The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well as the Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

Alan Greenspan belongs to the Club of Emasculated Moderate Elites who enabled corporate theocrats to destroy the American Dream at home and annihilate our moral authority abroad. A prerequisite for membership is to first allow crazy ideologues to exploit their prestige and later disown the disastrous policies their reputations facilitated. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is a charter member of this club and a pathetic figure who criticizes the Bush Administration about Iraq when it no longer matters. Powell's domestic policy soul mate, Alan Greenspan, joined him with his new memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures In a New World.

The elder George Bush's son Neil broke conflict of interest rules when he was a CEO at Silverado Banking Savings and Loan in Denver.

A cease and desist order restricting Neil Bush's banking activity was demanded immediately.  The judge who worked for the Office of Thrift Supervision demanded that Neil Bush make a full disclosure of all of his business dealings annually.  Also the judge insisted that Bush never vote on an issue where he held an interest if he joined any bank.

Neil Bush, a Denver oil man, had been director of Silverado from 1985 to 1988.  Neil resigned when his father was nominated on the Republican presidential ticket.  Later that same year regulators seized Silverado Bank, declaring it insolvent.  Silverado's bank failure cost taxpayers billions.

The elder George Bush's son Neil broke conflict of interest rules when he was a CEO at Silverado Banking Savings and Loan in Denver.  Regulators discovered that Bush had failed to reveal to his fellow Silverado bank directors the fact that he had extensive business dealings at the pivotal moment Walters and Good received those enormous loans.

On November 26, 1095 Pope Urban II launched the Christian Crusades.  His goal was to spread Christianity to the Middle East.  

He was so certain that God was behind the Crusades that his warriors placed their faith in the Old Testament, specifically in the biblical account of ancient Jericho.  The soldiers marched around the walls of Jericho.  When they blew their trumpets the walls of Jericho, aided by the supernatural assistance of God, came tumbling down.

When the Crusaders marched around the walls of Jerusalem and blew their trumpets, they fully expected the supernatural would assist them and the walls would immediately come tumbling down.  When this did not happen they barged into Jerusalem, slaughtering the city's every inhabitant and piling the bodies one atop the other.

On March 20, 2003 George Bush launched the Iraq War, which soon became a modern Middle East crusade to deliver democracy and freedom.  

Pete Theodoratos, writing in the November 30, 2006 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, had this to say:

"Religion has perpetrated more crimes against humanity than totalitarian regimes have.  Three Crusades killed million.... The Inquisition and witch burnings lasted for centuries.  South American civilizations and populations were decimated - in the nature of the church.

"Every hypocrite, opportunist and war profiteer is brandishing the cross, the Koran or whatever other catchy symbol is camera friendly."

Religious zealots delight in attacking science and liberals' agenda to save the earth from global warming and overpopulation.  With the narrow, barbaric views of right wing religious zealots, we hear them rant on with their ignorance, only matched by their arrogance.

The above-referenced question flashed across my mind as I stood in line at a bank the other day.  I saw a young man with a prosthetic leg.  My mind flashed back to my teenage years where I worked as a bus boy at an army hospital for wounded vets.  I saw many men trying to adjust to prosthetic arms or legs.

Occasionally the men would confide to me how hurt they were that fiancées had broken off engagements or family members who lived close by failed to come and visit them.

These indelible memories haunted me as I stood in that line at the bank.  I asked the woman standing ahead of me, who was observing the man with the artificial leg, if she thought the Iraq War was worth what the wounded service personnel had lost.

In a word she replied, "I think it is outrageous!"  That was her succinct assessment, and recalling the pained expressions on the faces of the amputees in that army hospital where I worked still haunts me.

"The worst ineptitude I've seen"

truth-telling is rarely the route to popularity and this story reflects a great deal more about colin powell than it does about larry wilkerson...

   The split came as both men left the administration -- Powell as secretary of state, Wilkerson as his chief of staff -- after working side by side for 16 years. Wilkerson, a once-loyal Republican with 31 years of Army service, has emerged in recent months as a merciless critic of President Bush and his top people, accusing them of carrying out a reckless foreign policy and imperiling the future of the U.S. military.