Iraqi Dictatorship Watch: August 24, 2007

Now that we've finally figured out what the Bush Crime Family has been up to all along in Iraq, we can begin to see the footprints of their real agenda in the cacophany of Iraq related news that wafts through our RSS readers every day. These posts will help highlight the more meaningful ones for your dining and dancing pleasure.

"The Allawi Insurgency"

Although I continue to say Ahmed Chalabi will end up with all the Iraq marbles, for now the apparent chosen Dictator For Life of Iraq by BushCo appears to be Ayad Allawi. Here are some cogent links supporting this possibility:

Allawi has his own internal security and spying agency, funded and supported by the CIA in open defiance of Maliki. It gets a billion a year openly and ghod knows how much covertly. TPM Muckraker has all the details.

Allawi has an associate with about 1 Billion (yes that's with a B folks!) in stolen U.S. aid that was supposed to be for the Iraqi armed forces to procure them tanks, helos, and so on. This associate, Hazem Shaalan, was Defense Minister when Allawi was Prime Minister and an audit after he was forced out by Maliki showed almost all the money was "missing". Yeah, right. The Carpetbagger Report is continuing to investigate this juicy story.

Allawi has hired a K-Street lobbying powerhouse (Barbour Griffith and Rogers) to bring over the Inside The Beltway set to his side (from CNN's Political Ticker blog). This are no lightweights; they immediately got him a Wolfie Love-Blitzer interview on CNN (h/t TPM). He paid them $300,000.00 Yankee Dollars (Iraqi Dinars regretfully not accepted, so sorry) for six months of "counseling". (see the previous Carpetbagger Report story for all the other juicy details on that little transaction.)

Late Breaking Update, courtesy of TPM: The three remaining Allawi Party members in Maliki's cabinet will formally resign Saturday according to the Washington Post, putting much greater pressure on al-Maliki to try and maintain the illusion of a functioning government. These are secularists, who have tried to stay above the sectarian politics and strife. Perfect stooges for the coming dictatorship with Allawi at the head (and in fact they'll undoubtedly do a good job for the Iraqi people, once the Bush Crime Family lets them....)

"Operation Strongman"

CNN is positively schizophrenic on its Iraq war coverage. Despite carrying water for the Bush Crime Family as bad or worse than Faux News, they also keep reporting going from people like Michael Ware, who seems to be the only reporter getting on the MSM who doesn't drink the Iraq kool-aid.

Ware reports that the CIA from the beginning has advocated replacing Saddam with a "friendly dictator" and getting the hell out. They called it Operation Strongman. He says it still has lots of support and not just from Teh Spooks. (h/t Crooks and Liars for finding this incredible segment.

"We Don't Need No Steenking Political Reconciliation!"

What fascinates me is that either the Bushies think we all have Alzheimer's Syndrome and can't form long term memories from short term ones, or that we're all so obsessed which which whore-celebrity will show us some vulgar part of her body next that we aren't paying attention. Unfortunately, they're wrong on both counts. And the mistakes add up!

Bush has dropped all references to Iraqi political reconciliation as goals for Teh Surge. In Tony Snow's swan song briefings on Iraq, he now only calls for "security." Period. But that's not what Bush said repeatedly back in January when he was "selling" Teh Surge. (h/t Think Progress). And we all know which kind of government is best at maintaining "security", don't we?

Bush and Company ousted the first democratically-elected Prime Minister back in 2006 because he wouldn't pass the Oil Law and put up with their other demands, as noted by the NYT Editorial Board today, those troop-hating foul-mouthed grey-lady print-bloggers that they are. The fiction of "elections" that put al-Maliki in charge was just that, fiction in practical terms. Next time, they probably won't bother with it, preferring to save all that money on purple/blue ink. (h/t The Blue State)

The Coming War With Iran got a step closer today, according to McClatchy newspapers. Iranian soldiers actually entered Iraqi territory and attacked small villages, killing an unknown number of locals who may or may not have been PKK guerillas. The Kurds have called for US help in securing the border with Iran. The US is officially ignoring them, for now...(h/t Juan Cole, who is THE source for sound Iraq strategic analysis right now...)

"Fifth Reich Watch: Noriega"

On the whole, I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories. Oh I agree that JFK, RFK and MLK were almost certainly not killed the way that the public versions relate, but so what? That does not prove that your brain is being controlled by somebody at Langely with a microwave beam or something (trust me, the people at Langely have far, far better things to do. And so do you, if you'd stop all the conspiracy crap and make something of your life.) However, I do firmly believe that the major multinational and totalnational corporations are pursuing a long term agenda I call the Fifth Reich, because it is very fascist and rather dangerous in the long run. I will try to provide a sensible post sometime in the next decade, but don't hold your breath or anyone else's either.

What is interesting is that on the heels of the rather badly-done hot dog summit with French Prime Minister Sarkozy and Appointed President Chimpy, Manuel Noriega is being sent over to France to spend another decade or two in Teh Slammer. Seems his attempt to avoid extradition just wasn't approved. It does seem rather odd, as if someone just doesn't want that old CIA asset to get out from under the thumb of the Penile System. Like he might, say, have secrets to sell (or write a nice book about). (h/t Teh Beeb (BBC) for this fascinating tidbit. The Brits give me hope, they really do...)

That's all for today's edition of Iraqi Dictatorship Watch. Tune in tomorrow for another exciting roundup of links and tidbits, same bat blog, same bat toobz.