Ain’t Had No Schoolin’
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“I’m not much of a reader,” I said, ashamed. “I never had much schoolin’.”
“But you can read, can’t you?”
“A mite ma’am.” I pushed back from the table. “I’m gettin’ up early. I better hit the hay.”
—Louis L’Amour, ‘Passin’ Through‘
Decider George needs to hit the books — or maybe charge head first into a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica stacked end-to-end. Despite enormous wealth, the opportunity for advanced educational degrees, and receiving said degrees, Decider George acts, sounds and looks extremely ‘tarded.
He’s one of them childs left behind.
Most experts, i.e., people who spend way-too-much time concentrating on one single piece of shit, agree the US educational system sucks up a big one, but notwithstanding some plans posed from a variety of sources, from Time magazine to the NEA, there’s no fix. One third of US high school freshmen never graduate: In an age of technology, affluence and wealth in the US, that’s plain stupid. In California, high schools phased-out a great many of their shop courses, like auto mechanics, in the ’80s and ’90, only to shortly realize the move was educationally nearsighted and extremely dumb. And throwing money at it will only make the shit worse.
One option was offered in 2001 just after Decider George had taken the White House. The famous, highly-touted, so-empathetic-sounding No Child Left Behind program.
According to Wikipedia:
“The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), commonly known as NCLB, is a United States federal law that was passed in the House of Representatives on May 23, 2001[1] and signed on January 8, 2002, that reauthorized a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. Additionally, it promoted an increased focus on reading and re-authorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).
There’s been pro and con about the program. Mostly against it, except for the US Department of Education, Decider George’s lackey hole. A major contention: Data is supplied to the US Department of Defense for use in military recruiting. And most educators believe the damn thing just doesn’t work.
Now in 2007, No Child Left Behind comes up before Congress for re-authorization. And to promote passage of the program again, and to exemplify supposedly positive reports on it, Decider George decided to hold a photo-op to celebrate. In New York already with big-goings-on at the United Nations, he visited P.S. 76 Wednesday and before a bunch of kids, teachers, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, and watched by reporters, displayed the irony of someone gifted with an arrogant lack of intelligence could become leader of the whole freakin’ free world.
According the Reuters news agency, Decider George blubbered: “As yesterday’s report card shows, childrens do learn when the standards are high and the results are measured.”
Childrens?
The sonofabitch is consistent: Seven years ago he campaigned as the “education president” (of course, silly us, that was before becoming the “war president” and then evolving into “The Decider”) and in touting the virtues of a good education, he got a verb shoved up his ass by blubbering: “Is our children learning?”
Of course not. Neither are the grown ups who vote.
And of course, when the No Children Left Behind program was passed by the US House of Representatives in May 2001 — three months before the World Trade Center — Decider George and his entire adminstration didn’t give a shit whether any childrens were left behind, or even forgotten: Their hearts, minds and souls sought after one thing: Iraq.
Decider George’s first meeting with his National Security Council was on Jan. 30, 2001, and top of the agenda was Iraq and Saddam Hussein — that was seven months before the attacks –the NSC’s visit in the Oval office two days later concerned only Iraq, nothing else on the schedule. All this from former Education Secretary Paul O’Neill.
An insolence bred with incompetence leaves no room for real schoolin’.
Blackwater: ‘Ali Baba’ Alibi
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Another brick in the wall!
Decider George has never, and the operative word here is never, had any sense. Due to his position, though, a bogus, senseless, self-serving and random mindset affects every asshole on the planet.
As if the situation on the ground in Iraq couldn’t get worse, on Sept. 16 apparently it did. A bunch of Iraqis were gunned down on a Baghdad street. No big news, nothing out of the ordinary on the lawless streets of Iraq nowadays, but this little firefight was different.
The shooters were a bunch of hired guns, a bunch of US hired guns.
According to news reports, anywhere from 20 to 11 Iraqi civilians were killed when some Blackwater USA security forces opened fire during a traffic jam on a Baghdad square. Witnesses said the Blackwater guys fired without purpose at anyone nearby, first blowing the shit out of a car moving too slow through the intersection, burning alive a couple and their daughter. One man told news agencies the mother and child had been melted together because of the intense heat.
Blackwater USA, headquartered in Moyock, N.C., is one of three “private sercurity firms” operating in Iraq — Dyncorp and Triple Canopy the other two. Blackwater, however, is by far the most notorious. In March 2004 four Blackwater guards were killed and burned by a mob in Fallujah, two of them hung on a bridge over the Euphrates River. The company says 25 of its employees had been killed since the invasion.
These security guys, mostly former US military special forces types, SEALs, Rangers and so forth, guard officials with the US governments, offer protection for convoys and do whatever else where armed muscle is needed. The pay is much, much higher than the regular US military.
Although they’d been warned, no one within Decider George’s planning department reckoned on the insurgent, chaotic shit-fit that would erupt after the “shock and awe” of the initial invasion had died away. In order to keep some kind of order, and the regular military was already stretched too thin, Decider George’s joke-in-charge, Paul L. Bremer, turned to a source outside the Pentagon.
Mercenaries.
The recent concept of “private security” — in a military sense, not in bodyguarding-a-Britney Spears kind of way — arose out of the 1980s ‘insurgent’ wars in Central America and elsewhere, but came onto it’s own in the 1990s with the need for more armed boots on the ground without dipping into the Department of Defense’s cannon fodder.
Out of these army-privatization schemes came one, Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL and a member of a very, very rich, right-winged and much-establishment family. In 1997, Prince created Blackwater USA and the rest is soldier-of-fortune history.
A big contributor to fundamentalist Christian and conservative causes, Prince is a wingnut one goose-step right of Hitler with the same leanings as Decider ‘I Cry on God’s shoulder’ George.
A couple of days before baby-chunks, cry-baby Bremer left Iraq, June 2004, he covered everybody’s physical ass: He issued Order 17, an edict which gave all the private bodyguards/thugs/Rambo wannabes — all contractors in country — immunity from Iraqi law. There are about 180,000 now in Iraq who work for private contractors, with most working in infrastructure rebuilding.
Despite all the nail-ghashing, the threats from the Iraqi government after its report established the Blackwater cowboys fired into the crowd that Sunday near two weeks ago without provocation, and the obvious hatred of the private security people from the Iraqis to US troops, the company is still working, guarding US officials. And still exempt from prosecution.
And those cowboys are disliked. In a story from the Associated Press this week: “This is a big mess that I don’t think anyone has their hands around yet,” one U.S. military official told the AP. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing these guys are being held accountable. Iraqis hate them, the troops don’t particularly care for them, and they tend to have a know-it-all attitude, which means they rarely listen to anyone — even the folks that patrol the ground on a daily basis.”
The average US grunt looks at the Blackwater cowboys with disdain — more and better equipment, much-higher pay and most of all, they don’t have to answer to anyone.
And the sonofabitches are being investigated for smuggling guns into Iraq! The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants to check out the bluster of giant asshole Howard Krongard, the US State Department’s Inspector General, amid charges he tried to waylay investigations into private firms doing business in Iraq. One of those charges includes Krongard’s attempt to block an inquiry into whether or not Blackwater illegally smuggled guns. What the cryin’ shit! What’s freaking worse? Smuggling guns or trying to cover up the smuggling of guns?
Blackwater is just typical of Decider George’s angle on Iraq: Put a freakin’ band-aid on an open, pulsating gut shot. The entire adventure in Iraq has been one major catastrophe after another with no freakin’ end in sight, next year, the year after, or for decades to come. Unless something drastic occurs, those kids just now just entering US elementary schools will fight and die in Iraq.
And all because of Decider George.
Even the threat of terror is a ruse. The war in Iraq is a war between countrymen, not terrorists. One post recently explained the reality of the hard-fact ground in Iraq, penned by a guy who knows. Phillip Martin, a US Marine serving his second tour in al-Anbar Province in Iraq, wrote an eye-opening, and a real-time essay on who he and his fellow marines are fighting. The piece was posted Sept. 19 at www.lewrockwell.com.
Martin discusses the notion of the US being in Iraq to fight terrorism — the old stop ‘em there, before they come over here routine — but that scenario is all bullshit.
“They become enemy combatants the moment they target other legal combatants,” Martin wrote. “You can call them insurgents, anti-Iraqi forces, anti-occupation forces, freedom fighters, or Ali Baba (our most easily translated term for bad guys), but ‘terrorist’ is not the correct term.”
As regular US troops start to view the Iraq war as a lie (like Martin), how horrible are their days, trying to stay alive, trying to accomplish something that, in reality, cannot be accomplished?
And Blackwater, strutting around untouchable, above the law. A kind of attitude Decider George and his crowd have assumed these last seven years — above the law, above the Constitution, beyond the reach of mere mortals — and with an incompetent, arrogant ability to completely fuck up everything they touch.
Ingredients for disaster for everyone on the planet.
Lying Liars Leading the Blind
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intractable
adj.
1. not easily controlled or directed; not docile or manageable; stubborn; obstinate: an intractable disposition.
2. (of things) hard to shape or work with: an intractable metal.
3. hard to treat, relieve, or cure
4. an intractable person
[dictionary.com]
The white-washed Petraeus and Crocker Proxy Picnic is over. The weeks-load of war-spin generated by Decider George and his team of lackeys, henchmen, and just plain general-asshole liars has done the job and done it well.
According to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this week: “The proportion of Americans who say the Iraqi war remains winnable has edged up to 37% from 32% in July, while the majority who say it isn’t has diminished to 56% from 62%. The proportion saying the troop surge is helping the situation on the ground has risen to 33% from 29% in July and 24% in April.”
And Decider George, as intractable as ever, grinning like a jackass. In his speech last Thursday night, he knew he’d won, he knew he could return to days of yore.And he laid the weight right-down on good-old Gen. David Petraeus along with his side-honey, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and these two nitwits “made clear that our challenge in Iraq is formidable, yet they concluded that conditions in Iraq are improving, that we are seizing the initiative from the enemy and that the troop surge is working.
“Americans want our country to be safe and our troops to begin coming home from Iraq. Yet, those of us who believe success in Iraq is essential to our security and those who believe we should bring our troops home have been at odds.
“Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home. The way forward I have described tonight makes it possible, for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together.”
Actually, no one has come together and no one will. The US will have to endure, will have to put up with the lies and the dying.
And Decider George also coined a new phrase Thursday night for the bullshit: “…enduring relationship…” in describing the connection between Iraq and the US for generations to come.
The goofy-faced shithead said Iraq’s leaders “have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops.”
What about all those common folk Iraqis who must also endure? A poll released this week, commissioned by ABC News, the UK’s BBC and Japan’s NHK network revealed that 70 percent — yes, 70 percent — of Iraqis say their security is worse now than it was at the beginning of this year.
And what of US troops keeping this so-called violence down? The poll showed a strong 57 percent of all Iraqis believe it’s OK to attack them — 93 percent of Sunni and 53 percent of Shiite.
The poll also showed that a pretty-hefty number, 45 percent, believe a full-blown civil war (what the shit is going on now?) will not erupt if US/Coalition forces pull out.
Latest count has 3,781 US troops killed since the war started, 50,000 wounded; low-end count for Iraqi deaths is about 80,000 with a high of 750,000. And not counting the near-four million displaced Iraqis, jamming into nearby countries. Iraq is a hellhole and Mr. Decider George, the entire horrifying escapade lies at your doorstep!
Just an example: Seemingly unnoticed by the average media outlets last week, a story by Sidney Blumenthal in salon.com that revealed Decider George as indeed the liar.
Blumenthal, a former advisor to Bill Clinton, wrote Decider George apparently ignored a 2002 Oval Office briefing months before the Iraqi invasion in which CIA director George Tenet provided the president with intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Two sources told Blumenthal “Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam’s inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.”
One of those sources was more direct: “The president had no interest in the intelligence. Bush didn’t give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.”
In going to war, Decider George, prodded along by his vice president, Dufus Dick Cheney, made up his mind to take another path offered by US intelligence: The tale spun by one Iraqi guy code-named, “Curveball.” This character claimed Saddam sure-as-damn-hell had weapons of mass destruction, the infamous WMDs, and was ready to unleash mushroom clouds. First, German intelligence agencies and later the CIA, discovered all the bullshit “Curveball” disclosed was just that: All Bogus Bullshit. As it turned out, “Curveball” was a former taxi driver pretending to be a chemical engineer.
Decider George knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. Dufus Dick Chaney knew. Pappa Don Rumsfeld knew. That asshole Wolfawich guy — he knew. Probably another crowd of people — military people, civilians, all kinds of people — knew that “Curveball” was full of shit, but allowed Decider George to continue, to invade Iraq, create an intractable situation.
An intractable mindset created an unretractable circumstance.
And on top of that, some sad information from the Baghdad bureau of the Associated Press, which exposed “one of the grand ironies of the troop build up that began early this year” — there was debate in Washington, but “little sense of alarm or urgency among the Iraqi politicians who would have the most to lose if the United States decides to begin a major pull back.”
Decider George will keep a major force in Iraq until he turns the White House over to a successor in less than 18 months; the Sunni and Shiite know that and feel little pressure to accelerate work toward true political reconciliation.
“Instead, they are focusing their energy on shoring up their positions: outflanking political challengers, leaning on more-radical Shiite factions to behave and flirting with Sunni sheiks to build personal alliances,” the AP reported.
Not only did the so-called “surge” not work, in the long run the situation has worsened, created a major US problem for years and years to come.
So Decider George does as he always does. Just like he did in the mid 1970s when on “special assignment” from the Texas National Guard to the Alabama Guard in Montgomery. He rented a house in the old Cloverdale section of that city and partied hardy — booze, cocaine and women — thrashing the place. And then just walked away, returned to Texas, leaving the house a complete mess.
Nowadays, it’s not just an irate homeowner that’s hurt and pissed by Decider George‘s antics — it’s the whole world.
The real depressing, down-the-pitch-black-rabbit hole gloom, however, is the attitude and blind faith of Americans. The feeble, lackluster of Congress, the waning ant-war movement, the hopeless end.
And Decider George shoved the whole shit pie in the face of the US last week. He ended his speech Thursday night with a discussion on the death of Army Spc. Brandon Stout of Michigan, who volunteered for the National Guard and was killed while serving in Baghdad.
The family had e-mailed Decider George, who then softly blubbered: “His family has suffered greatly. Yet in their sorrow, they see larger purpose. His wife, Audrey, says that Brandon felt called to serve and knew what he was fighting for.”
The lying asshole continued that Stout’s parents, Tracy and Jeff, wrote “We believe this is a war of good and evil and we must win … even if it cost the life of our own son. Freedom is not free.”
The lying leading the sad, pathetic blind.
‘God’s Shoulder to Cry On’
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Who’s foolin’ who?
In a book on Decider George’s White House to be released today offers a continued look into the illusionary skull works of a president who really dosn’t give a shit and ponders how much he can make on the speech circuit after he leaves office. A life of boredom and luxury.
“I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers. I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75 thousand dollars a speech, and Clinton’s making a lot of money.” So told Decider George to Texas writer Robert Draper for the book, ‘Dead Certain,’ excerpts which were released this past weekend.
And readers will be dead certain this president is an arrogant, self-righteous asshole, who doesn’t seem to even momentarily ponder the horror his actions have created for the entire planet. He doesn’t think of the American republic he’s practically destroyed or the untold thousands of people whose lives were completely ended. And like most religious criminals, Decider George believes he’s in the very presence of God and on the same level.
“I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot. I’ll bet I’ve shed more tears than you can count as president.” Not at God’s feet, not in any penitent or contrite position, but as if some horrifying decisions to kill a great number of human beings was hard on the soul.
And to Draper, Decider George admits he’s an arrogant asshole and doesn’t care. “I made a decision to lead. One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?”
“…and that may be true…” ?
In a clear display of Decider George’s perception of reality: The world is way, way worse off, in a shitting-the-pants intensity “as a result of your leadership.” Studies, reports, all kinds of documents have shown the world is indeed more troubled now than six years ago.
In 18 months or so, the little shithead will continue playing.
“We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” he confided to Draper, adding he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world.
“I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch. Sixty-two is really young, and yet I’ll be through with my presidency.”
He will be finished with his work. He can sit back and watch as the shit he formed and shaped explodes into chaos.
Decider George will indeed do more than cry on God’s shoulder: God can’t be fooled.