Elliot Abrams: It's only you

* what's blastin: Portishead, Only You, for Chicago Dyke & Elliot Abrams

We suffer everyday, what is it for
These crimes of illusion, are fooling us all
And now I am weary and I feel like I do

* juan cole:

"The remaining Neoconservatives in the Bush administration, like David Wurmser in Cheney's office and Abrams at the NSC have been agitating behind the scenes for war on Syria and Iran. These people hate peace the way the devil hates holy water. They confess themselves actively disappointed when a war doesn't happen. They helped send US troops into Iraq where 24,000 have been wounded or killed, and they'd just love to expend some more lives on other pet projects.

That does it. Elliot Abrams must go. Elliot Abrams is a felon. He was involved in stealing Pentagon weapons from US stockpiles, selling them to the Ayatollah Khomeini, and then stealing the Iranian funds so garnered to give to far-right Central American death squads, and then lying about all this to Congress. The Congress in the Constitution controls the budget. The Congress had cut off money to the rightwing death squads supported by Reagan and henchmen like Abrams. This elaborate criminal conspiracy inside the White House was the Right's response. They shredded the Constitution (and ever since have been calling their critics "unpatriotic.")

In 1991, Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of lying to Congress under oath. Without the plea deal, he was facing felony charges, since what he did was in fact a felony.

Congress pledged that Abrams would never work at a high level in government again. But by the time the Neoconservative cabal in the Bush administration got Bush to appoint him to the National Security Council, there had been so much turn-over in Congress that, one member told me, "no one remembered who Abrams was."

I'm serious about this, everyone. The bloggers are touted as influential, but their influence is hard to measure or prove. Let's make this a test case.

Can Kos help? Eschaton? Talkingpointsmemo? And, it needn't be only one side of the aisle. A lot of principled persons on the right are deeply troubled by the criminality of this administration.

Please write your congressional representative and your senators and demand that they hold hearings on why Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy in the Bush White House.

Enough of being ruled by criminals and liars and warmongers. Enough of censorship and attacks on our Constitution. Elliot Abrams must go"

* FTR, here's larisa:

"I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how Abrams is allowed to be the Deputy National Security Advisor after his indictment in Iran Contra. For god’s sake, he was part of the team that sold weapons to Iran, that is, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, treason!"

* arkin:

"Out of the November election, where the majority clearly expressed their displeasure with the Iraq war and the President, we have witnessed the creation of the "surge."

Dismissed initially as a fanciful quest by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a surge of as many as 30,000 troops to Iraq is now increasingly being viewed as the likely post-New Year's change of course to be offered by President George W. Bush and a potential war winner.

Is the surge now possible because the miserly Donald Rumsfeld is gone?

Or is it a Washington ploy to get to the inevitable withdrawal while also saving face: Sure there are a lot of loyalists and dreamers out there who still think American can "win," but mostly those in the military and their armchair brethren will be able to say 'well, we tried our best, even put in more soldiers for the final push.'

My sense is that we haven't already seen serious proposals for a surge because of fear of a public backlash, because of Rumsfeld, or because no one can actually describe how a surge would either turn the corner or change strategy.

The reason why a surge continues to be so agonizing is that it is also so difficult for the military."