The greatest hypocrisy of the pundits, "scholars," and politicians who led us to war is not their current efforts to revise the war's history to cover their intellectual tracks, nor their efforts to minimize the significance of their towering wrongness about the central justification for the war. Their greatest hypocrisy is the yawning chasm between the pose of deep and solemn concern for Iraqi well-being that they struck when seeking to bolster the sagging case for war by re-branding it as a humanitarian intervention and the absolute disregard they have shown toward the well-being of the Iraqi people every day since the war began. It takes an impressive degree of cynicism, and a powerful sense of professional impunity, to attack opponents of the war for alleged indifference to the humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people, as many pro-war pundits and "experts" did in the months before the invasion, and then to watch hundreds of thousands of Iraqis be killed, maimed and driven from their homes without the slightest expression of moral regret.

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The O'Hanlons and Pollacks could not get away with their staggering moral hypocrisy, or their limitless professional incompetence, if they operated in a political culture in which the moral consequences of war for the country that is invaded actually mattered. - Scott Nova

Superbly described, Scott. Thank you.

They're certainly wallowing in their powerful sense of professional impunity up there on Capitol Hill. Yukking it up at the expense of the powerless publics of Iraq and the states with glee (see Pelosi's joshing, peals-of-laughter news conference today).

1. No-strings-attached $165 billion for Iraq through September, 2009?

Absolutely: It whipped through the Senate today, 70-26. [No Democratic filibuster of 41 - or even a hint of one - to at least slow it down. The votes seem essentially static from the original AUMF passage in 2002.]

2. The "Duncan Hunter" FY 2009 Defense Authorization Bill for defense programs and policy through September, 2009?

Absolutely: 350+ for passage in the House today, with no provision for withdrawal from Iraq contained therein. A simple, legal amendment offered by Sheila Jackson-Lee stating that the (purported) objectives of 2002's AUMF have all been achieved? Not permitted to be offered - rejected out of hand by the Democratic powerbrokers. [My hat is off to Rep. Jackson-Lee for her serious work recently on Delahunt's Foreign Affairs subcommittee regarding the balance of war powers and on prisoner torture, and for her principled 'No' vote today on the Duncan Hunter $600 billion monstrosity. Houston, Texas has itself a representative.]

3. General Petraeus for promotion, and another known liar to replace him?

Absolutely: 'Bring it on' said Carl Levin and his Armed Services Committee. They're there to serve the president and his men, and won't ask any real questions that might embarrass him. Everyone knows GENERAL Petraeus is never wrong, and should never be second-guessed - right?

Note how Webb's GI bill must be prioritized for passage (it makes political party hay, you see) before the arrival of a new president who will sign it (though no violence or destruction is caused by its delay), while an end to the occupation can wait, interminably, though its violence and destruction continues unabated (but hey - out of sight, out of mind, right?).

New president be damned. Before summer arrives the dominant party faction in Congress is flexing its powers to ensure that our nation stays mired in Iraq, to the tune of $12 billion a month (of future repayments of principal, and unknown amounts of interest) through September, 2009.

The media has more than done its job. The nation is thoroughly distracted by a presidential beauty contest (because what other elected office matters in the Empire, right?), and party powerbrokers in Congress can effectively work in the dark, and soon their irresponsible members can go home to play their 30-second ad wars to reclaim their seats of privilege, with no one the wiser to their tricks.

Nope, we just don't give a damn. Like the Nazis in power who conveniently dismissed the humanity of dark-eyed Jews, Americans in power conveniently dismiss the humanity of dark-eyed Arabs, blinded by greed. To our everlasting shame.

My imprisonment in Kandahar and Guantanamo was a nightmare. I did nothing wrong and was treated like a monster. There was no law in place or judge to consider my story. How could this happen in the 21st century?

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I grew up in Germany learning about the crimes of European countries and how the Americans helped to teach the Germans about the rule of law after World War II. I might expect a something like Guantanamo to be developed by a poor, tyrannical or ignorant country. I never could have imagined this place would be created by the United States of America.

- Murat Kurnaz, 5/20/2008 [His tell-all book is now available in America]

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/kur052008.pdf

As the mindless, media-driven distraction of the presidential campaign continues:

The near absence of resistance is telling, however. The less We, The People are prepared to risk or to do to preserve or restore the institutions of a self-governing constitutional republic, the more inevitable our Totalitarian future.

-- Ché Pasa