There was never any worthwhile resistance from Iraqi forces when, on March 19, 2003 , we started the long awaited invasion of a hapless republic that just happens to be in the oil rich historic and biblical center of the Middle East. A nation that, at that time, had some twenty-five million inhabitants, was roughly the size of California, had been embargoed and starved under the thumb of the United States and United Nations for more than a decade, and is the perfect spot for additional hi-tech military bases in our Empire’s spread towards Iraq’s neighbors and eventually China. No matter what else happens, we won’t give up that stepping stone.

This attack was in the planning since George W. Bush took office on January 20th, 2001 , despite denials to the contrary. The first symptom might have been the Vice President’s secret energy meetings with oil barons that still remain unidentifiable. (So much for transparent governing)

Nothing stopped us from trumping up all sorts of justification for the invasion. For the first time in history, we had a president that appeared on television almost every day for about six months leaning over a podium somewhere to tell us about “weapons of mass destruction” in the hands of a madman and, in the same breath, telling us that “Osama been forgotten” was out to destroy our “way of life” and implying that Saddam was Osama's buddy and had something to do with the surgical attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

These weren’t the only untruths broadcast by our president and his administration. We had Donald Rumsfeld, the Grim Reaper, telling us that he knew exactly where tons of biological weapons and other deadly devices were buried in Iraq . And we had the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, appearing before the UN to deliver documents later found to have come from a California college student some ten years previously and showing satellite pictures of “portable biological labs” that later turned out to be the equivalents of “roach coaches” that the British sold to Iraq years ago (that’s “lunch wagons” to you white collar types).

Of course, we’ve had the usual congressional committees looking into these allegations of impropriety while finding nothing conclusive or indictable because it’s all a point-of-view, opinion, hearsay, stonewalled evidence, or detrimental to our national security. And naturally, they cannot talk about investigations underway. Y’all come back in twenty years or so when we’ll finally be looking at rebuilding New Orleans as part of “the biggest reconstruction effort the world has ever seen.”

By now, it should be obvious to everyone that we cannot trust the pirates to investigate themselves. Nothing but an outside independent investigative team has a chance of penetrating the camouflage and cover-ups of Washington , and that’s what we’re supposed to have from our elected representatives who sold out to big money and lobbyists long ago.

Where’s David Shipper when we need him? If you will remember, this democrat from Chicago took his investigative team to Washington and had them practice on other areas of government while they were waiting for Congress to decide on impeachment procedures. And they started to find corruption and malfeasance all over the place before finally settling down on the Clinton lies about his dalliances with an intern.

Of course, that was also while we were letting the democrats walk off with our retirement and health care money just as we’ve permitted anyone in Washington to do so. At least the democrats balanced the budget during their final year. And then they threw $230 billion, mostly from entitlement overcharges, against the national debt. It didn’t reduce the amount owed on this credit card, but it did keep it from rising too much. All so the government could go out and borrow trillions more.

Now we’re faced with rebuilding a substantial part of our own country due to natural disasters and there’s no way in the world we can afford to do this while conducting the continuous occupation and rebuilding of a country where we should never have been in the first place.