Wretchard and Alexis and all,

I went off on a pretty good rant (there is still some spittle on my screen), and I feel the need to synthesize my thoughts somewhat.

I wish someone would make a solid case for why KSA is our enemy? It seems so, but it ain’t so or so it seems to me. There is an exchange that must be made, and KSA is a little slow on its end, but I do not think they are playing both ends against the middle. Members of the royal family as individuals, not representative of the KSA, are undoubtedly funding terrorists in a way that gives them a perception of leverage in the event of an Iraqi collapse. The banking, like the SA wire transfer traffic, must be made transparent, but it will only make sense to do so if a long term US commitment to Iraq and the ME is real. “OH”‘s mideast strategy doesn’t lend itself to making such stability appear promising, No matter how many envoys are sent behind the camera’s refuting whatever statement was just made for political consumption.

Same same in Pakistan, unless some means of giving stability to a self determined Pakistani government is realized, nothing will improve along the border. I hope the current Government of Pakistan is up to it, and I believe the Obama Sabre rattling in that sphere sends the totally wrong message.

Yet if “OH” somehow won the presidency, it would not be my chosen course of action to by subvert by news leaks, his policies. It would not be my favored means of registering disapproval to work some other stuff, while pressing business of the nation piles up unattended. Whether in Congress or in the various Executive agencies, the work of the people is being ignored, while the work of partisanship is attended. Members of both sides of the aisle are guilty of pandering and whoring themselves to constituents as well as the highest bidder.

In our military we are asking CIA and DoS personnel to advise Military Commanders in theater on operation they do not believe in, prepare for contingencies some suspect they wish would occur. It is an unhealthy alliance that allows the civilian leadership and the civilian consultants place our armed forces in the middle of their squabbles, it is shameful behavior that must not be allowed in war time. There is no middle ground here.

In Washington DC, a town where even the solid waste substation manager can become full of himself in pleading for revenues before congress, no ones waste doesn’t stink. Fortunately the prevailing winds carry the stench out to sea so the rest of the nation does not catch the odor, but that is our misfortune as well. We are not mushrooms.