Believing the Bully Remains Illegitimate

Bullies have no power when they are defeated, then lawfully destroyed.

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Lawfully Asserting Interests – The American Bully Betrays the Constitution

Bush has well applied the ultimate lesson of the Bush Defeat Doctrine: Ignore History and Reality in confronting the problem.

___ Whose problem is this?

___ Is the problem real?

The Saudis said they would support a US invasion of Iran. Curiously, the Israelis said they supported the invasion of Iraq – when a country in the middle east says they support a US action, this doesn’t mean the action is sound. Iraq is a mess based on lies; and Iran would be less of a mess, based on other lies. Unlike Iraq that had been military exhausted but still able to bog down the US government, Iran is not in a similar position – well suited to bog down the US.

Militarily, there’s the issue of where the US, absent a draft, will get the combat troops to physically secure the Iranian countryside. If there’s any lesson from Iraq, 9-11, and Pearl Harbor: Any nation that is attacked will resist and strike back. Saudi Arabia has hardly made the case that Iran will not do the same.

Saudi Arabia needs cash more than America needs Saudi oil. The US can get oil from elsewhere, albeit at a higher price; if Saudi Arabia, in the wake of an Iranian counter attack, gets its oil supplies shut down, Saudi Arabia will suffer more. The US can get oil from any nation at any price; Americans will pay for it; however, Saudi Arabica cannot sell oil when the Persian Gulf is closed. If Saudi Arabia believes, as Israel did with Iraq, that the US should invade Iran, Saudi Arabia should do it, and get stuck with the mess of cleaning up, and explaining the shutdown of cash to the Saudi.

Translation: The US should call the Saudis on their demand, and encourage the Saudis to make the case that Iran is a threat to US interests. Iran poses no threat, where the basis for those assertions is a selective twisting of the Iranian leadership’s words.

Like Iraq, the Iranians if attacked are expected to rally to their government, not engage in any insurrection to topple the leadership, and cannot reasonably be expected to join the US or Saudi forces in overthrowing the Iranian government. The US stands the chance of repeating what it did in Iraq, but multiple times over: Flawed planning, absurd premises, insufficient resources, and a failure to comply with Geneva’s post-invasion requirements for security.

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One analogy is the Peloponnesian War where the Athenians attempted to invade Boeothia in Thebes. I’ll spare you the details, however there are some curious similarities to the Iraq and Iran wars:

Secret agreements to install a Constitutional Government

Limited military reserves

Betrayal, leaked plans

Exiles asking for assistance

Leaders making baseless promises of permanent domestic security if war were waged abroad

You will see the similarity between the US experiences in Iraq and Iran, and those of the Athenians. Demosthenes plans were revealed, and the enemy did not fall for an intended trap. Ptoeodorus, a Theban exile requested assistance, but Nicomachus betrayed the intended deception. Things didn’t go well. The Boeotians didn’t rise up as anticipated, and the reserves proved to be in short supply.

The final comparison between Athens and America’s plans for Iran:

The local citizens in Thebes failed to rise up and demand a new government, as had been planned and assumed

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The issue with Greek Warfare, and its relevance to the Bush Administration in Iraq and Iran is based on the flawed analysis of the “Beware the leader quote.” The criticism has been discredited: Greek Soldiers did have a single edged sword, indicating the public rebuke of the sentiments in the quote was based on a flawed analysis of warfare. The question for the public to consider:

___ What aspects of history has the US leadership ignored, not examined, or explained away without careful analysis?

Bush, Addington, and the NeoCons haven’t given much consideration to the Athenians disaster at Boeotica, just as they haven’t heeded the lessons of Iraq. Those who criticize something based on a false premise show they’ve ignored important considerations:

___ Where does the US propose getting additional troops to support the build up of forces in Iraq, the mess in Afghanistan, and sustain combat operations in Iran?

___ How can the US credibly invade, occupy, and stabilize Iran with insufficient combat troops and reserves, not just in the Middle East, but no active duty?

___ How will the US maintain operations in Iraq and Afghanistan while they are diverted in not just Iran, but also Somalia and Sudan, not to mention the reserve requirements for unexpected problems?

___ Even if the US had the troops, what is the plan to sufficiently provide those troops with the minimal equipment for them to complete their mission?

These questions cannot be answered with the distraction of warfare; the answers lie in the focus of an impeachment hearing – examining whether the President remains competent to adjust, or whether he embraces his plans to abuse power more tightly than his requirement to protect the Constitution and assent to Our Will.

The US sent a clear signal with the recent Hamdan ruling that it has no plans to comply with Geneva; even if caught committing war crimes, the US will assert the prisoners are not entitled to any protections. Hamdan affirmed Geneva applies to all prisoners, regardless their location, prompting the US to move prisoners from Eastern Europe to GTMO. Note the US leadership did not mention the oath of office, Article VI of the US Constitution, which requires all treaty obligations to be fully enforced.

Criticism based on ignorance will ensure repetition. Those who criticize quotes without understanding history are doomed to repeat the foretold errors. Leaders may find new excuses to ignore reality, but reality cannot be explained away.

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John Adams observed Boeothia’s Constitutional system was flawed, assigning sovereign power to the Legislature, without an executive enforcing the law. Bush’s flaw is pretending Congress can act as a sovereign in abrogating the Constitution and treaty obligations , while the tyrant-muddled-indecider habitually ignores the law, selectively enforcing it.

Alexander the Great lost one of his eyes, and conquered Persia in eight years. Bush, blind to reality and history, plans to fight an insurgency in more nations for generations. He has no resources nor support to pursue his agenda.

This President is not fit to govern. Socrates might offer him a lesson of how juries might impose justice on those who defy norms. Regardless the Senate’s indecision on the oath of office, all US citizens, including this President, are accountable to the Geneva Conventions and international law. No one can put themselves above the law, even if it is popular and the Congress and Courts unlawfully permit the illegal outcomes – illegal warfare and war crimes.

There are other options when the US Government chooses to defy the Supreme Law: The Battlefield and international prosecutors. The US lost on the former, and pretends the latter do not exist. Poor choice. More are circling. There is no escape.