ROVE AND THE BOMB

[Zlatko Waterman]

( A nice essay by Jonathan Schell, who frequently writes clearly and forcefully about the mess in the US government . . .)


The Bomb and Karl Rove
by Jonathan Schell



Like every important government crisis, the outing of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame by the president's chief political adviser, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, perhaps among others, must be seen in many contexts at once. (As all the world knows, Rove's aim was to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who had publicly disproved the administration's claim that Iraq was buying uranium yellowcake from Niger – a key element in the administration's justifications for the Iraq war.) Howard Fineman of Newsweek and Sidney Blumenthal of Salon point to the broader story of Rove's habitual practice of defending his political clients by smearing their competitors and detractors. Blumenthal titles his piece "Rove's War" and Fineman speaks of "The World According to Rove." Frank Rich of the New York Times, on the other hand, suggests that the most important war to look at is the one in Iraq. He says that the injustice to the Wilsons and even to the CIA is secondary: "The real crime here remains the sending of American men and women to Iraq on fictitious grounds." In other words, what's important is not the "war" but the war.

Surely, they are all right. It's true that the harm to the Wilsons cannot be compared to the deaths of thousands in the misbegotten conflict, but it's also true that the resolution of the scandal is likely to have a lasting impact on American politics, and even on the American system of government. Perhaps the most important political question is whether the Bush administration is to be held accountable for any of its actions, or whether it now enjoys complete impunity and a free field of action to do whatever it likes – from waging war to designing and presiding over systems of torture to breaking domestic law. There are other contexts to consider, too.

If Rich is right that the scandal is really about the Iraq war, then we have to ask what the war was about. The administration's chief answer is weapons of mass destruction and, more particularly, nuclear weapons. The atomic signature is scrawled all over the scandal. It is present, of course, in the uranium the president falsely said Iraq was seeking from Niger. And Plame, as it turns out, worked for the CIA on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To defend its nuclear lies, the administration destroyed a (possible) source of nuclear truth. The smear campaign thus did double damage in the nuclear-weapon field: It propped up, however briefly, the erroneous justification for the war while shutting down authentic information on the broader problem. The nuclear issue popped up again in a State Department memo Colin Powell brought with him on Air Force One shortly after Wilson's op-ed piece appeared. It is now famous because it disclosed Plame's identity as Wilson's wife. Less noticed is that the bulk of the memo was devoted to rebutting the Niger uranium allegation. This must be one of the most rebutted claims in history. Before Wilson ever spoke up, it had been disproved by several government agencies; the director of the Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei; and, of course, the State Department. (As for Powell, in February 2003 he had told the UN Security Council, "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.")

Whatever else the scandal is, it is also an episode in the six-decade history of the nuclear age. In the wake of the Cold War, many people imagined that nuclear danger had disappeared. A decade of utter neglect followed. Then, in 1998, the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests launched the two countries on a nuclear arms race. Soon other countries, including North Korea and Iran, were knocking at the door of the nuclear club. But it wasn't until 9/11 that the neglected peril reared up again in the public mind – and returned to the center of policy. The fictional danger of an Iraqi bomb bursting in an American city was, of course, the chief justification for the war, but it was more than that. It was the linchpin of the broader policy of preventive military strikes – necessary, the president said, to forestall the hostile states from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. In his words, "as a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed."

At the root of the policy was a radical reconception of the way to stop proliferation. Hitherto, the policy had been to address it by negotiation and disarmament treaties. Now it was to be addressed by military force. The decade of neglect had led to the most severe collision of nuclear policy with nuclear reality since the Cuban missile crisis. The Iraq War was the result, though not the only one. While the U.S. military was looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, where there were none, it was in effect ignoring them in North Korea, which reportedly was either acquiring or expanding a nuclear arsenal, and in Iran, which was pressing forward down the nuclear path. It's worth recalling that the Vietnam War, too, was in part the product of misguided nuclear strategy. Policymakers, well aware that they could not win a nuclear "general war" with the Soviet Union in the Central European theater, hoped instead to win a "limited war" with conventional arms on the "periphery." When it went wrong, the consequence was the Watergate crisis, born directly of Nixon's fury at antiwar protesters.

That chain of reasoning died with the cold war, but nuclear danger lived on to produce new and possibly more dangerous illusions. The worst is that the spread of weapons of mass destruction and their associated technology and know-how can be stopped, or prevented in advance, by arms. Once that conclusion was accepted, mere hints of danger, wisps of fact and speculations became actionable, bomb-able. But if there is one thing in this world that cannot be bombed out of existence, it is an illusion. And illusions, when rigidly defended, breed encounters with the law. Thus did a mistaken revolution in nuclear policy, proceeding under the guise of the "war on terror," produce the lies that produced the war that produced the whistleblowing that produced the smears that produced the blown cover that produced the cover-up that produced the legal investigation that produced the political and legal crisis that now swirls around Karl Rove.

Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World, is the Nation Institute's Harold Willens Peace Fellow. The Jonathan Schell Reader was recently published by Nation Books.

Copyright 2005 Jonathan Schell

[Dave The Dov]

When it comes to that this is what I think of it!!!!




BOMB by Gregory Corso
---------------------

Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desparate gun of Verlaine Pushkin Dillinger Bogart
And hath not St. Michael a burning sword St. George a lance David a sling
Bomb you are as cruel as man makes you and you're no crueller than cancer
All Man hates you they'd rather die by car-crash lightning drowning
Falling off a roof electric-chair heart-attack old age old age O Bomb
They'd rather die by anything but you Death's finger is free-lance
Not up to man whether you boom or not Death has long since distributed its
categorical blue I sing thee Bomb Death's extravagance Death's jubilee
Gem of Death's supremest blue The flyer will crash his death will differ
with the climbor who'll fall to die by cobra is not to die by bad pork
Some die by swamp some by sea and some by the bushy-haired man in the night
O there are deaths like witches of Arc Scarey deaths like Boris Karloff
No-feeling deaths like birth-death sadless deaths like old pain Bowery
Abandoned deaths like Capital Punishment stately deaths like senators
And unthinkable deaths like Harpo Marx girls on Vogue covers my own
I do not know just how horrible Bombdeath is I can only imagine
Yet no other death I know has so laughable a preview I scope
a city New York City streaming starkeyed subway shelter
Scores and scores A fumble of humanity High heels bend
Hats whelming away Youth forgetting their combs
Ladies not knowing what to do with their shopping bags
Unperturbed gum machines Yet dangerous 3rd rail
Ritz Brothers from the Bronx caught in the A train
The smiling Schenley poster will always smile
Impish death Satyr Bomb Bombdeath
Turtles exploding over Istanbul
The jaguar's flying foot
soon to sink in arctic snow
Penguins plunged against the Sphinx
The top of the Empire state
arrowed in a broccoli field in Sicily
Eiffel shaped like a C in Magnolia Gardens
St. Sophia peeling over Sudan
O athletic Death Sportive Bomb
the temples of ancient times
their grand ruin ceased
Electrons Protons Neutrons
gathering Hersperean hair
walking the dolorous gulf of Arcady
joining marble helmsmen
entering the final ampitheater
with a hymnody feeling of all Troys
heralding cypressean torches
racing plumes and banners
and yet knowing Homer with a step of grace
Lo the visiting team of Present
the home team of Past
Lyre and tube together joined
Hark the hotdog soda olive grape
gala galaxy robed and uniformed
commissary O the happy stands
Ethereal root and cheer and boo
The billioned all-time attendance
The Zeusian pandemonium
Hermes racing Owens
The Spitball of Buddha
Christ striking out
Luther stealing third
Planeterium Death Hosannah Bomb
Gush the final rose O Spring Bomb
Come with thy gown of dynamite green
unmenace Nature's inviolate eye
Before you the wimpled Past
behind you the hallooing Future O Bomb
Bound in the grassy clarion air
like the fox of the tally-ho
thy field the universe thy hedge the geo
Leap Bomb bound Bomb frolic zig and zag
The stars a swarm of bees in thy binging bag
Stick angels on your jubilee feet
wheels of rainlight on your bunky seat
You are due and behold you are due
and the heavens are with you
hosanna incalescent glorious liaison
BOMB O havoc antiphony molten cleft BOOM
Bomb mark infinity a sudden furnace
spread thy multitudinous encompassed Sweep
set forth awful agenda
Carrion stars charnel planets carcass elements
Corpse the universe tee-hee finger-in-the-mouth hop
over its long long dead Nor
From thy nimbled matted spastic eye
exhaust deluges of celestial ghouls
From thy appellational womb
spew birth-gusts of of great worms
Rip open your belly Bomb
from your belly outflock vulturic salutations
Battle forth your spangled hyena finger stumps
along the brink of Paradise
O Bomb O final Pied Piper
both sun and firefly behind your shock waltz
God abandoned mock-nude
beneath His thin false-talc's apocalypse
He cannot hear thy flute's
happy-the-day profanations
He is spilled deaf into the Silencer's warty ear
His Kingdom an eternity of crude wax
Clogged clarions untrumpet Him
Sealed angels unsing Him
A thunderless God A dead God
O Bomb thy BOOM His tomb
That I lean forward on a desk of science
an astrologer dabbling in dragon prose
half-smart about wars bombs especially bombs
That I am unable to hate what is necessary to love
That I can't exist in a world that consents
a child in a park a man dying in an electric-chair
That I am able to laugh at all things
all that I know and do not know thus to conceal my pain
That I say I am a poet and therefore love all man
knowing my words to be the acquainted prophecy of all men
and my unwords no less an acquaintanceship
That I am manifold
a man pursuing the big lies of gold
or a poet roaming in bright ashes
or that which I imagine myself to be
a shark-toothed sleep a man-eater of dreams
I need not then be all-smart about bombs
Happily so for if I felt bombs were caterpillars
I'd doubt not they'd become butterflies
There is a hell for bombs
They're there I see them there
They sit in bits and sing songs
mostly German songs
And two very long American songs
and they wish there were more songs
especially Russian and Chinese songs
and some more very long American songs
Poor little Bomb that'll never be
an Eskimo song I love thee
I want to put a lollipop
in thy furcal mouth
A wig of Goldilocks on thy baldy bean
and have you skip with me Hansel and Gretel
along the Hollywoodian screen
O Bomb in which all lovely things
moral and physical anxiously participate
O fairylike plucked from the
grandest universe tree
O piece of heaven which gives
both mountain and anthill a sun
I am standing before your fantastic lily door
I bring you Midgardian roses Arcadian musk
Reputed cosmetics from the girls of heaven
Welcome me fear not thy opened door
nor thy cold ghost's grey memory
nor the pimps of indefinite weather
their cruel terrestial thaw
Oppenheimer is seated
in the dark pocket of Light
Fermi is dry in Death's Mozambique
Einstein his mythmouth
a barnacled wreath on the moon-squid's head
Let me in Bomb rise from that pregnant-rat corner
nor fear the raised-broom nations of the world
O Bomb I love you
I want to kiss your clank eat your boom
You are a paean an acme of scream
a lyric hat of Mister Thunder
O resound thy tanky knees
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM ye skies and BOOM ye suns
BOOM BOOM ye moons ye stars BOOM
nights ye BOOM ye days ye BOOM
BOOM BOOM ye winds ye clouds ye rains
go BANG ye lakes ye oceans BING
Barracuda BOOM and cougar BOOM
Ubangi BOOM orangutang
BING BANG BONG BOOM bee bear baboon
ye BANG ye BONG ye BING
the tail the fin the wing
Yes Yes into our midst a bomb will fall
Flowers will leap in joy their roots aching
Fields will kneel proud beneath the halleluyahs of the wind
Pinkbombs will blossom Elkbombs will perk their ears
Ah many a bomb that day will awe the bird a gentle look
Yet not enough to say a bomb will fall
or even contend celestial fire goes out
Know that the earth will madonna the Bomb
that in the hearts of men to come more bombs will be born
magisterial bombs wrapped in ermine all beautiful
and they'll sit plunk on earth's grumpy empires
fierce with moustaches of gold
_________________
Honda CD200 RoadMaster

[Southbound Snackyderm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4174519.stm

if they stop you
cause you have a bumper sticker
that says let them eat
yellowcake & they ask
what you got there fella?
you gotta tell them you're part
of the sunshine project
doing your thing
for love of freedom & country
you're working on an ultrasuper
secret bomb not even your momma
knows anything about
cause she's given up
cleaning your room
you gotta tell them it's a love
bomb & it's gonna work, brother
fat as it is with oysters
& rhino horns
& ginseng
& bits of chopped rainbow
one whiff of that
when she explodes & the enemy's
gonna turn lovers
& throw down their guns
& chest bombs
& drop on all fours to scratch
in the sand for flowers
to give each other
& then, brother, i guarantee
you we've won
we can drive our tanks
over them & they'll keep smiling
right thru their popping heads

[Lightning Rod]

I love it Nub

that poem is Da Bomb

easily as good as Corso's

[Lightning Rod]

interesting piece, Z

Thus did a mistaken revolution in nuclear policy, proceeding under the guise of the "war on terror," produce the lies that produced the war that produced the whistleblowing that produced the smears that produced the blown cover that produced the cover-up that produced the legal investigation that produced the political and legal crisis that now swirls around Karl Rove.

remember the old tune:

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why she swallowed a fly.
perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider
That wiggled and jiggled and tickled insider her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed a fly.
perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a bird.
How absurd! To swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and jiggled and tickled insider her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed a fly.
perhaps she'll die.

etc. etc.

down to,

she swallowed a horse
she's dead of course.

[hester_prynne]

Zlatko, thank you again for a mighty powerful read.

It astounds me, what we know, and what we are not doing about it.
I don't think people have the wherewithall to understand the gravity of the situation. Bush's negativity and disdain tactics have hypnotized the country....it's all very textbook.
I marvel at how it is all enabled by complacency, which gives this administration more of an edge over us all every minute.
I think many are trying to hold on to obsolete lifestyles and comforts, and they are and will continue to pay dearly for it.
I've made some lifestyle adjustments myself and to tell you the truth, i'm liking them. Some of the newer things i'm doing to cope are:
1. Don't give the credit companies any business. I have no credit debt nor cards finally. Try to go local with all of your needs.
2. Pay your utility bills at local pay stations, in cash. (So what if it costs a dollar to the pay station, they are usually local small businesses and I'd rather they got it.)
3. Pay for everything in cash or don't buy it! (or you'll be paying them corporate scammers double!)
4. Grow food any food you can.
5. Find an escape that is non-lethal to the mind.
6. Be on it, know what you got and what you ain't got.
7. Notice who's taking more than they are contributing, and say something about it. Help them find a way to contribute or get rid of the weight.
8. Drop the interest laden burdens.
9. Get your money in cash or gold and stash it at your house, pull out of banks entirely. (I have a savings account I use to pay my car insurance automatically every month. That's it. The rest is cash from my hand to the hand I owe.)
10. Help someone else when you can.
As I get used to doing things differently, i'm finding that it's actually more satisfying.....

Did you know that George Bush said, after he announced he was invading Iraq. "I feel good" (He was shaking his fist too) (ugh)

Well, I say, I feel good too, but only because I'm removing myself, as best I can, from his taint on the system. I don't fucking want to be involved in it. It sucks.

Put the corporations outta business. Make the state and the feds need us......instead of letting them use us. Speak out against their self-serving agendas....

Thanks for your posts Zlatko...
H

[Anonymous-one]

Hester wrote :

Put the corporations outta business. Make the state and the feds need us......instead of letting them use us. Speak out against their self-serving agendas....

I like it ; We crack the whip ,
They make the trip.

Turn on , tune in , drop out.
Timothy Leary.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Nice motto, Anon-One . . .

Hester:

To see what the Neo-Cons are really promulgating, and why they think "American Interests" demand their foreign policy, look at Robert Kagan's article. "Power and Weakness" I posted on Michael's "Open Mike Soundoff":


http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtop ... 5110#25110


--Z

[knip]

ugggh

[Dave The Dov]

Ugggh, how do you mean knip????
_________________
u.s. recessions

[Anonymous-one]

Nice motto, Anon-One . . .

I must confess... It's not mine .
I remembered it from an episode of W.K.R.P.
It's a quote from the good Dr. , Dr. Fever that is.

About the use of nucular( this from Dubya ) weapons ; Saw something on Electromagnetic and
Geophysic weapons on Discovery a little while ago.
And all i can say is that , nuclear weapons are becoming obsolete .

Creating a man made Tsunami or Hurricane is the
new thing . Read about it using the link or just
Google «Geophysic weapons».




http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/VirtualCl ... p_duma.htm