressional leadership and those which did not—“but now it’s a shade of mush.”

Why in the world would Congress allow this in light 89% of the American people against the war in Iraq and thinking we are on the wrong track? (Actually it's 89% think the economy is linked to the war. Almost 70% want us out of Iraq). On top of this Bush has claimed he listens, and takes advice from the military commanders in the field, except apparently when they disagree with him. Witness the case of Admiral Fallon, Commander of CENTCOM who was forced out in March of this year reportedly because of his opposition to attacks on Iran. One of Adm. Fallon's biggest problems while head of CENTCOM was the White House and Dick Cheney in particular circumventing the law.

“He was charged with coming up with an over-all coherent strategy for Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and, by law, the combatant commander is responsible for all military operations within his A.O.”—area of operations. “That was not happening,” Sheehan said. “When Fallon tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.”
The law cited by Sheehan is the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act, known as Goldwater-Nichols, which defined the chain of command: from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.
“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of non conventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”
Admiral Fallon, who is known as Fox, was aware that he would face special difficulties as the first Navy officer to lead CENTCOM, which had always been headed by a ground commander, one of his military colleagues told me. He was also aware that the Special Operations community would be a concern. “Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing,” Fallon’s colleague said. “The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney.”

Further down Hersh notes the Administration is back to it's failed tactics of before, funding Sunni terrorist groups that are connected to Al Quaeda to operate inside of Iran. One Pentagon consultant was quoted as saying Fallon went down because he was trying to avoid a war with Iran.

Throughout his article Hersh talks about Dick Cheney interfering with Special Operations and trying to direct their actions, basically in a more aggressive fashion which could in the long run spur open hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. Our Congress, where are they? That infamous "Gang of Eight" that does get the super secret briefings and knows to some extent what goes on. When the Democrats were rung in back in 2006 over sight and accountability were the buzz words used. Yet there has been none, and this Administration continues to operate as a rogue outfit unanswerable to anyone, or any law. Bush has repeatedly stated we need to accomplish a mission, but he has yet to state any clear mission except and "endless war on terror". George Bush and Dick Cheney are two of the most dangerous jihadist in the world today, and the Democratic Congress enables them. That's right I called them jihadists, for they are killing and terrorizing people around the world for some obscure belief. It is not their stated belief though, and since a jihad has religious implications follow my reasoning here.

George W. Bush is a born again Evangelistic christian. His faith and their leaders preach to us with a heavy emphasis on Revelations concerning Armageddon and the Rapture. George Bush believe and has stated he was "chosen to lead by God". Evangelical Christians believe that they should help bring about the Rapture and Armageddon. They also believe it will happen in the Middle East. So why is it not possible that this delusional idiot is doing things that most Americans believe are irresponsible and dangerous, in a manner that suggests his way is the only right way, no matter what the electorate says, no matter what the world says, no matter what the Constitution and laws say? There are three possibilities though two are linked.

1) He's an irresponsible, self centered psychopath who doesn't care about the consequences
of his actions.
2) He is psychotic.
3) He is a religious fanatic that feels he is following God's will.

If you look at this Administration's actions, and compare them to say the actions of Islamic extremists there really isn't that much difference. Both believe unswervingly that they are in the right. That sacrifice and the destruction of infidels is justifiable. That sacrifice is the duty of others rather then themselves is ok. At this moment and time, this Administration is leading us into an expanding conflict that we and they cannot win, and the future picture is one of mutually assured destruction. Who wins? And our Democratic Congress continues to play the fiddle while Rome burns. This madman needs his power arrested quickly as he tries to keep this nation married to a future of permanent conflict. No Nancy impeachment is not off the table. You work for us, "we the People", remember?

I have listens to pundits from all over try to explain this Administration's actions and even they give up. Is this idea really so far off? It is either that, or like a drug addict this Administration is addicted to war.