"We are da Webanese, da mighty, mighty Webanese!"*

This is just so you know who's available to stand between the IDF and Hezbollah 'til the Blue Helmets or, hopefully, La Legion Etrangere get there, should they be crazy enough to try and maybe why they haven't. It'd be like your local Neighborhood Watch tryin' to stop a gang fight between the Hell's Angels and the Bandidos. Raw Story:

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 passed over the weekend calls for the Lebanese army to contribute to security in the south of the country. But this army is considered weak, and sceptics doubt the loyality of the force in the eventuality of conflict with Hezbollah.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) puts the total strength at 72,000, while other experts estimate only 40,000 soldiers. Lebanon spent the equivalent of 530 million dollars on its military in 2005.

That's $7360 - $13,250 per man. Pay (ha!), food, bullets, the light bill, etc. Not very much left over for emergencies, doesn't sound like. Gas and spare tires'd knock the defense budget into a cocked hat.

The army has 310 obsolete tanks of Russian and US make.

I suspect a possible parts interchangeability problem. Inventory, too.

There is scarcely any anti-aircraft capability, and there are only 540 artillery pieces.

I'll betcha if they looked around a little, they could augment their arsenal with a buncha Katyushas...nah, those are probably guarded by a coupla Hezbollah M.P.s who wouldn't let 'em have them.

The airforce is small, with total personnel amounting to just 1,000. It has six Hawker fighter-bombers and a couple of dozen helicopters.

Ohmigod, that's not even enough helos for one for each General! They don't stand a chance! On the bright side, however, Fixer'd be a whole squadron all by hisself!

Resolution 1559 of 2004 called for Lebanon to bring its entire territory, including the south, under the control of the central government and for the militias to be disarmed.

The government and the army failed to meet the demand, leaving the southern border region to Hezbollah.

Those resolutions are just silly. I hope it made the UN feel better.

There are also doubts regarding the army's composition. Western observers believe that half the soldiers are Shiites, the same community from which Hezbollah's fighters are drawn.

Arab experts also do not believe that the Lebanese forces would act against the highly rated Hezbollah forces, which the Israelis themselves have not defeated, in an emergency.

"Arab experts", huh? Hey, it ain't rocket science. Seems to me that possibly a good percentage of Lebanese forces are Hezbollah forces. I think it might be an eye-opener to see how many Lebanese soldiers failed to show up for work during the recent(and future) conflict.

The Lebanese Army is outnumbered, outgunned, and probably not too motivated. They don't want to confront Hezbollah, and a buncha Hadassah ladies could kick their ass.

I think Lebanon's screwed.

*When the U.S. Marines were in the 'Root in the early '80s, that's the jibe they'd sing as the Lebanese Army would go past their positions. Not very respectful, but tough young guys aren't when they don't feel any respect is called for.

Daily Dave

The NY State AFL-CIO endorsements came out at their convention yesterday:

U.S. Congress

1. Tim Bishop (D); 2. Steve J. Israel (D,I,WF); 3. Dave Mejias (D/WF); 4. Carolyn McCarthy (D); 5. Gary L. Ackerman (D); 6. No Endorsement; 7. Joseph Crowley (D); 8. Jerrold Nadler (D); 9. Anthony Weiner (D); 10. No Endorsement 11. Carl Andrews (D); 12. Nydia M. Velazquez (D); 13. Stephen Harrison (D); 14. Carolyn B. Maloney (D); 15. Charles B. Rangel (D); 16. Jose E. Serrano (D); 17. Eliot L. Engel (D, L, WF); 18. Nita M. Lowey (D); 19. John Hall (D); 20. Kirsten Gillibrand (D/I/WF); 21. Michael R. McNulty (D); 22. Maurice Hinchey (D,I,WF); 23. John McHugh (R); 24. Mike Arcuri (D/I/WF); 25. Dan Maffei (D/WF); 26. Jack Davis, Jr. (D/I/WF); 27. Brian M. Higgins (D); 28. Louise M. Slaughter (D); 29. Eric Massa (D/WF)

Add this to Dave's other big endorsements.

Dave for America

Dave's ActBlue page

Give or volunteer today.

We Can't Make It Here Anymore

Take a 7:03 break and go watch this video.

Circular Logic

The Internet Weekly Report. Heh.

More NOLA

I directed you to Scout Prime's video series this morning. This afternoon I send you to R. Neal at Facing South*:

...

The article says police in Orleans and Jefferson Parish are answering more calls for domestic violence, drinking, and fights than before Katrina. According to the article, "Involuntary commitments to mental hospitals are up from last year, and suicides in Orleans Parish have tripled since Katrina."

Mental health experts say it will only get worse, and that the approaching one-year anniversary of Katrina "will spark new feelings of loss and more emotional and physical stress." Unfortunately the city isn't equipped to deal with it:

...

*There are some of us here who love him dearly and still refer to him affectionately as South Knox Bubba.

Temper Tantrums at Big Money's Democratic Party Embassy

Go read David Sirota tear the DLC a new asshole.

Put another way, the DLC making itself out to be the innocent, virtuous, shoestring underdog is like billionaire Warren Buffet telling people with a straight face that he is applying for food stamps.

Moreover, even if you accept Kilgore's lie that the official DLC organization itself has been just some infinitesimally small gnat barely making the supposedly Evil Liberal Colossus twitch, it's clear that DLC-ism has intensely afflicted the Democratic Party for the last 10 to 15 years - and with horrible electoral consequences. That DLC-ism's fundamental tenets preach that Democrats should 1) never frontally challenge moneyed power; 2) unquestioningly embrace Washington's distorted definition of national security "strength" as being a politician willing to indiscriminately bomb/invade foreign lands regardless of how that weakens U.S. security; and 3) deliberately distort the concept of "centrism" to make it mean "well outside the mainstream of American public opinion."

That this DLC-ism is being handily rejected by more and more Democrats at the very same time Democrats are surging in the polls clearly makes the staff at the DLC very frightened. They know people are figuring out that Democrats are making political gains BECAUSE they are finally rejecting DLC-ism, and starting to push a far more populist agenda - and one that is at the actual "center" of American public opinion, not the distorted faux "center" of the Washington Beltway. This agenda is scary to the powers that be because it doesn't rely on the official approval of a bunch of Washington lobbyists, corporate lawyers and unprincipled insiders sitting around a conference table at places like the Washington Court Hotel, the DLC's D.C. offices, or the DLC's highly-touted "national conversations" that are, of course, officially "not open to the public."

Many links, quite a few to Sirota, strange as that may seem. (Smiley face)

Daily Dave

Just a reminder to Long Islanders, especially those in Nassau County (NY-03). If you're as fed up with that wingnut Peter King as the rest of us, give Dave Mejias a hand by volunteering. Remember what we did for Ned in CT, lets do it on Long Island too. And those of you from afar, you too can help.



I'll be back after a shower and dinner.

Joke

Got this from Cornfield Jane's comment at Badtux, the Bad Penguin Joke Penguin:

[Mother Superior called all the Nuns together one evening and said to them:

"I must tell you all something. We have a case of Gonorrhea in the convent."

"Thank God," said an elderly Nun at the back. "I'm so sick of Chardonnay."]

(rimshot)

Bushoviks Rushed Terror Arrests For P.R. Gain

The Tattered Coat

A new report from NBC News claims that Bush Administration officials pressured the British to arrest the London terrorists a week before British surveillance work was complete (via TPM via commenter Suzy). The attack, according to the report, was not imminent.

This goes way beyond what we understood previously - that the Bush Administration knew about the arrests ahead of time, and timed a PR offensive against the Democrats around it.

It turns out that it was the other way around: the Bush Administration orchestrated the timing of the arrests to coordinate them with the PR offensive, which attacked Democrats after Ned Lamont's victory in the Connecticut primary.

For the GOP, the short term political importance of getting the Lamont victory, and the developing sense that America had fully turned against the Iraq War, off the news was reason enough to disrupt an active terror investigation. The disruption hurt the legal case against the terrorists - it will be much harder to convict them without passports or airline tickets. The GOP was so insistent on the timing that they threatened to "render" the lead suspect if the British did not comply with their wishes.

The Republicans, in other words, once again played politics with national security, and hurt anti-terrorism efforts as they did so.

They cannot be trusted to protect us from the threat of terrorism because - to paraphrase The Downing Street Memo - they fix terror investigations around smear campaigns.

Feel safer now? How does it make you feel to know that our so-called president and his RS3M interfered with an ongoing active foreign police investigation that may have produced even better results in order to counter the results of an actual legitimate election they couldn't control? The fuckers had this in the works in case Lieberman lost, and sprang it as soon as the results were in. To the detriment of everybody but themselves.

I thought I was about as pissed-off at Bush and his Band of Lying Criminal Bastards as I could get.

I was wrong.

If this doesn't help voters see the light and change the balance of Congress in November, Americans are brain-dead.

Go read. Many links.

Praying for Peace in the Middle East

From OpEd News:

[A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out.

She went to the Western Wall and there he was walking slowly up to the holy site. She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane in a very slow fashion , she approached him for an interview.

"I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and friendship."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a fuckin' wall."]

Almost a year ...

Since Katrina. Scout Prime is beginning a video series called The Great Deluge:

As the 1 year anniversary of The Great Deluge approaches I will be offering a look back at the year. Here is the first part of a video of Tom & Jen telling their story of what happened to them after the levees broke. It was taped in March when I was in NOLA.

...

A year ago, an American city was almost destroyed, it might as well have been bombed, and those on the ground are still feeling the effects. Another in a long list of Bush failures over the past six years. We've spent so much in Iraq, on tax cuts for the wealthy, and outright corruption, yet we can't afford to make our own citizens whole. It's just another reminder to the poor, ethnic, or non-Christian that this government doesn't give a shit if you live or die.

Quote of the Day

TRex:

...

We call it Wingnut Welfare for a reason. Reich Wing Affirmative Action. It's an intricate web of familial and corporate connections dating back more than a hundred years, and without which Ann Coulter would be hard pressed to find a job that didn't involve a meth-lab, a corner lamp-post, and a public defender.

...

Call me cynical ...

But I really don't think this cease-fire is gonna work.

This* is why:

New York - The US government was closely involved in the planning of Israel's military operations against Islamic militant group Hezbollah even before the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue. [my em]

...

Born to Fail.

*Great thanks to Attaturk for the link.

I wish he'd run ...

And I wish the American people were enlightened enough to elect Russ Feingold as our next President:

Well, I like Joe Lieberman, but I support Ned Lamont. Because Joe is showing with that regrettable statement that he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it. The fact is that we were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda and its affiliates and its sympathizers, not by Saddam Hussein. And unfortunately Senator Lieberman has supported the Bush Administration's disastrous strategic approach of getting us stuck in Iraq instead of focusing on those who attacked us. [my em]

And while you're at C&L, check out this clip of Howard Dean coming out in defense of Ned Lamont. [Updated] Atrios has the transcript if you don't like video.

I don't know...

How there are such a thing as 'moderates' anymore with such a poisoned political discourse in this country.

...

What say you? Are 'moderates' under ideological assault? Or, do we even HAVE any moderates in politics today? Are such assertions as I've presented above indications of wisdom, or of naivete?

...

More Depleted Uranium

I've written about this a few times (here, here, and here). Today, Blondie relates the story of her neighbor who just passed away from symptoms he's had since Gulf 1.

... My radioactive next door neighbor died 2 months ago after being mysteriously ill since he served in GWI. His bodily functions shut down one by one since he returned. It was amazing that he lasted so long, but his quality of life was never the same after serving his country. It sucked...

This will traumatize a generation of vets the way Agent Orange did to the Vietnam guys.

Quote of the Day

Commander Huber:

If Iraq is the "central front" in the "war" on terror, why are the terrorists we're hearing about now come from Canada, Britain and the U.S.A.?

Like we need another blogroll ...

But I created a community site for stuff not necessarily political. Member blogs would be linked by this badge:



Click on the badge for details. If you're interested in adding your blog, send me an email.

Are you a bigot?

If you voted for or supported Ned Lamont, Peter King says you are. Dave Mejias' talks about that at dKos:

...

Still, Peter King doesn't think he's in danger to the same fate as Lieberman. You know why? Because, he says, "fortunately, [his district] is not composed of the left-wing bigots who went after Joe Lieberman."

So, if you supported Ned Lamont, Peter King thinks you're a bigot. If you are against the failed policies of the Bush administration, Peter King thinks you're a bigot. If you think America needs a change in leadership, Peter King thinks you're a bigot.

...

Support Dave in his race to unseat King in NY-03 (What's so bad about Peter King? Click here to find out).

Dave's ActBlue page here.

Dave for America.

Even my dog ...

Was suspicious of the timing. So was everybody who stopped by here. Well it seems, after all these years of being treated like mushrooms*, our bullshit detectors are tuned to maximum sensitivity**:

LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports. [my ems]

...

You know, one thing I hate more than anything is when people try to manipulate me, especially when it's done by people who think they're smarter than I am. AOB said in comments on another post, and I agree, they've been playing this game for so long that when the shit is really about to hit the fan, nobody will pay attention. Their Chicken Littles are coming home to roost.

*Kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
**Thanks to C&L for the link.

Update:

Glenn Greenwald. Tangential to this, but it seems the Brits can follow the law of their land and still keep their people safe.

... Being able to eavesdrop only with warrants did not prevent British law enforcement from stopping these terrorist attacks. It is baffling, to put it mildly, why defenders of Bush's illegal eavesdropping would think that any of this bolsters their defense that warrantless eavesdropping is necessary... [my em]

So Instashithead and all the other wingnut morons*** can suck my hairy white ass.

***Tip o' the Brain to Atrios.