I just wrote a book review/editorial on Amazon.com of the military manual, Counterinsurgency Warfare; Theory and Practice, by David Galula, with a forward by General David Petraeus [pictured at left]. Lacking other more significant resources, the book review/editorial is my heartfelt attempt to help support the suffering Palestinian civilians of the Gaza. I've also posted it to my FaceBook site. The review follows:

If Israel would employ this strategy [detailed in the book] in dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah, I am convinced they would be able to achieve a lasting peace with the Palestinians. The ultimate goal of an effective counterinsurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the people themselves -- to establish yourself as the protector of the people in turning the tide against terrorism and the urban guerrillas who exploit the civilian population and endanger their lives and well being by hiding among them.

General David Petraeus has already offered his expertise to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and has toured the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians themselves. Indeed, Petraeus is the world's foremost expert actively working in the field of counterinsurgency technology [which includes law enforcement technology] and wrote the forward to the latest edition of this classic. He now uses it to train the American military and its principles became the foundation of "The Surge" in Iraq, which has miraculously begun to achieve stability there despite initial doubts expressed by Petraeus himself that it was already too late to win in Iraq after Rumsfeld's brutal policies radicalized the entire region and turned the civilian population against "The Great American Satan."

Currently, the IDF is conducting the same conventional military strategy in The Gaza that hopes to render short-term gains against the Hamas insurgents but will eventually set the Israelis up for the continued long-term struggle that has been the hallmark of their relationship with the Palestinians.

Rumsfeld's strategy in destroying Fallujah twice over with air strikes and heavy artillery is the classic example of this self-defeating brutality. Israel's debacle in South Lebanon in 2006 is another. They laid cluster bombs in carpeted attacks attempting to clear out the population of South Lebanon and thus create a safe zone wherein there would be no civilian population among whom Hezbollah could hide. The strategy was a humanitarian and political disaster. Mossad-trained Georgian troops recently unsuccessfully employed such brutality in South Ossetia, attempting to roll-up the civilian population and send them northward into exile in Russia and then following-up with bulldozers to destroy South Ossetian habitations in order to discourage their return -- just as they did in South Lebanon and in the West Bank. The Russian military intervened but was much more humane in her treatment of Georgia, leaving egg on the faces of the CIA and the Bush Administration who sponsored the debacle in an overreaching attempt to secure the oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian at Baku to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The fact that Israel refuses to deploy the more functional and civilian friendly counterinsurgency suggested by Galula and Petraeus can only indicate one tragic conclusion -- that Israel intends to hang onto a quixotic and archaic strategy of expansionism against the native Palestinians, institutionalized in the early 50s by the government of David Ben-Gurion and maintained to this day. The strategy is grounded in early 20th century Zionism with a grandiose but painfully understandable goal, given the tragic history of the Jews throughout European history, of recreating the ancient Davidic Kingdom of a "Greater Israel" beyond the current piecemeal boundaries they've achieved in establishing a Jewish homeland. Despite their idealism, the continued stubborn use of this strategy by Israel has led to polarization and radicalization of the native populations in the Middle East, resulting in the stridently Jihadist Islamism we see today taking over the region.

The United States alone has the influence and responsibility to insist this effective counterinsurgency strategy upon Israel in the interest of a lasting peace in the region. Again, its hallmark is its overall goal of winning the hearts and minds of the people themselves, winning friends and influencing enemies. Yet, American politicians continue to speak of "surges" in conventional military terms without having a clue about what they speak. The American people, who overwhelmingly support Israel's right of statehood, are even more disinformed.

This book should be read by every member of Congress, by Obama's new Chief-of-Staff and dual citizen Rham Emmanuel, by his National Security Adviser General James L. Jones, by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by Barack Obama and Joseph Biden themselves and by every member of the Israel Lobby who are so obsessed with the security of Israel that they don't see the solution under their noses.

Iraq Intelligence Letter Associating Al Qaeda with Iraq Was White House Contrivance

When it rains it pours. In the immediate wake of an apparent suicide of Dr. Bruce Ivins in the face of what increasing looks like the FBI's attempts to frame him as the government's scapegoat for the 2001 Anthrax Scare, evidence is now being presented by journalist and author Ron Suskind that in 2003 the White House promoted a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda as part of its concerted effort to bamboozle the American people into supporting their conjured neocon war against Iraq.

The forgery appeared as a follow-up to the now infamous "Feith Memo," a 16-page "top secret" intelligence document "leaked" to the Weekly Standard purportedly detailing evidence of Saddam's complicity with terrorist activities perpetrated by al Qaeda.

Feith's notorious allegations, produced by the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, were summarized and published in the Weekly Standard in an equally notorious article, "Case Closed" that served to prop-up the latest casus belli in a string of lies, including the "Niger Yellowcake Forgery," that were aggressively exploited by Vice President Richard Cheney in order to promote what has now turned into the Administration's regional war in the Middle East.

When it all folds together, the unavoidable conclusion -- that Congress nevertheless persists in avoiding -- is that the Bush/Cheney Administration is guilty of war crimes of the highest order.

Book Says White House Ordered Forgery
By MIKE ALLEN | 8/4/08 11:23 PM EST

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.
Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”
The Telegraph story by Con Coughlin (which, coincidentally, ran the day Hussein was captured in his “spider hole”) was touted in the U.S. media by supporters of the war, and he was interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Over the next few days, the Habbush letter continued to be featured prominently in the United States and across the globe," Suskind writes. "Fox's Bill O'Reilly trumpeted the story Sunday night on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' talking breathlessly about details of the story and exhorting, 'Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam.'" According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

As we discussed above, this was apparently all part of an organized effort to provide false intelligence linking Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda and Osama ben Laden. The centerpiece of the scam was the infamous "leak" of a "top secret" memo written by Douglas Feith, the neoconservative head of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, a classical piece of agitprop now known as "The Feith Memo."

Miraculously, as they say, the Feith Memo fell into the hands of none other than the Weekly Standard, the bastion of neoconservative journals founded by William Kristol, and was reported in an article entitled "Case Closed," by the Standard's Stephen F. Hayes.

The 16-page memo detailed years of so-called attempts to coordinate terrorist activities between Iraq and al-Qaeda, intelligence that now has been proved false and made up from whole cloth.

Richard Cheney then began to give personal interviews promoting the most recent "evidence" of Iraq and al Qaeda complicity in planning terrorist operations, "evidence" that was completely contrived as ordered up by him personally. Here is one example:

In today's [1/27/04] Washington Post, Dana Milbank reported that "Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of information' an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified information." [cf. Weekly Standard, "Case Closed", by Stephen F. Hayes; Editor's Note of 01/27/04.]

Only a few weeks later, the hoopla that followed the Feith Memo was capped by the forged letter from the Iraqi chief of intelligence to Saddam Hussein, the missive now under examination by Ron Suskind. Despite confrontation from the media's left-bank, Cheney continued for months in the controlled mainstream media to arrogantly promote the very lies that had been discredited by the independent press. It was all a can of pork and beans.

Why haven't they been impeached?  Ask Kafka.

The late, but still unsinkable, Molly Ivins once counseled: "Never get into a mud wrestling contest with a pig; you get all muddy and the pig loves it."  Still I can't help but wonder why McCain is attacking the experience of Barack Obama.

Even more shocking, given the military history he has taken pains to bury, is his assertion that Obama does not have McCain's military experience, repeatedly claiming that McCain is by far the most experienced and therefore the most trustworthy candidate to fill the role of Commander-In-Chief.

Therefore, since McCain has announced today that he will stick by his recent ads featuring a classic presentation of the fallacy, argumentum ad hominem (by association), some Dems think it only fair to examine his claim that he has the military experience that we need in these trying times of "war."

McCain's 1967 USS Forrestal Incident

August 1-3, 2008 -- With McCain's campaign firing off anti-Obama videos, there is one video John McCain doesn't want anyone to see:

Courtesy of The Wayne Madsen Report:

"The John McCain campaign is releasing a series of anti-Barack Obama videos. However, there is one video that Johnny "Wet Start" McCain, as he was known after the disastrous USS Forrestal fire in 1967, does not want America to see."

From WMR, November 20, 2007: WMR has learned additional details regarding the deadly fire aboard the Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal, on July 19, 1967 in the Gulf of Tonkin. The additional details point to then-Lieut. Commander John McCain playing more of a role in triggering the fire and explosions than previously reported.

WMR also cited the potential that McCain's Navy records were used against him by the neocons in control of the Pentagon, "The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom."

In McCain's case, the "wet-start" apparently "cooked off" and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration.

"Wet starting" was apparently a common practice among young "hot-dog" pilots. McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). After the disaster, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

"McCain was confronted by Forrestal fire survivors with his role in starting the Forrestal fire during his 2000 presidential campaign, particularly in South Carolina. McCain was visibly shaken by the encounter with the survivors, according to some who contacted WMR. WMR is pleased to present the video that causes McCain to turn whiter than his usual wan complexion. Watch the following video and McCain's reaction to any mention of the Forrestal is understandable."  -Wayne Madsen

See Video Here

Just this week, my news filters started picking up what increasingly appears to be a disinformation campaign aimed at "poisoning the well" in Latin America:

* "DEA Reports Show That Mexican Cartel 'Thugs' Are Receiving Training From Iranian Revolutionary Guard"

* "Mexican Drug Cartels and Islamic Radicals Working Together"

* "The Caracas-Tehran Axes"

Something is up. They are cranking up the propaganda machine perhaps in preparation for a future deployment of U.S. forces in Mexico, Colombia and/or Paraguay. For now, their intention seems to be to threaten and to terrorize. Imagine that.

Mexico, in stoking up the heat on the drug cartels, has fallen into anarchy within its northern states along the U.S. border. Although the Bush Administration recently announced funding support for the Mexican military in their violent struggle against the Sinaloa Federation and Gulf Cartels, it is possible that more direct support may have been “placed on the table,” even though the cartels have devolved into interior power struggles and internecine wars for territorial control.

Bolivia and Ecuador are lining up with our OPEC "enemy," Venezuela, who currently supplies 25% of our imported oil. Both are currently experiencing diplomatic conflagrations with the right-wing government of Colombia, which the Bush Administration supports. Issues involve Colombia's alleged cross-border incursions into Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela in pursuit of left-wing guerrillas whom Colombia claims have been given sanctuary by them. Venezuela has vehemently denied any support.

All the while, the Bush Administration has recommissioned the 4th Fleet and sent it to the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. The Navy has already launched acts of provocation, in the form of "accidental" flyovers of Venezuelan island territories in the Caribbean, drawing protests from Chavez. At the same time, Ecuador demanded that the United States close its airbase in that country, which we did, moving it to Colombia.

Last week, it was revealed that George W. Bush's man in Bogota, President Álvaro Uribe [right], just happens to be one of the former captains of Colombia's infamous Madeline cocaine cartel, led by Pablo Escobar [left], who was "reportedly" killed in a joint operation of DEA and Colombian government forces in the 90s. What appears to have occurred is that CIA and Mossad handlers lost control over both Escobar and Daniel Noriega of Panama after Vice President George H. W. Bush, Oliver North and John P. Walters, who is not surprisingly the current "Drug Czar" under George W. Bush-43, spent so much "persuasive" effort in bringing them into the CIA Colombian "plaza" in order to benefit the Contra counter-revolution against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

It has been a general rule in Latin America that if the government was a first generation democracy emerging from the neo-liberal thumb of American corporatism, then the drug "plaza" was run by the CIA against them in order to raise illegal covert funding for groups like the Contras in Nicaragua, mentioned above; ergo, the infamous Iran-Contra Affair. But now, competition has arisen even in the underworld as resurgent left-wing movements, such as Colombia's FARC, have moved into "the plaza" to take their "cut" of the profits in order to buy arms; although, the Bush and Uribe governments have announced that FARC is all but defeated.

Much of the time, it is the U.S. arms industry providing the arms for the left and the right and now, evidence has begun to emerge that Mossad has always been active in the region as a silent partner to the CIA. Some have even accused Mossad of covertly "outing" the CIA by deferring all of the blame for Iran-Contra onto President George H. W. Bush, who outrightly favored the oil rich Arab nations over the national interests of Israel in the immediate years of the Soviet's demise in the Cold War. Now they feel much more comfortable with his -- let's face it -- idiot son, who has allowed an obviously compromised and corrupted Richard Cheney, stumbling along in the secure hands of a cabal of sayanim neocons with their promise to create wealth for the American oligarchy, take over the American government from the shadows. So go the recent accusations from the underground press.

We all should be keeping our eyes on Latin America as our politicians, both conservative (McCain) and "progressive" (Obama) refine their respective "opposing" positions on a possible withdrawal from Iraq, only to redeploy them to Afghanistan while looking askance at Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The controlled press has been cooperative in covering stories of strengthening Taliban forces in South Asia but such a redeployment would only represent a shell game.

Indeed, the press is jabbering on behalf of the Pentagon, calling for more troops in Afghanistan and publishing stories of U.S. troops on the verge of being overwhelmed at the same time the Latin American press is being planted with stories regarding an eminent DEA paramilitary operation in South America [see stories cited above]. Afghanistan happens to be conveniently located on the Northeastern border of Iran.

Personally, what this writer perceives is the opportunity to set up and execute a classic pincer movement [cf. article below] against Iran from Iraq's southeastern or northeastern border and from Afghanistan's southwestern border. At the same time, the Pentagon may set aside a regiment or two for redeployment against OPEC's Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has formed an alliance with Iran's Ahmadinejad, even moving to the Euro currency for Venezuelan oil/gas transactions just as Saddam Hussein did and Iran has now done, except in the case of the latter, Iran has opened its bourse to a number of currencies other than the dollar.

In fact, this amounts to the same formula by which Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, at first drew Russian military forces into Afghanistan by attacking their puppet regime in Kabul with U.S. surrogate Mujaheddin forces; and then by covertly supporting the Mujaheddin against them in an extended, Vietnam-like debacle in order to get them to dump their GNP into a costly war with no return, one that would devalue the ruble and then break them. Yet this is exactly the trap the Bush/Cheney Administration has fallen into in Iraq. It would not surprise anyone to discover that -- out of retaliation -- Russian economic advisers inspired first Saddam Hussein and then Iran and Venezuela to reject the dollar for oil transactions, thus bringing the full force of the U.S. foreign debt onto our own heads as the dollar is replaced as the coin of the realm by the Euro. The U.S. is betting that the dollar will survive all challenges, including this speculative one.

The Afghanistan redeployment will proceed, despite the State Department's initiation of talks with Iran, a diplomatic strategy forsworn by Bush until now. Israel is said to be on the verge of issuing a scathing denouncement of a negotiated settlement, even though they have begun negotiating with Syria. Their fear is that the U.S. will withdraw leaving them vulnerable to future aggression by Iran, who maintains the strongest military presence in the Middle East, opposite Israel's. Both Israel and the United States want assurances that Iran will not enrich uranium that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, but this artificially precludes the possibility of Iran procuring enriched uranium from Russia or China, their allies in trade.

Therefor, a dual diplomatic and a military strategy appear to be in the offing, but many cautious pundits have opined that Bush is only going through diplomatic paces so that he can later claim he tried everything possible to avoid war, a tactic he used against Saddam Hussein that was later documented to have been disingenuous and perfunctory from the beginning. Bush is known to have an unrealistic need for certainty; negotiated settlements could never assuage his anxiety. Besides, one of the primary Straussian (neoconservative) goals set out by PNAC beyond securing Israel is to insure that the Soviet Union is never again resurrected to threaten another expansion of her empire into the oil rich Caspian and Middle East regions or into Afghanistan to secure southeastern pipeline routes to the coastline of Pakistan. The best way to prevent a resurgence of the Soviet empire, neocons aggressively assert, is to replace it in the region with our own.

Given Obama's initial opposition to the invasion of Iraq, for Barack Obama to call for (now a staged) withdrawal, one supported by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki of Iraq, at the same time he promotes sending troops to Afghanistan, is disingenuous at worse and inadequately informed at best. Since he is now being handled by some of the top insider foreign policy experts in the country, my estimation is that he and his campaign staff are being duplicitous. Notwithstanding the secret mission established by Cheney to secure for ourselves the trans-Afghanistan pipelines from the Caspian and the gas rich region of South Asia west of there, the stated reason for going into Afghanistan originally was to eliminate al-Qaida in the wake of 9/11. The Taliban became a secondary issue once we invaded despite their current resurgence. Nevertheless, I'm sure Obama thinks his position is now more "nuanced."

How shall I put this?  Is there any way that a coalition of progressives and the supporters of Senator Clinton can force Obama back to her left? Obama has now taken a position on many issues -- despite what he said to the press today in denying a "move to the middle" -- an aggregate of positions that is so obviously to the RIGHT of Senator Clinton that it begs the question in the headline.

He is even using Reagan's rhetoric: "I'm not just somebody who is talking about government as the solution to everything. I also believe in personal responsibility. I also believe in faith." [cf. 07-08-08; "Obama Denies Shift to the Middle," Associated Press article posted on RawStory]. 

Sen. Obama is undeniably using the code words of Reaganite conservative-speak, folks. Let me quote that again:

"I'm not just somebody who is talking about government as the solution to everything. I also believe in personal responsibility. I also believe in faith."

I am a yellow dog -- progressive -- liberal. I personally intend to vote for the most progressive candidate even if I have to write-in her name, if not the name of Dennis Kucinich because of his impressive courage in pressing forward on impeachment today by announcing that on Thursday, he will submit only one article of impeachment in order to make it more difficult for a belly-up House of Representatives to sweep his 35-article manifesto under the Justice Committee room's carpets.

Of course, there are other assertions that go further in explaining the behavior of our demurred representatives and senators that are more sinister in nature than the common wisdom that our party's problem in leadership is simply a matter of Congressional cowardice reminiscent of the senatorial leadership of Tom Daschle -- a terminally nice guy for whom South Dakotans had little patience and tossed from office. 

Nevertheless, to his credit, Daschle who is currently undergoing a deserved resurrection, managed to avoid the building suspicions of all-round corruption that first adversely affected the Republican Party in Congress. I won't get into the more scandalous "mouth honour breath that the poor heart would feign deny and dare not."  At least not just now.  But as the song goes, "everybody knows the dice are loaded..." and we haven't heard a peep lately out of Obama about the corruption caused by lobbyists and their ilk, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed having brought them to our attention, righteous citizens of God and Country that they are.  Yet, was not the promise to limit the influence of special interest in Washington one of the hallmark issues that brought Obama to the dance?

To wit, my question is is also my thesis:  Is there any possibility that in Denver, the national delegates can/will threaten abandonment of Obama in response to his abandonment of the "one who brung him [to the dance]"? If so, will such a strategy work to either drive him back to a solid, believable commitment to the progressive agenda and stop this insultingly obvious  pandering that has led to the demise of trust, or could it possibly result in the draft of another party nominee?

Hey, it's our party!

Of course, the obvious choice at the convention, should such an Uprising occur, is Hillary Clinton, who now occupies a position to Obama's left, despite that Obama maintains he has held these moderate positions for years. If that was the case, then he was pandering to us, the progressives who brought him to the dance in our pretty pink carnations and prom dresses.  But damn, wasn't that some nice cologne?

Or, failing the strategy of finding another suitor who won't two-time us (if there is such a politician -- they are all such pigs, you know), would Senator Clinton consider an independent party run in September? If so, no one could accuse her of party disloyalty in the vain of Joseph Lieberman, who jumped ship because of "dual loyalties" driven by the type of ethnocentrism that has led him to align with the neoconservative movement and the most strident of their Straussian war hawks and Likudniks (there, I said it, Bibi). Oh no,  the onus for selling-short belongs to Barack Obama by virtue of the abandonment of his commitment to the Progressive Movement, the last bastion of American Democracy representing the interests of its middle and working classes -- "government of the people, by the people and for the people."  That is, if you really, really believe from the bottom of your heart that the 14th Amendment applies to corporations who claim to be "people" too.

It is an egregious affront upon representative democracy for someone (yet again) running on integrity and change to at first run against a candidate while attacking her as too moderate and then, once defeating her with his "progressive candidate" bona fides, to move to her right for the general election.

Just remember, no matter what he promises, never go to the prom without a condom and a box of Kleenex in your purse. If you don't use one, you may need the other.

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I'm going to stick my neck out and make a prediction. You heard it first on This Ain't My First Rodeo [and on the Wayne Madsen Report]

The Clintons have stuck it out this long and common sense itself now demands that Hillary drops from the race on behalf of party unity. But, if I read them correctly, the Clintons have always been closer to the neocon "middle" than any other candidate. Declaring themselves "New Democrats" and racing everyone else to the middle was the strategy they used to beat an incumbent Bush-41 in the wake of the conservative "Reagan Revolution."

McCain has been nailed down on the far right, probably with the help of the Clintons in the back rooms. They are currently furiously working to associate him with the Reverend John Hagee, a right wing-nut. The country has had it with these hate-filled apocalyptic Dominionists who have sold their populist souls to the elite corporatists of "the Military-industrial Complex."

We've all figured out by now they are not really even "Christian," at least in the ancient foundations they themselves would have a revivalist America focus upon -- they are Zealots, the chief rivals of early Christians who struggled to come to terms with Roman occupation in the midsts of The Jewish Wars of Zealot insurgency that led to the destruction of the Second Temple in 68 AD, followed by the Great Diaspora and the final stand of Zealot forces at Masada in the second century. Early Christianity thus took hold among the Hellenized general diaspora of Jews already scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Once the decision was made to admit into full communion the Gentiles who had already taken an interest in Judaism, the course for peace and reconciliation with the reality of Rome's supremacy "in the world" was set. The next stage of development, in the face of the persecutions, occurred when the Christianized diaspora began to distance themselves from the the Jews of the homeland whose Zealot insurrections they saw as the cause of their persecutions as Jews. This began with the efforts of Paul to convince Nero that the Christians were of a different character and that they intended to remain "subject to the higher authorities." St. Paul never saw the affects of his writing; nevertheless, the final and complete severance from Judaism occurred in the fourth century when Constantine declared of political necessity,Christianity the religion of the realm without ever having been baptized himself.

Stay with me; I'm not just bullshitting for the sake of bullshitting.

Any educated "Christian" knows full well that the Messiah was not a messiah of insurrection; he was "The Prince of Peace." So in reaction to the arch-conservative nationalism and triumphalism of right-wing Zealots such as Richard Land, Rev. John Hagee, Pat Robertson and the politicians who have exploited them, there has emerged within the various populist movements a pervasive ethical and religious ambiguity. This cultural ambiguity can be summarized as a confusing mix of metaphors, for example the leftest Christian view of "Washington-as-Rome" versus its polar opposite in the left-wing Zealot black community, "Washington-as-Babylon" versus the extreme right-wing view that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon in Rome. To wit, any less strident, tolerant and ethically directed notion of the historical and political role of Christianity in a secular society has to come to terms with the democratic concept of pluralism with its inclusive respect for both the inalienable rights of the individual and minorities, as well as the safeguards against the tyranny of the majority institutionalized in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Opposing the ever resurgent Theocracy sought by the Extreme Right from age to age, this more Enlightened pluralistic view of our forefathers moves the multifarious and contravening institutions of religion which from time to time run afoul of Civil Liberties with the best of intentions, to a more peripheral political role of influence, while respecting their universal spiritual value, by avoiding absolutist and authoritarian abuse in the nation's own state of affairs.

Theologically, if only for the sake of respite, we leave the Book of Revelations to the realm of the angles without forsaking the Gospels, we can acknowledge that mainstream Christianity represents The Kingdom of Heaven which is "IN the world but not OF the world." The recognition of this universal spiritual principle calls us to an altogether higher level of freedom. Subsequently, as the underlying scriptural ambiguities brought to light by our contemporary "Culture Wars" are worked through in the mainstream, the ongoing reconciliation process is driving folks of all extremes back to a less confrontational, less muscular Middle Way, to a place more in partnership with "the poor" and in identification with their suffering. Moreover, the traditional Christian notions of community, compassion, reconciliation, surrender, conversion at depth, spiritual growth and the longing for Peace -- The Way of Wisdom -- seem ever resilient in the face of such Zealotry as we have tolerated from the authoritarian Right to the point of impatience. A coalition of human secularists with mainstream Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Native American and various "churched" and "unchurched" is beginning to emerge into a new Progressivism and is drawing populists of every tradition back to that middle place.

And Here Waits the Clintons. Hillary is holding on, working the split within the Democratic Party so that in September or early October she will have brought the nation to the great political nexus that has been coming anyway.

The Independent Party candidate for 2008
who will win the presidency will be
Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The "October Surprise" of 2008

Independent Joe Lieberman will move quickly to endorse her followed by hundreds from both parties, perhaps even Rush Limbaugh who knows full well where his bread is buttered.

John McCain will go away into retirement exasperated and confused.

John Edwards will have recognized that holding off any endorsement of Obama was wise for him personally but traitorous to the cause of Progressivism. *The only viable candidate with any chance of facing Clinton in 2012 will come from a new Progressive Party, formed under resentment by minority members and ideologically dedicated liberals who felt betrayed by a Democratic Party turned "independent" who abdicated their economic and social responsibilities to the people while appropriating the "Southern Strategy" to maintain its hold on power.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.