Mr. Hannity: "I'm no opponent of open and honest debate, even over questions of foreign policy...I would never claim that an earnest difference of opinion about foreign policy is unpatriotic....But when it comes to debate during wartime, I think one principle is clear: The only responsible argument is one that's made in good faith. The Democrats have violated that principle." (pp. 214-215)

Mr. Hannity: Saddam Hussein was an evil outlaw, a cruel tyrant who deserves death.

My response: News of the evil character of Saddam Hussein has been greatly exaggerated. Hussein did flaunt the UN by refusing weapons inspectors entry into some parts of Iraq between 1987 and 1991 and between 1998 and 2002. He invaded Kuwait in 1990, and a few dishonorable troops in his army butchered scores of innocent people during that invasion. He unquestionably ran a tight ship of the central Mideast country, denying the Iraqi people many freedoms we take for granted and executing thousands of political dissidents. And when some treasonous Kurds and revolutionary Shiites plotted to overthrow Saddam's government in the 1980s, he overreacted by killing 175,000 people, most of whom were innocent.

Mr. Hannity: Although Shah Pahlavi "led an often oppressive regime...our alliance [with him was]...strategically crucial". (p. 89)

My response: Here we observe two related ideas: the law of the balance of power and the principle of the lesser of two evils. Thruout history, nations have tended to collect into various loose federations in order to increase their security against an aggressive nation or to balance out one another's power. Through such politics, nations strove to preserve international harmony and to correct disharmonies and divisions. The principle of the lesser of two evils holds that a state party can side with a second state party which is generating or promoting certain evils for the purpose of mutually counteracting a third state party which is generating or promoting even worse evils.

Mr. Hannity (Quoting Jeane J. Kirkpatrick): "'[The] Carter administration...actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.'" (p. 66)

My response: This statement typifies a biased Republican slant on history, which holds that Carter openly surrendered our national interests to foreign extremists, particularly to Iranian radical Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, this incorrect yet ingenious claim exhibits a quadruple negative, propounding a lie within a lie within a lie within a lie.

Mr. Hannity: "[Saddam Hussein] was capable of using WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] against America ...our invasion was a beneficial thing." (p. 17)

My response: After more than five years of intense searching by US weapons experts, it has become evident that, as the regime of Saddam Hussein itself insisted, Iraq did not create a single weapon of mass destruction later than 1991.

Mr. Hannity: "You cannot negotiate with evil...sweet-talk...compromise...give ground to it. You can only defeat it, or it will defeat you." (p. 6)

My response: As a Catholic, I agree wholeheartedly with this principle. In the great cosmic struggle between good and evil in which we are all participants, vigilance and unwavering determination are crucial for those fighting evil. Wishy-washiness in confronting evil allows the devil to take a person over. But Mr. Hannity's book fails to take into account the difference between the unchanging moral law and the application of that law to the political sphere.

Mr. Hannity: "The totalitarian regimes that support them [terrorists] are more difficult to trace, using every devious means available to hide their role in funding and training the terrorists." (p. 5)

Time Magazine in its July 16, 2007 issue had an article by Madeleine Albright and Hernando De Soto entitled:  "Giving the Poor Their Rights".  This article revealed the dire poverty in Kenya.

The formula for peace was spelled out in oversize bold print:  "When governments grant people means to control their assets, they empower them to invest and plan for their future."

If this is the wise policy for Kenya why isn't the U.S. government applying it to Iraq and its oil asset?  If the U.S. would let Iraq control its oil, which is claimed to be one-third of that contained in the entire world, perhaps Iraqis would be motivated to end this Iraq War disaster.

The U.S. has a plan on Iraqi oil distribution.  With 80 oil wells in Iraq, the distribution deal the U.S. is desperately trying to get Iraqis to sign is to provide "foreign investors" with long-term leases on 63 Iraqi oil wells.  That will leave Iraq in control of only 17 of their own nation's oil wells.

Ward and June al Cleaver and their two sons, Walli and Beav al Cleaver shown here in their Baghdad home.
The photo above is said to depict the President's vision of "the typical Iraqi family in the "post Saddam era,
by that I mean the era that is after Saddam," the President is reported to have said. The photo was leaked exclusively
to Worldwide Sawdust by an anonymous but highly placed source who told this reporter that "this will be the
President's final comment on what constitutes victory in Iraq."

An Iraq that has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency.

An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.

An Iraq that is a partner in the global war on terror and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, integrated into the international community, an engine for regional economic growth, and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region.

From the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq - Victory in Iraq Defined

1st Armored Division Soldiers conduct a combat patrol in Tal Afar, Iraq in their M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
Photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon

Editors note: The photograph above was taken in February 2006 at a time when Bush was reporting Tall Afar as an Iraqi success story.
I think Bush saw the city as an example of the Iraqi version of "no child left behind."

The headline reads: "Gunmen Go On Rampage In Iraqi City" above a story by Joshua Partlow in this morning's Washington Post. It seems that the Malaki/Bush/Cheney/Hallibur ton Democracy left a few legal and procedural fundamentals out of their Police Academy training manual or perhaps they are using a revised Middle Eastern version of the Chicago Police manual which allows for the summary execution of Sunni suspects following violent episodes.

In the Chicago version you're only allowed to beat them up, in Tall Afar though, this is civil wartime, and the Shiite police and their auxiliaries have gone on yet another orgy of reprisal and revenge, killing as many as 70 Sunni suspects, men, women and children, some as young as fifteen, with a bullet to the back of the head in the Mesopotamian democratic tradition so reminiscent of other great democratic leaders like Saddam and Stalin.

To provide hospital facilities where rats roam freely and mold pollutes for injured troops returning from Iraq's war quagmire represents the height of unadulterated evil any way the Republican spin machine tries to slice it.

U.S.A. Today on March 16 showed color photos of luxury Walter Reed suites where members of the Senate and House are provided with the best of everything courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

If a member of the Senate or House were placed in a moldy, rat-infested room at Walter reed Hospital a congressional investigation would begin immediately.  One explanation given for the horrifying neglect of wounded service personnel being relegated to such scandalously inadequate hospital rooms is simply this.  

So many more injured war individuals were arriving daily at Walter Reed Hospital that they didn't have time to maintain and renovate the facilities.  Also, there weren't enough rooms to keep up with the soaring numbers of injured that were continuously arriving from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Dennis Kucinich made one of the most potentially significant comments on the current political scene in some time last week.  Citing the prospect of a possible preventive war against Iran by the Cheney-Bush neocon con Administration, Kucinich concluded that perhaps the only way to prevent such a conflict, which would contravene international law and the U.S. Constitution, would be an impeachment action.  

Kucinich further stated that he might be willing to introduce such articles of impeachment in the House.  This is significant news by any yardstick since a prominent congressman and announced candidate for president in 2008 has actually mentioned the word impeachment in direct contravention to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's previous comment about impeachment being "off the table."

How much did you read or hear about this important statement from Kucinich in the mainstream media?  Kucinich, it should be noted, did appear in the latest edition of Time.  That leading mainstream journal did not mention Kucinich in any significant context, however, instead concerning itself with trivial pursuit.  

A mention was made in the letters section that Kucinich stood at 5-7, hardly a noteworthy topic.  At that height he towered above Napoleon and Fiorello LaGuardia, as if any of this really mattered.

Anderson Cooper kept a couple of vigils on CNN recently.  One New Year's Eve, in Times Square. The other, Saddam Hussein's execution, Friday December 29th.  He was joined in the studio for an extended period of time by Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, Iraq's Deputy (acting) Ambassador to the UN.

Between reports from Baghdad and Dearborn MI, Cooper turned to al-Istrabadi for commentary but never seriously challenged al-Istrabadi's assertions or explored his role in the Iraq quagmire while al-Istrabadi was allowed to spin the incoming reports.

The closest Cooper ever got to a challenge ended with this response:

I'll let you pass on that one.

In 2002 al-Istrabadi, an attorney in private practice, submitted a paper to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations asserting the threat of weapons of mass destruction and the preposterous notion that in the absence of a Saddam Hussein's tyranny, Sunnis and Shiites would live in harmony.

Wolf Blitzer blinked a few days later on CNN's Late Edition, Sunday December 31st:

Ambassador al-Istrabadi, unfortunately, we have to leave it right there.

by Jason Miller

"If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership'."

---Will Rogers

"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."

--Noam Chomsky

With the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona 500, America's mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily choreographed agitprop.

What did Saddam Hussein's swift execution following his conviction for mass murder have in common with Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather I and Godfather II cinema epics?

The comparison became evident after analyzing the history of U.S. involvement in Iraq alongside two films underscoring the importance of the Mafia's code of silence, omerta.  

Omerta's application relates to individuals not revealing information concerning how The Family does business.  It also tenaciously enforces a rule of silencing individuals perceived as occupying positions to do the organization harm.

From the moment of Saddam Hussein's capture it became evident that the prevailing powers, meaning the Cheney-Bush Administration along with the international consortium to which it is inextricably linked, such as Skull and Bones, the Carlyle Group, along with vital corporate operations such as Halliburton and Bechtel, were not about to let the situation get out of hand.