Would you believe ...

It's been 4 years since Colin Powell's 'Adlai Stevenson Moment'.

"'Dad's Gonna Kill Me"

I'm a huge Richard Thompson fan. Here's one of his songs at Fixer & Gordon.

Raw Story

Legendary folk guitarist Richard Thompson recorded an anti-war song which is told from the viewpoint of a US soldier who fears being killed in Iraq.

"Lately at concerts he's been singing a song in protest against the Iraq war titled 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me,'" Goldstein writes. "'Dad,' Thompson explains to audiences, is grunt-speak for 'Baghdad,' much as ''Nam' once meant 'Vietnam.'"

In the song, Thompson sings, "'Dad's in a bad mood, 'Dad's got the blues; It's someone else's mess that I didn't choose; At least we're winning on the Fox evening news; 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me."

An mp3 of "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" can be heard at Thompson's website*, and it will be on his next CD, "Sweet Warrior," slated for release in May.

Protest songs are good. The more the merrier. Forty years ago there were a lot of 'em, rightly so, and it's good to see more and more of them coming out now from modern artists.

Different century, different war, different artists, different audience. Same sensibilities - when something's wrong, it's wrong, and needs to be protested. Bush's War was wrong out of the gate.

*Also at YouTube, amateur concert video from the cheap seats with a fine view of the porta-johns. From the "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival" at Golden Gate Park in EssEff aka "Baghdad By The Bay".

We should get out as rapidly . . . as possible

"I can tell you what will erode our prestige. I can tell you what will hurt our viability as the world's superpower, and that is if we enmesh ourselves in a drawn-out situation which entails the loss of American lives, more debacles like the one we saw with the failed mission to capture Aideed's lieutenants, using American forces, and that then will be what hurts our prestige.

We suffered a terrible tragedy in Beirut, Mr. President; 240 young marines lost their lives, but we got out. Now is the time for us to get out of Somalia as rapidly and as promptly and as safely as possible.

I, along with many others, will have an amendment that says exactly that. It does not give any date certain. It does not say anything about any other missions that the United States may need or feels it needs to carry out. It will say that we should get out as rapidly and orderly as possible." - John McCain, Oct 19, 1993.

I couldn't agree more. As fast as possible to get the troops out safely. Alas, that was then and the President was a Democrat. Amazing how the rules have changed with a Republican in the White House and McCain thinking he might be the next President. The guy is nothing if not a hypocrite.

R.

Hat-tip to Glenn Greenwald

400,000 PTSD cases backlogged

Common Dreams

The California Nurses Association reported that in the first quarter of 2006, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs "treated 20,638 Iraq veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder, and they have a backlog of 400,000 cases." A returning soldier has to wait an average of 165 days for a VA decision on initial disability benefits, and an appeal can take up to three years.

This is unacceptable and reprehensible.

Veterans coming home stated that their superiors have harassed and punished them for seeking help for psychological problems triggered by their service in Iraq. Several of the soldiers' supervisors acknowledged the callous treatment.

A recent national study by the Government Accountability Office found that most of the troops who show signs of PTSD were not referred to mental health professionals, despite Pentagon claims, in NPR's report, "that providing support to soldiers with emotional problems is a top priority" and "that resources are being made available to returning veterans."

If the same disastrous pattern unfolds that affected Vietnam-era veterans, and these PTSD sufferers do not obtain appropriate and timely assistance, tens of thousands will become unnecessarily and tragically addicted to drugs or alcohol, and many may commit suicide. Besides the 58,000 lost in combat, we lost tens of thousands of Vietnam-era military personnel to suicide and drugs.

The American people must actively advocate and demand appropriate treatment for veterans who have been psychologically wounded by war.

Maybe the military needs a new slogan: "Join the __________! Go fight Bush's War. If you make it back, you'll get kicked to the curb by the very people who profited by your sacrifice, sucker!"

This treatment of Veterans is not only unacceptable and reprehensible, it's also unconscionable, appalling and immoral. It's positively Republican.

"De Shadow Know..."

David Kurtz

In a piece headlined "Vice President's Shadow Hangs Over Trial," the WaPo has a nice synopsis of Cheney's involvement in the Plame matter.

Actually, you could headline just about every story that way these days: "Vice President's Shadow Hangs Over _________."

Fill in the blank: Iraq. Iran. Global warming. Renditions. Domestic surveillance.

I will confess to having been extremely skeptical in the early years of the Bush Presidency that Cheney was really running the show. It seemed too facile an explanation for what I was convinced was a far more complicated situation. Until the 9/11 Commission report came out.

Since then, I've gone from being open to the idea of an Imperial Vice Presidency to being convinced that historians will debate whether something approaching a Cheney-led coup d'etat has occurred, in which some of the powers of the Executive were extra-constitutionally usurped by the Office of the Vice President.

Still, I can't help but be fascinated by the more pedestrian issue of how Cheney continues to assert himself so vigorously without running up against the ego of a cocksure President. How is it that Bush, who is so caught up in macho public demonstrations of his own personal strength and courage, can tolerate a shadow presidency within his own White House? What kind of spell has Cheney cast that allows Bush to continue to believe he is the decider? You can imagine all sorts of dysfunctional psychological dramas playing out behind the scenes.

But whether it's the legal or political aspect of Cheney's role, it all comes down to the same thing: we just don't know.

It's about time we find out.

Interesting. Go read.

Outwardly, Bush projects machismo (macho, by the way, is Spanish slang for "mule") but inwardly he's a coward. I'm sure he's scared of Cheney, though I don't know why, and offered no resistance when Cheney usurped power. Maybe Cheney's got compromising pictures of Bush, or has some police records or something. Maybe it's a deal Bush made in order to get installed in the White House. Maybe Cheney just took over and told Bush to STFU. If we knew, we could deal with it. Maybe someday. Sigh.

The important thing is to get them out.

Supporting the agenda

Straight from the horse's mouth.

Impeachment. Now. Stop war with Iran from ever happening.

From Digby:

"As Bush and Cheney get more and more unpopular, their legacy becomes more and more predicated on the fact that they did the unpopular thing for the greater good. The more unpopular they get the more they have to prove."

I couldn't say it any better myself, but the statement, as it stands is incomplete, it doesn't call for their removal from office. The only way we are going to stop them, the only way we are not going to get involved in a tragic war in Iran. The only way we are going to regain respect in the world. The only way is to put both of them on the express route to impeachment. Now, not later, and as fast as possible. Building the case should be a no brainer.

R.

Thought for the day

Learning how to become a politician in the Republican party is like your daughter learning how to play the piano in a whorehouse. She might succeed, but...

The Terrorists and Big Corpora Have Won

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Tailgating is banned at the Super Bowl

"The parking lot and traffic flow will look a lot different than it will during normal season games," McCarthy said. "We're going to have a security perimeter so we can screen people coming in." Among the items banned: containers of any type, coolers of any size, backpacks, bottles, banners, noisemakers and horns.

All of which will no doubt be available inside the stadium at exorbitant prices.

If they want to park near the stadium, ticket holders should buy special permits in advance. They range in price from $60 to $325 per vehicle. [...]

Much of the stadium's usual parking area will be used to host the 1-million-square foot "NFL Experience," billed as an interactive football theme park and party. On Super Sunday, it will only be open to ticket holders. It costs $15 for adults and $10 for children younger than 12.

"That's not tailgating; that's corporate sales," said Ray Bridges, a Colts fan with tickets to the game.

Considering what he's already spent, Bridges said, it's a bit much to be told that he won't be allowed to barbecue his own bratwurst before kickoff.

"I understand they want to get their concession sales, but...when you are paying two, three, $4,000 for a ticket, for them to say you can't bring in a grill, I just don't understand the thinking," he said.

Rich folks who can afford those prices have the help do that, Mr. Bridges, no doubt at minimum wage, and are served in their sky boxes.

Big Corpora has used 'security' as an excuse, to their great profit, to deny the game to the average person. Reg'lar folks will have to have their I.Q. lowered at home.

I haven't watched a football game in fifty years. I see no reason to start now.

Whoring the blog ...

Or blogging the whore. It's Saturday and that means I'm blogwhoring the next chapter of my novel The Captains at The Practical Press.

Update:

Kenneth Quinnell, the most excellent owner of The Practical Press, is doing his second annual awards show, the Practical Press Awards 2006. A few regular readers here at the Brain are up for awards and it's a good chance for you to sample some of the original fiction, poetry, short stories, and music from the many talented contributors. Vote for your favorites if you so desire.

Where's the outrage?

I mean, really. Hillary and Edwards speak of invading Iran as a possible option and everybody else I know thinks it's a foregone conclusion. Nobody seems too pissed off about it. Let me rephrase. Nobody in a position to do anything about it seems too pissed off.

Nobody seems pissed off about the fact we're seeing and hearing the same things we did in '02, when the Chimp and his gargoyles began priming the pump for the Iraq War. The Mighty Wurlitzer is cranking again, inflating the gasbags for a full-court propaganda dirge to get the American people thinking Iranian Marines are just about ready for an amphibious assault on both coasts, simultaneously, with nuclear bullets, Kamikaze squads, and HERF guns. Oh my!

I mean, look at the crap coming out of Iraq. That 'false flag' operation in Karbala was traced to Iraqi generals (lord knows who was pulling the strings there), and the massacre this week outside Najaf (which looks more and more like retribution in a tribal squabble), were both attributed to the Iranians initially. Does anybody not believe this was thrown out there to see if it will stick?

Another indicator of what's coming down the pike is all the wingnuts I know are already worked into a froth not seen since the Chimp began rattling his sabre towards Iraq. I asked one guy, "what if we attack and Iran closes down the Straits of Hormuz? What are we gonna do for oil?" He said "fuck them, it's our oil." They're ready to go ... well ... they're ready for your kid to go.

McCain is ready. Lieberman is ready. McConnell is ready too. They don't want discussion of the Iraq War or the consequences to America. And they will go along with whatever the Chimp says and does.

Listen to me. Invading Iran will damage our nation beyond repair, maybe even destroy it. Do you think we will survive $10/gal gasoline and home heating oil? Do you think, if things got that bad, your neighbor would hesitate killing you for yours if it came to a choice of his children freezing or not? Are you ready for Mad Max come to America? You think it could never happen here?

Why? You think Americans are above that? I've got news for you. If things get bad here, we'll be killing each other in the streets they way they do in Baghdad. If we don't get these idiots out of the White House soon, the transition from the American Century to the American Interregnum will be short and horrible.

No shit ...

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is out. Guess what it says about the 'surge', among other things?

The Scum Also Rises

Matt Taibbi does a good piece in the wake of the Obama/Madrassa/Clinton bullshit on how the 'media' liars' crap sticks long after it's been debunked. Today's 'must read'.

Now we're seeing the same thing with the Obama story; it is lingering, even after it has been totally discredited. Emboldened by a generation that has refused to punish their libelous behavior, these guys now just take whatever "facts" they like and run with them. Hannity is one culprit. Michael Savage, a spineless little fuckhead who should be torn apart by hyenas, responded to the debunking of the Obama story by telling his listeners that Obama "will not reply" to the original Insight report, a blatant lie. He added, for good measure, that "assuming the world is still here" after a Clinton-Obama administration, Obama would then run for president with "Saddam Hussein's younger grandson" as his running mate.

The very fact that the liars are allowed to continue their trade unpunished is a sort of endorsement of their original versions of the "truth." I have absolutely no doubt that many Americans believe deep down in their gullible hearts that if people like Hannity and Limbaugh were really liars, they would be pulled off the air, or punished for some reason. They see that a Michael Savage can be yanked from a lucrative job for gay-bashing, but there appears to be no punishment at all for unchecked, intentional lying, which is at least as serious an offense for a journalist.

If the press is serious about saving itself as a social institution, it has to start policing its own business. We all have to encourage the likes of Barack Obama to hire the meanest lawyers on the planet and to file the hairiest lawsuits imaginable against the Hannitys, Gibsons, and Savages of the world. We have to impress upon the victims of these broadsides that choosing to ignore that style of libel is a betrayal of the public trust and an act of political cowardice that the rest of us end up paying for in spades. That's the ugly truth: Until one of those monsters goes down in a fireball of punitive litigation, we are all fucked. And it's not going to happen anytime soon.

All those assholes need to be sued until all their millions are in the bank accounts of the trial lawyers they despise, and they're livin' under bridges like the loathesome trolls they are.

"Please, Mr. Petraeus, I don' wanna go..."*

Kevin Drum

THE BATTLE OF BAGHDAD....If Tom Lasseter is to be believed -- and I think he is -- the junior officers leading our troops are not sanguine about our prospects in Baghdad. They think that Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has so thoroughly infiltrated the Iraqi army and police force that they're the ones who mostly benefit from our training:

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

...."All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they'll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It'll be called the 'Day of Death' or something like that," said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "They say, 'Wait, and we will be victorious.' That's what they preach. And it will be their victory."

.... After U.S. units pounded al-Sadr's men in August 2004, the cleric apparently decided that instead of facing American tanks, he'd use the Americans' plans to build Iraqi security forces to rebuild his own militia.

....His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry.

You know, everything I've heard suggests that Gen. David Petraeus is a terrific officer in all respects. And yet, there's something that's been niggling in the back of my mind for a while: namely that in August 2004, when al-Sadr was hatching this plan, Petraeus was the guy in charge of creating and overseeing the training program for the Iraqi army and police. In other words, he was the guy who was being suckered. Now he's in charge of the whole operation. Is anybody else bothered by this?

George Armstrong Custer was a "terrific" officer too. If "Moqtada al-Sadr" translates into English as "Crazy Horse", I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

*See Lyrics.

Bush Busted For DWI

Official Lies Over Najaf Battle Exposed

Following up on Fixer's post about the recent "battle" at Najaf, IPS reports:

Iraqi government lies over the killing of hundreds of Shias in an attack on Sunday stand exposed by independent investigations carried out by IPS in Iraq.

Conflicting reports had arisen earlier on how and why a huge battle broke out around the small village Zarqa, located just a few kilometres northeast of the Shia holy city Najaf, which is 90 km south of Baghdad.

Tribal members from both believe the attack was launched by the central government of Baghdad to stifle growing Shia-Sunni unity in the area.

Ahmed, a member of the al-Khazali tribe said "our two tribes have a strong belief that Iranians are provoking sectarian war in Iraq which is against the belief of all Muslims, and so we announced an alliance with Sunni brothers against any sectarian violence in the country. That did not make our Iranian dominated government happy."

Iraq's national security advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaii said just 15 minutes after the MNS announcement that hundreds of Arab fighters had been killed, and that many had been arrested. Rubaii claimed there were Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans.

But Governor Khalil's office backed away from its initial claims after the dead turned out to be local Shia Iraqis. Iraqi security officials continue to contradict their own statements. Most officials now say that the dead were Shia extremists supported by foreign powers.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has a pattern of announcing it is fighting terrorists, like its backers in Washington. Many Iraqis in the south now accuse Baghdad of calling them terrorists simply because they refuse to collaborate with the Iranian dominated government.

True? Who knows? Disturbing? Yes.

Read the rest. It paints the terrible picture that our air assets are being used to commit political murder.

Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

I managed to get myself a commendation from the Strategic Air Command while holding one of the 3 desk jobs I've ever had. I had injured my back on the flightline and was on restricted duty, attached to the supply squadron, checking out tools and supplies to the maintenenance folks and making sure they brought them back in one piece (I was stark raving nuts after a month, homicidal after 6 weeks, and returned to duty).

My commendation was for noticing and documenting serious overcharging of the Air Force for basic supplies, rivets, tools, ass wipes; back in the day of the $700 toilet seats. I was bored and started digging through files to pass the time, go figure. The contractors who were ripping us off were declared 'off-limits' (their military contracts were revoked and forbidden from doing business with the military or military personnel in the future) and I was given a thousand dollar bonus (to an E-4 in 1985, that was a nice chunk o' change) for saving Uncle Sam millions. Had I found this, they'd have made me Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or at least Chief of Supply. Could you imagine me as a two or three star? Ha! I shudder at the thought. But do you think Blackwater, Dyncorp, Halliburton, or KBR will ever be declared 'off-limits'?

...

I suppose it comes as no surprise to learn that funds distributed by the anti-Democratic Party to its largest campaign donors were abused and mismanaged, but the expanse of waste and fraud is truly amazing.

...

Good Golly, How We'll Miss Molly

Arianna on Molly Ivins

"Molly had the most amazing sense of humor. Let's face, the girl was laugh out loud funny. But funny with a purpose. She really understood how to use satire as a political weapon in the tradition of Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift.

And on top of that, unlike so many of the smart-assed satirists of our day, she was a woman. A classy lady with a pair of brass cojones. For any fan of nerve, humor, and spunk, it was impossible not to adore her."

Impeachment - Observation and Prediction

Reading the blogs, and I read waaay too many, and following the main-stream and not so main-stream press, it has become apparent that the drumbeat for impeachment, actually for a double impeachment is growing louder on a daily basis. I predict that over the next 4 to 6 weeks the drumbeat will become so loud that it will no longer be able to be ignored and 2 impeachments will be very much "on the table". May it be done swiftly.

R.

Boom!

Pic thanks to Atrios.

Let those two twits go and chalk it up to a good exercise for your emergency response people. Good lord.