Wars of Religion

The rioting in France is the latest symptom that bin Laden might actually get his war of religions. The religious fanatic doesn't count his battalions, because he's convinced he has God on his side. Thus the Jewish settler teens in Gaza who resisted removal to the last, convinced that God would intervene on their side. Perhaps some similar pathology might explain why George Bush refused to prepare in a meaningful way for the Iraqi occupation - or maybe it was just stupidity.

Cheney and Rumsfeld are harder for me to comprehend. Cheney is certainly no genius, but Rumsfeld formerly had a reputation as someone somewhat levelheaded.

There are many bizarre threads to the whole Iraq war puzzle, but I can't quite put them together. One of the oddest is Chalabi - mathematician, bank fraud artist, embezzler, peddler of fake intelligence, Iranian spy, and still A-list guest in Bush's Washington and at the so-called "American" Enterprise Institute. It's not Chalabi's motives that are suspect - we've always known whose side he was on - A Chalabi's. But what the hell does Condi Rice owe him?

It's now clear that the "Yellowcake" forgeries are a serious enough problem for Berlusconi and the Italian intelligence agency SISMI that they are feeling compelled to tell some pretty transparent lies about it.

All of which makes the mysterious meeting between Italian intelligence, National Security Council Chief Steven Hadley, Iranian Arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, confessed Israeli spy Larry Franklyn, and other Iran Contra players all the more urgent a priority for investigation. The main thing we know so far is that Bush, Cheney, Senate Intelligence committee chairman Pat Roberts, and the FBI all really don't want it investigated. Oh yeah, and AEP guy Micheal Ledeen was involved too.

Iran, Israel, Italy, and Iraq. Where the hell was India?

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