Mojowire for 9.11 -- Part I

Mojowire for 09.11; vol. 2, no. 14

J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire, Vol. 2, No.14... I'm Mojo...

S. And I'm Sean, it's Saturday, September 11, 2004, Day 1,247 of the Neocon Captivity, and here's the news for the week gone-by...

J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988. Now headlines, from Mojohaus:

S. First this morning, we examine the implications of recent administration bloviating on the subject of Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran and the news is not good, unless you own shares in Haliburton, that is.

J. Next, we take a look at the current whirlwind surrounding the President and his vaporware record of service in the National Guard. Look closely at the particles of political fallout. They may just have "Made in Texas" written on them.

S. Then Strychnine assumes the port of Mars and with fire and sword... oh who are we kidding, he is the economic girly man this morning. Yeah... the girly man with the tripod-mounted, belt-fed, water-cooled, .50 caliber machine gun of truth. Watch the hair, mack!

J. Then this morning we commemorate the 1,000th customer in Rummy's Mesopotamian Death-o-Rama sweepstake spectacular and ask, how in the name of the nine million hells did we get in this ridiculous position and how can we possibly get out again.

S. Finally this morning, we take a moment for a somber and sober reflection on the third anniversary of the start of the War for America, and want to make sure everyone knows what side we are on.

J. ...So stand by to stand by while we get ready to pull the pin on this thing...


THE CLONE WAR
J. In March of this year, our Maximum Leader took the little noticed action of declaring in executive order 12957 a National Emergency regarding the "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of the Government of Iran."

Not much to think about there, these things are generally pretty rote. For instance, an official "state of emergency" has existed with regards to Iran since 1979.

At first glance, the creepy thing about this order is the language that mirrors reasons for the Iraq emergency declration made July 2001, two full months before 9/11. But then you read further, and then something even creepier (at least in retrospect) appears: "the emergency declared by Executive Order 12957 constitutes an emergency separate from that declared on November 14, 1979, by Executive Order 12170."

This creepiness was injected directly into the brain stem last week when the Los Angeles Times and several other papers across the country carried the Max Boot piece about how the President needs to take off the kid gloves regarding Iran and get them to respect our authoritay! In a sparse 760-word essay, specific references to terrorism or terror groups: six. And he was very careful to evoke the 9/11 frame and tie Iran to that heinous crime.

At first, when I brought this to Mojowire Editorial Board, we generally agreed that this was just more of Max Boot's dark military fantasies, wet dreaming their ways onto the nation's op-ed pages, especially given that they want to change the conversation right now given that much of that hive brain is currently embroiled in an Italian-Iranian-Israeli-Neocon spy scandal.

We also thought that this was possibly something out of the West Wing; an attempt to stir the jingo pot given Dick Cheney's assertion that the next plane that flies into a building will be piloted by John Kerry.

Then I started to look around and I came up with a few more disquieting bits of deja vu. The President and his inner circle talking about "Iranian links to 9/11" -- which the CIA has already openly discredited, or at least cast serious doubt upon, and Iran's unremitting push to get the bomb, as well as other weapons of mass destruction, and of course casting a righteous light on Iran's deplorable Human Rights record.

This stuff is not coming from the Political Office, though, much less the hideous belching pipes of the Mighty Wurlitzer. This is coming out of Doug Feith's little kingdom in the Office of Special Plans. Literally, the first rock we looked under, and we find John Bolton sucking a smoldering chair leg and sounding off on the way of the world; action, now, against Iran. Interdiction, interruption and control.

But through it all the language of the administration has not necessarily been that of regime change. Yet that will apparently be the new policy of the Bush Administration if they manage to falsify another election. The same phrases appearing in speeches by Condi Rice, Bolton, W and in the op-ed pieces of the likes of Boot, the "grave and growing threat," "links to the 9/11 attacks," "can't afford appeasement."

From the Sunday Herald in Britain on July 18: "A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that military action would not be overt in changing Iran, but rather that the US would work to stir revolts in the country and hope to topple the current conservative religious leadership. The official said: 'If George Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran.' "

This langauge has been ratcheting up all summer, only now to come full circle. On Monday, the President is going to go the IAEA and ask for a declaration of non-compliance as a step on the way to the U.N. Security Council to get one of those resolutions that he can twist into military intervention.

S. You might be remembered, Wireheads, that about this time last year, the dread Doctor Strychnine dropped a beat down on us all, reminding us why such a war on a conventional scale, like we are fighting in Iraq, is going to be a doomed enterprise right out of the blocks in Iran.

Let's revisit the frightful Dr. momentarily... He pointed out that Iran's military is about 4 times the size of Iraq's, it’s a much larger, richer country that has not been suffering under sanctions and unlike the agreeably flat and mostly water rich Iraq, Iran is a a big giant mountain crag surrounded by a completly arid plane and 2.400 miles of coast.

Yeah... geographically, it's Mordor by the sea.

And as the good doctor also pointed out, it is highly likely that this was the "red team" that handed U.S. military geniuses a public beating out on the town square during the Millenium Challenge War games of 2002.

So why on Earth would these stupid gits pick a fight with these guys now?

Well, for one thing, that question assumes a certain amount of reality in the thinking of the people in OSP. But I think our experience with their strategerie in Iraq has been enough to cure of any delusions regarding Doug Feith's relationship to reality.

Then there's the Israel card. Israel is already conducting operations in Northern Iraq, and the Likudniks currently in power in Tel Aviv would love nothing better than a reason to take out Iran, which backs Hezbollah. We already have the troops ready to stage in theater, and the potential assitance of a newly frocked Iraqi army.

Between the American Israeli Committee for Public Affairs, evangelicals in Department of Defense and a Petroleum industry connected to the White House that would love to see $100 bucks a barrel, regardless of what it would do the economy... yeah, that's a recipe for disaster.

The talk of 9/11 connections to Iran will continue to increase as we get closer to the election, along with Iranian intransigence on nuclear inspection. This will help W get a better handle on the electorate by by scaring them with tales of Iranian death rays mounted on the heads of endangered sharks off the eastern sea board.

In the meantime, the Bolton doctrine being run out of the office of special plans and Doug Feith, the actors are being put in place right now to create an incident that might make military intervention plausible or necessary. At the same time, goading the hardliners to crack down on reformers by continually expressing our support, and making reformers distance themselves more and more from Western engagement.

Then after the election, we start the real march, but make no mistake. This war has already started.

TASTES LIKE CHICKENHAWK
J. Boy this story just won't die, will it. I mean, I can't remember a story that has continually turned up like this over time. Of course we are referring to the current dust-up over the President's dubious service in the Texas Air National Guard.

A quick primer for those of you who have been asleep at the wheel: In the late 60s, early 70s, Maximum Leader was allegedly a pilot in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Texas Air National Guard. He was allegedly transferred to Alabama so he could work on some scumbag's race baiting campaign, then went to Harvard and was transferred to a unit in Colorado. He specfically unvolunteered himself for Vietnam in his papers and at some point in the 70s had his flight status yanked for not taking a physical.

For years, questions have surrounded whether the Bush family pulled strings to get W placed in a unit that was known as a hide-out/clubhouse for the sons of politically connected or wealthy Texans and if he actually completed or did his service and got a jimmy from the service by way of an honrable discharge.

And the stories circulate and the stories get non-response responses and the stories go away. Now, CBS has culminated four years of work and launched a scud last week during 60 minutes, lead by former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes who specifically and ashamedly said he pulled the strings to get W in the boys club.

And while we're at it, just personally, I think Barnes should be arrested and tossed in prison if he really did do those things. I will take his remorse as a mitigating factor, but I think he should burn just the same.

Then they went to the documentary evidence, a series of papers purporting to show that W's commanding officers were pressured to cut the young Caesar some slack on his lack of committment to make it to his unit's drills. Because, hey, hangovers are hell and besides, who the hell knows where you are going to be when you come out of a week long coke jag.

But this is where we start to get into a little bit of trouble here. You see, there are some fairly intrepid people on the right who almost immediately denounced the documents as forgeries and gave some fairly compelling evidence tied to typography. Evidence that might hold some serious water.

Oddly enough, as of this show, CBS stands by the story and the White House or the Mighty Wurlitzer actually has yet to deny the specific charges leveled by the story.

And the damned beast rolls on.

There are a couple of things in play here. Besides the standard bloviation about chickenhawks which you have heard us beat on like a rented mule, besides the hypocrisy of the Republicans in the character debate and its relation to national security.

These things are pretty well documented and we have gone to some pretty good lengths to castigate the various punks and dirtbags like the Dick Cheneys and Paul Wolfowitzs and Tom Delays who assiduously avoided service to their country, even while pimping immoral and wrongheaded military policies they don't have the spine to stand up and represent for themselves.

So like I said, we've covered that ground.

S. This leaves us with a couple of issues. First and foremost, it simply boggles the mind that the news cycle has been so utterly dominated by this when we have so many more important things we could be talking about.

And yeah, we get the point that the issues of JK's swift boat time and W's inability to show up on the flight line at assembly and the tales they tell 40 years later, are issues of character and that character is a critical issue in our leaders.

But it turns into this ridiculous circle jerk about who did what when and no matter who says what, the star belly sneetches are going to support the star belly sneetch protocol, while the plain belly sneetches are going to represent for the plain belly sneetches position.

So I guess it's a good thing that we don't have a war right now in our time to be talking about, that we don't have 8 million Americans looking for work or that our environment isn't deteriorating due to a lack of leadership and a wholesale auction to landrapists. Because we have so many more important things to talk about like whether CBS is using forged documents.

But that leads to a more fundamental question, raised last week by the Dread Doctor Strychnine. And it was one we asked ourselves as well. There is a distinct possibility that the whole thing was a plant on the part of the Mighty Wurlitzer to derail the national discourse.

Now before you wind up the whole "paranoid nutball" rant, just hear us out. To qualify this, we are not really sure this is the case, but there are some historical precedents, and no S9, not just the Karl Rove history of planting listening devices in his own office just so he could complain to FBI about being bugged.

(no kidding, gang, that really happened in the early 80s)

But consider a few disquieting things. First and foremost, Dan Rather is not a regular 60 minutes guy. How did he get this "exclusive?" Could it be the same way he got the exclusive in 1988 with W's pappy? You remember that, when everyone was bagging on then V.P. Bush about being a wimp and a limp-wristed eastern effete snob, he goes on with Dan Rather, who lobs a couple reasonably tough questions and Bush then takes him out for a walk. Poll numbers skyrocket, toughness confirmed and his political team all but take credit for setting up Rather.

And now we are learning that CBS never saw an "original" document, but probably first generation copies. Then combine this with the fact that that scumbag Kitty Kelly is coming out with her expose on the Bush family that comes largely from "anonymous" or that is to say, made up, sources. And those that were named are now disclaiming saying anything to Kitty.

So we have a story about the President's military record that is being slammed for the use of suspect documents and a book by Kitty Kelly that will be easily refuted and knocked into the cheap seats.

This is the strongest circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy, because this results in any, and I mean any criticism of the President along just about any lines now will be placed in the powerfully negative frames of "oh, like those CBS forgaries," or "oh, like stories like Kitty Kelly tells..."

And the part about this that really makes us want to gnaw our own limbs off is that the charges against Bush for being a coke-addled playboy and character-challenged no-show dilietente loser are all likely true. Too bad we can't say it public now because other morons screwed up the story.

There really is one born every minute isn’t there...

cue JAMES music
And now the music is telling me that we have an incoming transmission from the redoubtable Dr. S9...

J. That's right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Baghdad by the Bay ... take it away S9 ...