Instahoglets Sunday Special

Its Sunday, I still have a nasty cough and there's a lot going on out there. Time for some instahoglets.

In all that follows, please bear in mind that the Pentagon is planning on raising its procurement budget by 50% over the next five years, from the current $74.9 billion to $119 billion.

Procurement currently comprises 18 per cent of the US Department of Defense's total budget. If the predicted increase eventuates, it will rise to 24 per cent in 2011. This increase may be explained by the planned introduction of several next-generation weapon programmes, such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF); the US Navy's DD(X) destroyer; and the US Army's Future Combat Systems.

Because they will all be so very useful in hunting goat-herders wielding improvised bombs on Afghan hillsides!

Still no decent body armor for the troops on the front line though. Honestly, people - priorities - shiny toys first, lifesaving equipment maybe ninth or tenth after the Pentagon's C&W Concert to mark the fourth anniversary of 9/11.

If you missed the London Times on Friday, you missed Michael Meacher describing how, no matter what constitution the Iraqis decide on, the fix will be in for US corporations to still be the real owners with a chutzpah that would make a Soviet apparatchik cry for the old days.

Talking of that constitution, with one day until the deadline, hard bargaining is still going on. The Sunnis won't accept federalism and the Shias won't accept anything less. It looks increasingly like the constitution will be proclaimed "finished" with everyone agreeing not to look too closely at the huge cracks in the framework. The stakes are huge - did you know that according to the existing rules if the constitution isn't finished tomorrow the interim government is supposed to step down? All together now -"Yeah, like that's going to happen!"

Maybe Georgie Chickenhawk reckons he can do better next time, in Iran. If so, he would have to do it without the UK, who said months ago they would not support military action against Iran and now German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has warned the US to back away from the possibility of military action too.

Don't go expecting the Democrats to be doing much to stop Georgie's Imperial ambitions, though. Their "Strategic Class" has every intention of inheriting the Purple one day. Funny how the Strategic Class is co-terminant with the Corporate Class of latte-sippers who continually pretend to look after working people while shafting them from behind, isn't it? The Roman rulers practised the same system of flattery for the "citizens" of the slums while using them as fodder for foreign adventures designed to enrich the rulers alone.

Yet the current Imperial Court seems to accept that one adventure has turned out very badly indeed. According to the Washington Post:

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

This is why the administration-supporting rats are suddenly scurrying each and every way in a search for an exit. The Democrat's Strategic Class are being kind enough to give them one - declare the war over and leave. They must think us fools. Frank Rich can opine "But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war." but leaves out the glaringly obvious - its a piss poor reason for declaring a war over too! Especially if you happen to live in Iraq.

So what does Bush do about all this bad news? Why he takes some more holidays of course! As the Iraq war looks steadily bleaker, as his poll ratings sink to their lowest yet, even some Republicans are a bit vexed that the President has gone away for what someone has calculated will be his ninth month at the ranch in less than five years. He says "it's also important for me to go on with my life" as if he had no idea when he ran for his second term that this was the life of the nation's leader. It is such hard work being Caligu...umm...President.