Life in a One-Party State

Over the past few weeks, the Bush Administration has appeared to be imploding.

Approval ratings at an all time low. (But don't trust Fox News' polls.)

Dick Cheney shot a man.

The Dubai government is about to take over America's ports with Bush's hearty approval.

George angered our Pakistani allies in the W.O.T. by giving India the green light to make nuclear bombs to her heart's content.

The Katrina tapes show that Bush lied to the American people . . .yawn.

New polls show that the majority of Americans and soldiers want us out of Iraq.

Military and conservative politicians started calling the Iraq War a civil war. (Liberals continue sucking their thumbs.)


But despite the fact that this Administration no longer has the support of the majority of Americans, the Republican Congress gives this unpopular President everything he wants.

This morning I woke up to discover that
The Patriot Act was renewed.
and
The Republicans will not allow Congressional hearings to be held on the wiretapping of American citizens, over the muted objections of thumb-sucking Democrats.


Then there was this laughable gem:
Indicted Texas Congressman Tom Delay handily defeated his three G.O.P. rivals in the primary. As my father once said about one of his state's Senators, "He's a crook, but he's our crook."

But the most intriguing article in the New York Times was this article:
The U.S. has quietly installed Special Operations personnel in American embassies around the world.
Officials said small groups of Special Operations personnel, sometimes just one or two at a time, have been sent to more than a dozen embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. These are regions where terrorists are thought to be operating, planning attacks, raising money or seeking safe haven.
Their assignment is to gather information to assist in planning counterterrorism missions, and to help local militaries conduct counterterrorism missions of their own, officials said.

From my negligible understanding of history, the CIA interrogates and precision kills with poisoned umbrella tips and exploding cigars; while the Special Operations people organize the death squads.

The Special Operations command reports to Mr. Rumsfeld, and falls outside the orbit controlled by John D. Negroponte, the newly established director of national intelligence, who oversees all the nation's intelligence agencies. An episode that took place early in the effort underscored the danger and sensitivity of the work, even for soldiers trained for secret combat missions.
In Paraguay a year and a half ago, members of one of the first of these "Military Liaison Elements" to be deployed were pulled out of the country after killing a robber armed with a pistol and a club who attacked them as they stepped out of a taxi, officials said. Though the shooting had nothing to do with their mission, the episode embarrassed senior embassy officials, who had not been told the team was operating in the country.
One official who was briefed on the events, but was not authorized to discuss them, said the soldiers were not operating out of the embassy, but out of a hotel.

Why does the article bother to say that the operations falls "outside the orbit" of John Negroponte? I'm wondering if that is a typo. Did they mean to say "inside?" For this certainly sounds as if this was an idea dreamt up by John "Honduran Death Squad" Negroponte. (Check out Billmon for more on Negroponte.)

Call me a sceptic, but that story about the man with a pistol and club being killed . . .why does that seem like it has been given the Tillman press release treatment? My guess is that the story probably should have read, "after killing a prostitute's john who was demanding payment from them." Or, "drunk and frustrated from waiting in the rain for a taxi, they shot dead the man at the front of the taxi stand line."