Playpen Playing Poker ...

How many more dirty tricks will the bushbaby try to pull off (with approving nods from Johnny McCaney in the wings) before he's finally ridden out of town?
The Iraq war was foisted onto Americans and the world for reasons other than those presented to Congress, citizens, the UN, and the world, or for reasons of profit for large corporations, or for no reason at all. In other words, this ongoing war was based on LIES:

The New York Times
Editiorial June 6, 2008
The Truth About the War
A new report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports.

Guantánamo is precisely the kind of crime the bushbaby claims those imprisoned there have committed: an attack on western democracy, justice, and freedom. It is a crime with which the bushbaby will always be identified, and a crime that the next president must speedily act to remedy. CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO and release those held there or try them in normal courts under normal judicial procedures.

Edito du Monde
Guantanamo, hélas !
LE MONDE 06.06.08 13h38
La base militaire de Guantanamo restera donc, jusqu'au bout, le symbole accablant de la présidence de George Bush. Ce camp-prison résume tous les égarements auxquels la "guerre contre le terrorisme" a conduit l'Amérique depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001. L'ouverture du procès des cinq premiers détenus accusés d'avoir fomenté ces attentats et d'y avoir participé en apporte une nouvelle démonstration.
...
Les candidats à l'élection présidentielle américaine, Barack Obama et John McCain, ont tous les deux exprimé le souhait de voir fermer le camp de Guantanamo. Le prochain occupant de la Maison Blanche honorerait son pays si sa première décision politique consistait à mettre en oeuvre cette volonté et à renoncer aux tribunaux d'exception. La démocratie ne peut combattre la barbarie en renonçant au droit.

And now, the playpen is also trying to place Iraq under more or less permanent military and entrepreneurial tutelage, making it impossible for a successor to withdraw from that quagmire, and also making nationalist rebellion, if not provincial secession, likely there.

The Independent
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
By Patrick CockburnThursday, 5 June 2008

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

...

The US is adamantly against the new security agreement being put to a referendum in Iraq, suspecting that it would be voted down. The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called on his followers to demonstrate every Friday against the impending agreement on the grounds that it compromises Iraqi independence.
The Iraqi government wants to delay the actual signing of the agreement but the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord.
The signature of a security agreement, and a parallel deal providing a legal basis for keeping US troops in Iraq, is unlikely to be accepted by most Iraqis. But the Kurds, who make up a fifth of the population, will probably favour a continuing American presence, as will Sunni Arab political leaders who want US forces to dilute the power of the Shia. The Sunni Arab community, which has broadly supported a guerrilla war against US occupation, is likely to be split.

And as a former Iraqi minister sees it, in a column also from The Independent:

Ali Allawi: This raises huge questions over our independence
Thursday, 5 June 2008

It is only now that Iraqis have woken up to the possibility that Iraq might be a signatory on a long-term security treaty with the US, as a price for regaining its full sovereignty. Iraqis must know its details and implications. How would such an alliance constrain Iraq's freedom in choosing its commercial, military and political partners? Will Iraq be obliged to openly or covertly support all of America's policies in the Middle East? These are issues of a vital nature that cannot be brushed aside with the Iraqi government's platitudes about "protecting Iraqi interests". A treaty of such singular significance to Iraq cannot be rammed through with less than a few weeks of debate. Otherwise, the proposed strategic alliance will most certainly be a divisive element in Iraqi politics. It will have the same disastrous effect as the treaty with Britain nearly eighty years ago.

Send the entire playpen to Crawford and lock them in: bushbaby, condy ricey, chainy, and the entire gang!