Saturday, January 13, 2007
Talk about the good stuff ...
Well, the good stuff doesn't matter when you hear things like this:
I been in Third World toilets where kids had to scavenge through trash dumps for used food to find the day's meal. These kids are having to scrounge dud and leftover ordnance to make the little money to feed themselves.
Remember, this isn't some African or Afghani backwater. This is the place where people tamed fire and invented the wheel. This is the place where up until 4 years ago, the streets of Baghdad resembled Manhattan more than they do post-WW2 Tokyo now. We have set these people back five hundred years thanks to the Chimp's illegal war.
I want you to read the whole post; learn what's been wrought in our name. Yeah, we've built schools and shit, but when a modern nation (regardless of what you thought of Saddam, Iraqi culture was more on par with the West than with their Middle East contemporaries) is reduced to having their children scrounging discarded ordnance or being sold to pedophiles, the bad far outweighs the good.
...
In the first incident in West Amarah three brothers Hussein Sabri Matanch (Aged 18) and Rafael Qasim (Aged 12) and Jasim (Aged 9) were trying to dismantle a mortar shell to get at the copper inside it so that they could sell it to scrap dealers. Here's how eyewitnesses to their deaths describe what happened ...
I been in Third World toilets where kids had to scavenge through trash dumps for used food to find the day's meal. These kids are having to scrounge dud and leftover ordnance to make the little money to feed themselves.
Remember, this isn't some African or Afghani backwater. This is the place where people tamed fire and invented the wheel. This is the place where up until 4 years ago, the streets of Baghdad resembled Manhattan more than they do post-WW2 Tokyo now. We have set these people back five hundred years thanks to the Chimp's illegal war.
I want you to read the whole post; learn what's been wrought in our name. Yeah, we've built schools and shit, but when a modern nation (regardless of what you thought of Saddam, Iraqi culture was more on par with the West than with their Middle East contemporaries) is reduced to having their children scrounging discarded ordnance or being sold to pedophiles, the bad far outweighs the good.
Saturday in the park
I'll blogwhore like the 4th of July*. Chapter 14 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.
*Apologies to Chicago.
Who dies
Remember how I said we missed everybody in Somalia? Well, here's who we didn't miss:
I wonder what those poor bastids thought before they died, when the night sky opened up like the Gates of Hell. I wonder if they thought they'd angered their gods? I wonder if they died thinking they'd done something so wrong, yet been totally unaware of. Buncha goatherders trying to be comfortable after a hard day's work. Something you and I do every day, and for that they died. They were killed in your name, to keep you safe from 'terrorists', and their blood is on your hands as well as mine. It will be unless we get these assholes out of the White House real soon.
The herdsmen had gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. But lit up by the flames, they became latest victims of America's war on terror.
It was their tragedy to be misidentified in a secret operation by special forces attempting to kill three top al-Qa'ida leaders in southern Somalia.
...
I wonder what those poor bastids thought before they died, when the night sky opened up like the Gates of Hell. I wonder if they thought they'd angered their gods? I wonder if they died thinking they'd done something so wrong, yet been totally unaware of. Buncha goatherders trying to be comfortable after a hard day's work. Something you and I do every day, and for that they died. They were killed in your name, to keep you safe from 'terrorists', and their blood is on your hands as well as mine. It will be unless we get these assholes out of the White House real soon.
Great thanks to Dr. Attaturk for the link,
2 F.U.s
President Bush's new operation to secure Baghdad will begin in earnest with a push by thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in the first week of February, and its chances of success should be evident within a few months, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told lawmakers yesterday.
If the plan works, the United States could begin drawing down troop levels by the end of the year, Gates said. If the Iraqi government does not deliver troops and political and economic support, he said, the United States could withhold many of the 21,500 additional troops Bush has ordered to secure the most violent parts of Iraq. [my em]
...
Hmmmm ... Didn't I hear this horseshit* from Rummy in 2003? I wonder what these guys are thinking now?
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey Army National Guard troops currently in Iraq will be staying an extra 125 days as part of President Bush's new policy to send more troops to the region, news that was met by anger from political leaders and disappointment from the troops' families.
A total of 159 troops from a reconnaissance unit and a battalion support unit will be affected, including 148 who are New Jersey residents; the others come from Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York.
...
I caught an interview with NJ Governor Corzine this morning, who's rightly pissed. He visited this very same unit a few months back and to a man they said they couldn't wait to get home. Well shut up, bend over, and take it, guys. You've got your President's legacy to protect.
Not only has the Chimp and his carnival of idiots brought our active duty forces to the breaking point, he's misused our citizen soldiers to the point of leaving us vulnerable at home.
Update:
And then there are the guys who are just losing it because they've been there too long:
... Between Christmas and New Year's 2006, five U.S. soldiers committed suicide after being informed they'd been ordered to serve an additional tour in Iraq ...
*Tip o' the Brain to Atrios for the link.
White House Dog Barney Resigns
"I'm not going down with this administration," Barney told press at a news conference on the front lawns of the White House at 11am EST today.
Barney, pictured left, told press, "the writing is on the wall. No way in the world am I going to become Dick Cheney's dog."
Meanwhile, Barney intends to devote himself to his favorite pastimes, which include rolling in fæces, licking his genitals and chewing on dead birds.
"The White House is a bit too loathsome for a dog like me," he told press, explaining his need to distance himself from politics.
"Last time I went hunting with Dick Cheney, he needed to lock himself away from the press for twenty-four hours while he sobered up. So you see, I have no plans at this stage on becoming his dog."
The vice-president, responding to Barney's remarks, told press: "F%#*ing dog $#%$ !#@! if he comes near me I'll *$#! shoot him, or my name isn't @%*! Cheney."
Barney used the press conference to promote his forthcoming autobiography, Bait and Switch: Peril on the White House Lawn.
From Brainsnap.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Desperation and oversight
You can tell the White House is desperate*. They're counting on Michelle Malkin "to fight the new media war".
Back to the real war. If you think Gord is the only one who knows Bush has to be stopped now, Colonel Murtha's got a surprise for you:
Most vets know this but for you others, don't piss off a stubborn old Marine.
Update:
More from Jim Webb on 'PlanB, C, D'.
And while these serious men try to undo the damage done to this nation, an idiot caves.
Back to the real war. If you think Gord is the only one who knows Bush has to be stopped now, Colonel Murtha's got a surprise for you:
...
Murtha announced his intention to use the power of the purse try and close US prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, eliminate the signing statements President Bush uses to secretly expand executive power and restrict the building of permanent bases in Iraq.
And starting February 17, Murtha will begin holding "extensive hearings" to block an escalation of the war in Iraq and ultimately redeploy US troops out of the conflict. Murtha predicts that a non-binding resolution criticizing Bush's expansion of the war would pass the Congress by a two to one vote. But he believes that only money, not words, will get the President's attention.
...
Most vets know this but for you others, don't piss off a stubborn old Marine.
Update:
More from Jim Webb on 'Plan
And while these serious men try to undo the damage done to this nation, an idiot caves.
*Link via Atrios.
No shit ...
Nicole at C & L:
Every time I called for 'Spectre' we needed to level something the size of a city block or two.
Seems we missed everybody we were gunning for in Somalia but we sure killed a buncha people.
First, the AC-130 is not a precision weapon in any practical term ...
Every time I called for 'Spectre' we needed to level something the size of a city block or two.
Seems we missed everybody we were gunning for in Somalia but we sure killed a buncha people.
Webb comes through for Vets
At last, something positive. What a relief...
Bob Geiger
This bill deserves to pass. A lot of today's combat Vets have a Hell of a lot more combat time than WWII or even Vietnam Vets. Those that don't, will, unless a miracle occurs. Even normally non-combat troops are in more peril than ever before. Combat or not, they are all in our service, however much we dislike what they are made to do, and we owe 'em big time.
This is a good one to write your legislators about. I did.
Bob Geiger
Keeping a promise he made on the campaign trail in 2006, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) did more for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on his first day in the Senate than the man he ousted, George Felix Allen, did in the entire previous Congress.
Going unnoticed in the frenzy of Democrats assuming control of Capitol Hill and George W. Bush seeking to plunge the country deeper into the Iraq quagmire, Webb introduced the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007, legislation that will provide the newest Veterans with educational benefits like those received by men and women who served in the three decades following World War II.
This bill deserves to pass. A lot of today's combat Vets have a Hell of a lot more combat time than WWII or even Vietnam Vets. Those that don't, will, unless a miracle occurs. Even normally non-combat troops are in more peril than ever before. Combat or not, they are all in our service, however much we dislike what they are made to do, and we owe 'em big time.
This is a good one to write your legislators about. I did.
A tip o' the Brain to WKMaier, one of Lurch's fine commenters.
Entitled Criminality
P.M. Carpenter
[The president's most revealing comments on his prosecution of the Iraq war came not on the air last night, but beforehand in a private confab with Congressional leaders.
In his speech, Mr. Bush spoke vaguely and inconclusively about the consequences of Prime Minister Maliki's failure to cooperate with the administration's "New Way Forward": "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people."
Seeing how the support of both fell through long ago, the remark was as baffling and empty as it was vague and inconclusive. But we're used to that, so let's forgo beating that dead horse among the accumulating herd of dead horses.
In his earlier White House meeting with Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and Congressional others, however, Mr. Bush, according to the New York Times, brusquely framed the same issue this way: "I said to Maliki this has to work or you're out." (So much for "free elections" - G.)
No more chances. No more bilateral negotiations with our own uncertain ally. No more Mr. Nice Guy permitting a sovereign nation to conduct its business with sovereignty. The prime minister either gets it right or he's gone -- presumably at the hands of an American-orchestrated coup.
The ultimatum says a lot about Mr. Bush's own sense of entitlement -- his inner assurance that he and he alone should be in charge and stay in charge of this mess, no matter how many times he fails, fails again and keeps on failing. After all, how many chances has the president had to get things right in Iraq? How many times has he covered failure, excused failure or promised success while mired in the abyss of certain failure?
Others are rightly subject to accountability and finality, was the one reasonable side of Mr. Bush's message. The other was that he, for reasons unproffered, is regally exempt from that human condition -- although the adverb "regally" is proffer enough, in his mind.
Another remark to Congressional leaders was even more revealing of the president's insular, bubbled mind. Asked time and again why this fourth or fifth "new way" would prove victorious when the past three or four haven't, Mr. Bush finally blurted: "Because it has to."
Simple as that. Reality be damned. We, meaning 150,000 human targets, are now fighting with the brigades of a hope and a wish and a prayer. The commander in chief can "will" victory and victory shall ensue.
Why? How? Well, simply "because it has to."
That's more than delusional, the frame of mind most commonly attributed to Mr. Bush. That's criminal negligence wrapped in fraudulent faith and served on a plate of pure, willful hokum.
Entitled criminality -- that's what we have in charge. And the ways in which Congress can unseat or deal with it are even more problematic than the war itself.]
Note to Congress: Just STOP the sonofabitch, any way you can.
Folks, if it appears like I've gone crazy over this shit, it's only because I've gone crazy over this shit.
[The president's most revealing comments on his prosecution of the Iraq war came not on the air last night, but beforehand in a private confab with Congressional leaders.
In his speech, Mr. Bush spoke vaguely and inconclusively about the consequences of Prime Minister Maliki's failure to cooperate with the administration's "New Way Forward": "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people."
Seeing how the support of both fell through long ago, the remark was as baffling and empty as it was vague and inconclusive. But we're used to that, so let's forgo beating that dead horse among the accumulating herd of dead horses.
In his earlier White House meeting with Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and Congressional others, however, Mr. Bush, according to the New York Times, brusquely framed the same issue this way: "I said to Maliki this has to work or you're out." (So much for "free elections" - G.)
No more chances. No more bilateral negotiations with our own uncertain ally. No more Mr. Nice Guy permitting a sovereign nation to conduct its business with sovereignty. The prime minister either gets it right or he's gone -- presumably at the hands of an American-orchestrated coup.
The ultimatum says a lot about Mr. Bush's own sense of entitlement -- his inner assurance that he and he alone should be in charge and stay in charge of this mess, no matter how many times he fails, fails again and keeps on failing. After all, how many chances has the president had to get things right in Iraq? How many times has he covered failure, excused failure or promised success while mired in the abyss of certain failure?
Others are rightly subject to accountability and finality, was the one reasonable side of Mr. Bush's message. The other was that he, for reasons unproffered, is regally exempt from that human condition -- although the adverb "regally" is proffer enough, in his mind.
Another remark to Congressional leaders was even more revealing of the president's insular, bubbled mind. Asked time and again why this fourth or fifth "new way" would prove victorious when the past three or four haven't, Mr. Bush finally blurted: "Because it has to."
Simple as that. Reality be damned. We, meaning 150,000 human targets, are now fighting with the brigades of a hope and a wish and a prayer. The commander in chief can "will" victory and victory shall ensue.
Why? How? Well, simply "because it has to."
That's more than delusional, the frame of mind most commonly attributed to Mr. Bush. That's criminal negligence wrapped in fraudulent faith and served on a plate of pure, willful hokum.
Entitled criminality -- that's what we have in charge. And the ways in which Congress can unseat or deal with it are even more problematic than the war itself.]
Note to Congress: Just STOP the sonofabitch, any way you can.
Folks, if it appears like I've gone crazy over this shit, it's only because I've gone crazy over this shit.
Did the president Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?
Again, The Washington Note:
So far, this is just a rumor, but experience leads me to believe the worst of Bush.
I'm not sure whether he is committing our suicide or our murder, but he is going to get an awful lot more people killed even than he already has. All in vain, for nothing but his own unbalanced vanity.
I'm gonna quit being nice about this: Bush is an evil insane sociopath and must be hauled out of the White House in irons - TODAY.
At the very least, will SecDef and the Brass PLEASE just stop doing what he says? It isn't mutiny, but rather a patriotic duty of the highest order. The motherfucker's CRAZY!
Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for further American action.
If this is the case, the debate about adding four brigades to Iraq is pathetic. The situation will get even hotter than it now is, worsening the American position and exposing the fact that to fight Iran both within the borders of Iraq and into Iranian territory, there are not enough troops in the theatre.
Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize.
So far, this is just a rumor, but experience leads me to believe the worst of Bush.
I'm not sure whether he is committing our suicide or our murder, but he is going to get an awful lot more people killed even than he already has. All in vain, for nothing but his own unbalanced vanity.
I'm gonna quit being nice about this: Bush is an evil insane sociopath and must be hauled out of the White House in irons - TODAY.
At the very least, will SecDef and the Brass PLEASE just stop doing what he says? It isn't mutiny, but rather a patriotic duty of the highest order. The motherfucker's CRAZY!
A Quiet Response to a presidential Visit
WaPo
Bush is still just running a campaign. He can't really make soldiers thunderously applaud, but he can easily make them attend his deluded lie-fests and keep them quiet. And they're useful for photo ops. Even dead ones.
Look for Bush to pretty much stick to military bases to promote his bullshit. They're the only safe places left for him.
The same thing happened to Lyndon Johnson - another parallel to Vietnam.
FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan. 11 -- The pictures were just what the White House wanted: A teary-eyed President Bush presenting the Medal of Honor posthumously to a slain war hero in the East Room, then flying here to join the chow line with camouflage-clad soldiers as some of them prepare to return to Iraq.
To ensure that there would be no discordant notes here, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the base commander, prohibited the 300 soldiers who had lunch with the president from talking with reporters. If any of them harbored doubts about heading back to Iraq, many for the third time, they were kept silent.
Bush is still just running a campaign. He can't really make soldiers thunderously applaud, but he can easily make them attend his deluded lie-fests and keep them quiet. And they're useful for photo ops. Even dead ones.
Look for Bush to pretty much stick to military bases to promote his bullshit. They're the only safe places left for him.
The same thing happened to Lyndon Johnson - another parallel to Vietnam.
Bush Makes Same Mistake Twice
Via The Washington Note:
Bush has gone crazy. The Afghanistan campaign should have been the focus all along and deserves to succeed. He's widening his war in order to lose it on all fronts.
As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.
Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.
According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.
"We anticipate significant events there next spring," said Tata.
Bush has gone crazy. The Afghanistan campaign should have been the focus all along and deserves to succeed. He's widening his war in order to lose it on all fronts.
The president who cried wolf
Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' on the Chimp's latest outrage. Transcript and Video. Do not miss it.
This list goes on and on and is mesmerizing on video. Beautiful!
Again, do not miss this one. Also at Crooks and Liars.
Bush's strategy fails because it depends on his credibility.
And to Iran and Syria - and, yes, also to the insurgents in Iraq - we must look like a country run by the equivalent of the drunken pest who gets battered to the floor of the saloon by one punch, then staggers to his feet, and shouts at the other guy's friends, "Ok, which one of you is next?"
I read this list last night, before the president's speech, and it bears repeating because its shape and texture are perceptible only in such a context.
Before Mr. Bush was elected, he said nation-building was wrong for America.
Now he says it is vital.
He said he would never put U.S. troops under foreign control.
Last night he promised to embed them in Iraqi units.
He told us about WMD.
Mobile labs.
Secret sources.
Aluminum tubes.
Yellow-cake.
This list goes on and on and is mesmerizing on video. Beautiful!
And after all of that, now it is his credibility versus that of generals, diplomats, allies, Democrats, Republicans, the Iraq Study Group, past presidents, voters last November and the majority of the American people.
Oh, and one more to add, tonight: Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.
Mr. Bush, this is madness.
This becomes your legacy, sir: How many of those you addressed last night as your "fellow citizens" you just sent to their deaths.
And for what, Mr. Bush?
So the next president has to pull the survivors out of Iraq instead of you?
Again, do not miss this one. Also at Crooks and Liars.
Quote of the Day
Moderate:
Off to work ...
By the way...congratulations Messrs. Kristol, Kagan and Joseph on your overwhelming success. Our soon-to-be-dead children thank you also...
Off to work ...
Parallels
You know how, when I start going off about something, I break into my usual rant of: "I've lived all over the world and can say that people are more alike than different"? Of course you do, I never shut up about it. Our pal Scout Prime understands that too and draws some striking parallels between Baghdad and NOLA after the Bush administration began 'working hard' on their behalf.
Translations
Especially in this time, we really need to know what our Preznit is telling us. Since you can't figure out anything once his lips start moving, comedian Elayne Boosler compiled a list of words the White House uses and translates them into stuff reg'ler folks like you and me can understand:
Lots more on her post. Heh ...
...
Strategy = Pin the Tail on the Donkey
Mission= Quagmire
Mission Accomplished= Premature Evacuation
Mandate= 29%
Sectarian violence= Civil war
...
Habeus Corpus= So 1776
9/11? = 9/11
Family values = One million Iraqi dead
Abortion is murder= One million Iraqi dead
Stem cell research is murder=Three thousand Americans dead
Culture of life= Three thousand Americans dead
Iraqis are free= Except the women
...
Lots more on her post. Heh ...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
U.S. Troops Raid Iranian Consulate in Iraq
The dumb sonofabitch is already trying to start a war with Iran. WaPo:
I don't care much for Iran's aid against the US in Iraq, but I certainly understand it. Iraq is well within their sphere of influence, being right next door and all.
Blow up the trucks carrying war materiél, arrest or kill their agents, sure, but don't invade their goddam consulate, fer chrissakes! That's like invading their home turf.
I hope the Iranians are smart enough and cool enough not to rise to Bush's bait. So far, so good.
Hey, I got an idea! There are Kurds in Iran as well as in Iraq. Put some dead Iraqi Kurdish criminals in Iranian military uniforms and display their corpses near a car bomb that killed GIs with the detonator in their hands. That's pretty much how Hitler justified invading Poland to start WWII in Europe. Nobody'll remember.
Bush has to go NOW, head first or feet first, makes no difference.
U.S. troops raided an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq late Wednesday night and detained several people, Iran's main news agency reported today, prompting protests from Tehran just hours after President Bush pledged to crack down on the Islamic Republic's role in Iraqi violence.
Iran released news of the raid through its Islamic Republic News Agency in a dispatch that was broadly critical of Bush's plan to deploy about 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
The IRNA report said that U.S. forces entered the Iranian consulate in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdish-dominated north, and seized computers, documents and other items. The report said five staff members were taken into custody.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry appealed to the Iraqi government to obtain the release of its personnel.
I don't care much for Iran's aid against the US in Iraq, but I certainly understand it. Iraq is well within their sphere of influence, being right next door and all.
Blow up the trucks carrying war materiél, arrest or kill their agents, sure, but don't invade their goddam consulate, fer chrissakes! That's like invading their home turf.
I hope the Iranians are smart enough and cool enough not to rise to Bush's bait. So far, so good.
Hey, I got an idea! There are Kurds in Iran as well as in Iraq. Put some dead Iraqi Kurdish criminals in Iranian military uniforms and display their corpses near a car bomb that killed GIs with the detonator in their hands. That's pretty much how Hitler justified invading Poland to start WWII in Europe. Nobody'll remember.
Bush has to go NOW, head first or feet first, makes no difference.
Your local government ...
Or at least my local government. Over the past few weeks, I've had some legal issues pertaining to the ownership of my house. Basically whether my parents' divorce was filed properly, and my mother had sole ownership of the house I currently live in at the time of her death. Their divorce was final in 1983, my father is deceased 15 years, my mother 11, and in New York, I can't get into their divorce record without a court order (an avenue which time will not allow me to pursue). So for the past few weeks, I've had to chase this down indirectly. This chase has led me from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, to the Court of Suffolk County, to local courts, and back.
In all this, dealing with countless court officers and civil servants on every level, all I can say is that I am pleasantly surprised. I was given courtesy and helpfulness on a scale I thought government employees totally incapable of. I thank you all for your help and I'm sorry for harboring the misconception that most of you were cynical, apathetic, and bad tempered. You made my task far easier than I expected and I am extremely grateful.
In all this, dealing with countless court officers and civil servants on every level, all I can say is that I am pleasantly surprised. I was given courtesy and helpfulness on a scale I thought government employees totally incapable of. I thank you all for your help and I'm sorry for harboring the misconception that most of you were cynical, apathetic, and bad tempered. You made my task far easier than I expected and I am extremely grateful.
Is Bush calling for genocide?
This may be a little tinfoil-hattish, but that's never stopped me. From xymphora:
Maybe so, maybe no.
One thing I find horribly ironic is that Bush is backing al Maliki, a weak politician at the head of a weak non-representative (of the Iraqi people, anyway) government, who remains tenuously in place at the suffrance of al Sadr and his Mahdi militia. By attempting to quell a Sunni insurgency, Bush is in effect helping al Sadr and thus aiding and abetting Iranian influence in Iraq at the same time he is threatening to go to war with Iran.
Those people are all going to be there when we leave, one year or a hundred years. Sorta like this other place I dimly remember from my youth...
Bush has set these folks up beautifully to have it out with one another over who gets control. If there's gonna be any re-arranging of the Middle East, the Middle Easterners are the ones who will do it.
Let's leave and let 'em have at it. When things quiet down a little in a hundred years, or a thousand, we can go back. If we want to. If they'll let us.
The 'surge' is itself another Bush lie. The Pentagon doesn't have the troops, so the 'increase' will just be Pentagon crooked bookkeeping (crooked bookkeeping is something the Pentagon is good at). The real plan is much worse. It is a covert change in the rules of engagement. [...]
This is coded language, but not difficult to read. Bush is calling for genocide against the Sunnis. He is following the recommendation of John Podhoretz in the New York Post (note that Uruknet misattributes this to John Podhoretz's almost equally vile father; the most infamous line is in red [bold]):
"What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?
If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?"
Now we can imagine Bush issuing such an order. We will also see the Americans go medieval on the Sunnis in Anbar (who are called 'al Qaeda'). Just to confirm who is running things, there is a tiny reference in Bush's speech to more for Israel:
"We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defence systems to reassure our friends and allies."
Patriot air defense systems deployed in Iraq would protect Israel from attacks from where? You do the geometry. If Israel wants to try something awful, it would not want to face any kind of counterattack.
The neocons have been lying in the weeds, pretending to have been soundly defeated by the all-powerful American Establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bush's speech could have been - and probably was - written by Bill Kristol. The Zionist Plan for the Middle East continues, with the next step ensuring that Iraq breaks up. You have to wonder what the Saudis, who have expressed concern about Shi'ite influence, will think about an American campaign of genocide against Sunnis. You have to wonder what the American Establishment, too decadent and weak to defend itself, will do when much of its wealth is destroyed.
Maybe so, maybe no.
One thing I find horribly ironic is that Bush is backing al Maliki, a weak politician at the head of a weak non-representative (of the Iraqi people, anyway) government, who remains tenuously in place at the suffrance of al Sadr and his Mahdi militia. By attempting to quell a Sunni insurgency, Bush is in effect helping al Sadr and thus aiding and abetting Iranian influence in Iraq at the same time he is threatening to go to war with Iran.
Those people are all going to be there when we leave, one year or a hundred years. Sorta like this other place I dimly remember from my youth...
Bush has set these folks up beautifully to have it out with one another over who gets control. If there's gonna be any re-arranging of the Middle East, the Middle Easterners are the ones who will do it.
Let's leave and let 'em have at it. When things quiet down a little in a hundred years, or a thousand, we can go back. If we want to. If they'll let us.
Deadly Embrace
MoDo at Tennessee Guerilla Women.
I got a hunch it's gonna end up for Bush the same way it always does - lyin' on the hotel bed alone, watchin' porn with his dick in his hand, too drunk to get it up, and blamin' his date.
While people die.
My colleague Tom Friedman (yeah, yeah, button it - G.) wrote last week: "Whenever I hear this surge idea, I think of a couple who recently got married but the marriage was never very solid. Then one day they say to each other, 'Hey, let's have a baby, that will bring us together.' It never works. If the underlying union is not there, adding a baby won't help."
Some women say that the Surge will not work because it's like starting over with an old boyfriend: you think you've learned the pitfalls and can resume with more success - you can set benchmarks! - but instead you're swiftly ensnared by the same old failures. And the most maddening romances, of course, are those in which you think you have the power, you should have the power, but somehow in the end, you don't have the power.
With the Surge, as with the invasion of Iraq, W. is like the presumptuous date "who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom," as my friend Dana Calvo put it.
Teddy Kennedy gave a speech at the National Press Club yesterday about his new legislation that would require Congressional approval before troop levels can be increased. Afterward, he was asked if he would try to block the escalation with an amendment to an upcoming Iraq spending request.
"The horse will be out of the barn by the time we get there," Senator Kennedy replied. "The president makes his speech now. We're going to get the appropriation request probably the end of January, early February." He said it could take eight more weeks for Congress to act. "By that time, the troops will already be there," he said. "And then we'll be asked, are we going to deny the body armor to the young men and women over there?"
In other words, the president will ask us to the prom once he reserves the hotel room.
I got a hunch it's gonna end up for Bush the same way it always does - lyin' on the hotel bed alone, watchin' porn with his dick in his hand, too drunk to get it up, and blamin' his date.
While people die.
Shuttle Without Diplomacy
Go read Sidney Blumenthal on how Bush's Titanic and Condi's Ship of Fools State are team-ramming the same iceberg.
I worship at Fixer's feet too, but I ain't gonna let him poke me there!
Nine days after Zelikow's resignation the Iraq Study Group report was released. Informed correspondents of the Washington Post and New York Times related in conversation that Bush furiously called the report "a flaming turd," (my em) but his colorful remark was not published. Perhaps it was apocryphal. Nonetheless, it conveyed the intensity of his hostile rejection. Still, Scowcroft and Baker, like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot," waited for Rice.
The State Department has been completely sidelined in the making of Bush's latest and last policy on Iraq. Its experience in the Balkans remains thoroughly ignored. And Rice does nothing to call it to Bush's attention, for that would require her to point out his shortcomings. The State Department founders like a ghost ship. Rice meanders back and forth to and from the Middle East, the shuttle without the diplomacy.
After twice rejecting the job of deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, was implored to accept it. In exchanging a Cabinet post for a sub-Cabinet one, a position of policymaking for an administrative post, Negroponte excited rumors that he would only have decided to make the switch if he believed that Rice would eventually leave and he would ascend to her job. But, once again, the logic of that Washington gossip is merely rational. Rice the irrelevancy remains Bush's indispensable devotee.
I worship at Fixer's feet too, but I ain't gonna let him poke me there!
Defiance and delusion
Man, do I ever love The Guardian! Unlimited, indeed!
The sorta strange part is that Bush himself gaffed the bones to only roll snake-eyes and yet he's got our ass ridin' on the pass line like they're gonna miraculously natural up. What an idiot.
What Bush and the wingnuts know about 'honour' would fit in a gnat's ass.
I think the presidential candidate that promises to end it during his inauguration speech will have a good shot at the White House.
George Bush's announcement last night that he is going to pour more troops into Iraq was the last throw of the dice in a misconceived enterprise that has dragged his country, this country and the Middle East into a nightmare. [...]
The sorta strange part is that Bush himself gaffed the bones to only roll snake-eyes and yet he's got our ass ridin' on the pass line like they're gonna miraculously natural up. What an idiot.
In opting for a troop surge, Mr Bush has ignored the message of the mid-term elections, the Iraq Study Group, Congress, his own top generals and most world opinion. US generals have difficulty enough maintaining current levels of combat-ready troops and are not convinced that more troops will make any difference. Rather than listen to them, Mr Bush has turned to the right, to those who argue that honour and the America's national interests require fighting on. One senses that "honour" is the more important of the two.
What Bush and the wingnuts know about 'honour' would fit in a gnat's ass.
Back at home, the president is almost alone. Only senator John McCain, the leading Republican candidate to replace Mr Bush, and Joe Lieberman, on the right of the Democrats, support his plan. Queuing up to oppose him, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and senator Edward Kennedy have all said that they intend to hold symbolic votes on the plan. They cannot overrule a decision by the commander-in-chief, but they can isolate him. There could be as many as 10 Republican defections in the Senate. The Democrats have turned up the volume of their moral outrage, presumably because they think Mr Bush will not be able to hold the line with the latest announcement. In most people's minds, the argument for withdrawal, however gradual, has already been won. The only issue that remains is how quickly it happens.
I think the presidential candidate that promises to end it during his inauguration speech will have a good shot at the White House.
The Real Disaster
NYTimes
We are not going to get out of the dishonorable mess Bush has caused us to be in by thinking we can let the same man who started it try to end it using the same mindset that started it. He doesn't want to end it as long as he thinks he can salvage his "legacy".
Whether or not he gets to try to widen his war to Syria and Iran, whether or not his friends continue to reap vast wealth by stealing Iraq's riches and our tax money, no matter the eventual disastrous outcome of the whole deal, Bush's legacy is set in stone: like an ignorant, petulant little kid, he lit a fuse that may yet reach the powder keg that will blow up half the world. The results aren't all in yet, won't be for years, but Bush did it.
Anyone who thinks we are going to "win" anything, or "succeed" in this vast criminal endeavor is drinking his bathwater. It is lost. It has failed. There has never been and will never be any other possible outcome. The decision to invade Iraq, which was no threat to us, was immoral to begin with and handled in the most incompetent way it possibly could have been. Garbage in, garbage out.
It's what we get, deserve even, for allowing this human garbage to be installed in the White House. The one lesson we may have learned from Bush's poisonous reign is that we need to watch like a hawk lest some future insane idealogues ever try to hijack our country again.
We have one thing in common with Iraq: we've both been screwed by Bush and the neocons. Those are the enemies we need to deal with here at home. Iraq must do what Iraq must do. We need to be out of it.
Our troops will continue to die and be maimed for life mentally and physically, and even more families will suffer, all in vain, all for this bully's ego, until someone physically removes this horrid little man from the position of power that allowed and continues to allow him to perpetrate his madness.
President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.
Americans needed to hear a clear plan to extricate United States troops from the disaster that Mr. Bush created. What they got was more gauzy talk of victory in the war on terrorism and of creating a "young democracy" in Iraq. In other words, a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one.
Mr. Bush did acknowledge that some of his previous tactics had failed. But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq. He described the failure of last year's effort to pacify Baghdad as if the White House and the Pentagon bore no responsibility.
In any case, Mr. Bush's excuses were tragically inadequate. The nation needs an eyes-wide-open recognition that the only goal left is to get the U.S. military out of this civil war in a way that could minimize the slaughter of Iraqis and reduce the chances that the chaos Mr. Bush unleashed will engulf Iraq's neighbors.
What it certainly did not need were more of Mr. Bush's open-ended threats to Iran and Syria.
We have argued that the United States has a moral obligation to stay in Iraq as long as there is a chance to mitigate the damage that a quick withdrawal might cause. We have called for an effort to secure Baghdad, but as part of the sort of comprehensive political solution utterly lacking in Mr. Bush's speech. This war has reached the point that merely prolonging it could make a bad ending even worse. Without a real plan to bring it to a close, there is no point in talking about jobs programs and military offensives. There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq.
We are not going to get out of the dishonorable mess Bush has caused us to be in by thinking we can let the same man who started it try to end it using the same mindset that started it. He doesn't want to end it as long as he thinks he can salvage his "legacy".
Whether or not he gets to try to widen his war to Syria and Iran, whether or not his friends continue to reap vast wealth by stealing Iraq's riches and our tax money, no matter the eventual disastrous outcome of the whole deal, Bush's legacy is set in stone: like an ignorant, petulant little kid, he lit a fuse that may yet reach the powder keg that will blow up half the world. The results aren't all in yet, won't be for years, but Bush did it.
Anyone who thinks we are going to "win" anything, or "succeed" in this vast criminal endeavor is drinking his bathwater. It is lost. It has failed. There has never been and will never be any other possible outcome. The decision to invade Iraq, which was no threat to us, was immoral to begin with and handled in the most incompetent way it possibly could have been. Garbage in, garbage out.
It's what we get, deserve even, for allowing this human garbage to be installed in the White House. The one lesson we may have learned from Bush's poisonous reign is that we need to watch like a hawk lest some future insane idealogues ever try to hijack our country again.
We have one thing in common with Iraq: we've both been screwed by Bush and the neocons. Those are the enemies we need to deal with here at home. Iraq must do what Iraq must do. We need to be out of it.
Our troops will continue to die and be maimed for life mentally and physically, and even more families will suffer, all in vain, all for this bully's ego, until someone physically removes this horrid little man from the position of power that allowed and continues to allow him to perpetrate his madness.
"Surge"
So, fortunately I didn't catch the Chimp's speech before I went to bed. Caught the lowlights when I woke up. 20,000 more for the meat grinder is the bottom line.
Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy is delusional. Good officers, men who've led others in combat, men who've been educated in the art of war and baptized under fire have told him that "several hundred thousand" would be required to secure Iraq after we invaded. (See: Shinseki, Eric General)
If several hundred thousand were required to keep Iraq from decending into the mess we're in now, it will take far more than that to dig us out from it now. 20,000 troops are a drop in the bucket; the best we can hope for are short-term successes in certain neighborhoods, but one Friedman Unit from now, we'll all be asking what this 'surge' actually accomplished.
It will accomplish a few things. It will extend tours for troops already on extended tours. It will draw more National Guard and Reserve units into the war, thus degrading our response time to emergencies over here that much more. It will probably break our Army and Marine Corps. It will hinder or destroy our military's ability to respond to another crisis somewhere else in the world. It will affect recruiting efforts, already has. And it will further marginalize us in the international community.
And the bodies will continue to come home as will the wounded. This 'surge' tells us all there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel except for an oncoming train. We will continue to sacrifice our young and our money on the altar of George Bush's legacy, one that is irreparably tarnished and dented. Last night, George Bush said he cares nothing for your children's lives, your hard-earned money, or your security.
He does not care if our soldiers live or die, for he will never know what the families of the dead go through when a plain Ford Crown Victoria pulls up in front of the house and two officers step out, one of them a chaplain. He will never know what they go through as they have to break the news to the next of kin. He will not know what the honor guard commander goes through when he has to present the folded American flag to a grieving widow, mother, or child, nor what the person who is grieving goes through when the rifle team renders a 21-gun salute, when the bugler plays Taps, when the coffin is lowered into the ground.
He will never know that because his daughters are safe and he avoided combat during wartime. George Bush must pay for this and the rest of his sins. He must not be allowed to avoid responsibility, as he has done throughout his life, for cavalierly squandering American lives and treasure. I want him out and will not be satisfied with a Nixonian departure, no ride off into the Texas sunset. I want to see his psychotic ass in a prison jumpsuit.
Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy is delusional. Good officers, men who've led others in combat, men who've been educated in the art of war and baptized under fire have told him that "several hundred thousand" would be required to secure Iraq after we invaded. (See: Shinseki, Eric General)
If several hundred thousand were required to keep Iraq from decending into the mess we're in now, it will take far more than that to dig us out from it now. 20,000 troops are a drop in the bucket; the best we can hope for are short-term successes in certain neighborhoods, but one Friedman Unit from now, we'll all be asking what this 'surge' actually accomplished.
It will accomplish a few things. It will extend tours for troops already on extended tours. It will draw more National Guard and Reserve units into the war, thus degrading our response time to emergencies over here that much more. It will probably break our Army and Marine Corps. It will hinder or destroy our military's ability to respond to another crisis somewhere else in the world. It will affect recruiting efforts, already has. And it will further marginalize us in the international community.
And the bodies will continue to come home as will the wounded. This 'surge' tells us all there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel except for an oncoming train. We will continue to sacrifice our young and our money on the altar of George Bush's legacy, one that is irreparably tarnished and dented. Last night, George Bush said he cares nothing for your children's lives, your hard-earned money, or your security.
He does not care if our soldiers live or die, for he will never know what the families of the dead go through when a plain Ford Crown Victoria pulls up in front of the house and two officers step out, one of them a chaplain. He will never know what they go through as they have to break the news to the next of kin. He will not know what the honor guard commander goes through when he has to present the folded American flag to a grieving widow, mother, or child, nor what the person who is grieving goes through when the rifle team renders a 21-gun salute, when the bugler plays Taps, when the coffin is lowered into the ground.
He will never know that because his daughters are safe and he avoided combat during wartime. George Bush must pay for this and the rest of his sins. He must not be allowed to avoid responsibility, as he has done throughout his life, for cavalierly squandering American lives and treasure. I want him out and will not be satisfied with a Nixonian departure, no ride off into the Texas sunset. I want to see his psychotic ass in a prison jumpsuit.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
On Bush's Speech
First of all, it ties my stomach in knots and makes me cuss out loud to watch that sonofabitch lie to us, so I didn't watch his act. I did, however, listen to the gasbags dissect what he said. Here is my conclusion:
He has changed his Iraq strategy - he came out with a whole new set of delusions and admitted the old ones didn't work.
Damn, I'll be glad when this Iraq clusterfuck is over enough that our troops are out of harm's way. Then we can go after that miserable little prick for lying us into this mess in the first place. And the horse he rode in on.
He has changed his Iraq strategy - he came out with a whole new set of delusions and admitted the old ones didn't work.
Damn, I'll be glad when this Iraq clusterfuck is over enough that our troops are out of harm's way. Then we can go after that miserable little prick for lying us into this mess in the first place. And the horse he rode in on.
A little math...
From Counterpunch:
Go read. They're planning to.
Passing the grim marker of 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq briefly focused Americans' attention on the war. But we live in a big country with lots of malls.
But what if our fellow citizens were killed and wounded at the same rate as people in Iraq? Here's the math.
Last fall the British medical journal "Lancet" published a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of Iraqis dead "as a consequence of the war" was about 2.5 percent of that country's population, or roughly 655,000 people. Over 90% of those died from violence.
Comparable casualty rates in our country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia would be dead. Every. Single. Person.
And we are just now getting serious about cutting off money for this war?
Besides that unimaginable death toll, every person in Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Colorado would be wounded. Every. Single. Person.
Would that be the point we stopped politely asking our Congress members to please end the war, and began taking over their offices in every state in the union?
Go read. They're planning to.
Little Mosque On The Prairie
There's a lotta TV news today. This one's from Canuckistan. BBC News:
That leaves me speechless. I gotta call my cable company and see if they can get CBC. I hope this show is as funny as Will and Grace!
Go see the reaction from some Canadian Muslims.
Maybe some American TV hotshot will do a spinoff about U.S. fundies trying to assimilate in L.A. Better yet, Frisco. Nah. Never happen. First, they ain't funny, and second, there'd be Hell to pay. They take themselves too seriously, but it'd be a hoot for the rest of us to poke fun at 'em.
I'm with a group of surprised camels, a 300lb chicken shwarma and a bemused comedy writer in a wintry, wet Toronto square.
We're here for the launch of CBC's new sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, which depicts a Muslim community trying to assimilate in a small prairie town.
That leaves me speechless. I gotta call my cable company and see if they can get CBC. I hope this show is as funny as Will and Grace!
Go see the reaction from some Canadian Muslims.
Maybe some American TV hotshot will do a spinoff about U.S. fundies trying to assimilate in L.A. Better yet, Frisco. Nah. Never happen. First, they ain't funny, and second, there'd be Hell to pay. They take themselves too seriously, but it'd be a hoot for the rest of us to poke fun at 'em.
Reality TV?
I hope so. From the Yorkshire Post:
Oh, tish poo! I'm sure the Secret Service is used to that!
A fleshed-out review appears at This is London.
Set in 2010, The Trial Of Tony Blair, starring Robert Lindsay, sees the former premier plagued by nightmares about the war and fears that he will be killed by a suicide bomber.
Viewers of the More4 drama will also see Mr Blair convert to Catholicism to seek forgiveness for his sins.
Yesterday Lindsay, who also starred as the Prime Minister in the drama A Very Social Secretary, said he took the role because he was angry over the Iraq war.He said: "I still think it's an illegal war and has been a huge mistake and it's not going to get any better."
In the drama, which is to be broadcast on Monday, George Bush is in rehabilitation after being discovered comatose at his ranch.
Oh, tish poo! I'm sure the Secret Service is used to that!
A fleshed-out review appears at This is London.
The least worst choice
Sally Quinn on growing up as an army brat during the Korean War and how it affected her as a child. Worth a read.
Here's the money line about the upcoming escalation in Iraq:
The problem with the least immoral choice is that the choice will be made by the most immoral president in our history.
Here's the money line about the upcoming escalation in Iraq:
We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.
The problem with the least immoral choice is that the choice will be made by the most immoral president in our history.
Vote Vets
Brother D has the details:
...
Please take a moment to read two very important pieces on this issue, describing why an escalation of the war is potentially very dangerous. First, this piece by VoteVets.org advisory board member, former General Wesley Clark. General Clark clearly lays out all the reasons why the president's escalation won't help secure Iraq and transition the US out. Second, please read this piece that I penned on why the proposed boost, along with other changes in Iraq, could signal the intention to launch an attack on Iran, and further destabilize the region, threatening US security.
...
Reality check ...
While we've all been ecastatic over the Dem victory in November, it's time for a dose of reality. Paradox over at Steve Soto's place has a well thought out scenario of what's probably gonna happen as we move forward:
Good points (and more in the rest of the post), though not what most of us want to hear. That said, we can do something the Rethugs probably can't; work within the existing reality to affect change. The idea is to keep on the Dems' ass to do the right thing, and those of us with Rethug reps should hound 'em, reminding them they will have to face reelection sooner or later.
...Assuming the Democrats got 51 votes for a bill to stop the war (one hell of an assumption), are there 16 Senate Republican votes to override the veto? Dream on. Assuming there is, what happens when Bush flatly orders the Army and Marines to stay in the war anyway even if there isn't any money? As CIC he can make them do that. What would the Joint Chiefs do then?
Congress isn't going to stop the war with bills that cut off funding, just forget it, it's naive and counter-productive to espouse they can. The Democrats are not capable of it, period, the Republicans will not go along and already a very hostile media environment is framing the election as one that "...reflected a desire among the American people for the congress to stop fighting and work together." Yes, that's our American "journalism" corps, such shining warriors of Truth.
...
Good points (and more in the rest of the post), though not what most of us want to hear. That said, we can do something the Rethugs probably can't; work within the existing reality to affect change. The idea is to keep on the Dems' ass to do the right thing, and those of us with Rethug reps should hound 'em, reminding them they will have to face reelection sooner or later.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
They write themselves ...
This is why today's "Quote of the Day" post is so apt. These idiots are ruining irony, satire, and political cartoons.
Tip o' the Brain to Digby.
Good luck!!!
Our esteemed colleague, mother figure, and conscience here at the Brain, the Angry Old Broad, is going to be waterboarded at Guantanamo, being rendered to a secret CIA prison camp in the Balkans, going to have oral surgery tomorrow. We wish her well and a speedy recovery. Good luck, AOB!
Gimmie an 'O' ...
Or, how the Chimp measures 'victory' in Eye Rack:
Mission Accomplished.
Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972. [my ems]
...
Mission Accomplished.
Thanks to the lovely Pam Spaulding for the link.
Redirection
Fixer, in his infinite and no doubt painfully acquired wisdom, had the foresight to set up a backup blog to cover a Blogger transition. Transition or not, Blogger was down big time this morning, but the backup was there!
As every military person knows, you should always have a 'tactical' and a 'running spare' of just about anything. In some circles, that is called 'one to shit on and one to cover it up with', but the outcome is the same.
To see my today-so-far posts, please make the painless trip to HQ. You'll be glad you did. Or not. Go.
As every military person knows, you should always have a 'tactical' and a 'running spare' of just about anything. In some circles, that is called 'one to shit on and one to cover it up with', but the outcome is the same.
To see my today-so-far posts, please make the painless trip to HQ. You'll be glad you did. Or not. Go.
Bottom line
Glenn Greenwald:
This surge in Iraq is gonna be a fizzle. They can't scare up enough troops, according to Greenwald 9000 is about it, and less and less of America's youngsters (the Yellow Elephants sure ain't going) are willing to sacrifice their bodies and minds, maybe even their souls, for a lost cause.
Time to leave, one way or another.
...
But the current situation is completely different. Even according to the war's remaining advocates -- particularly those who want to escalate in Iraq -- there is a serious and harmful shortage of willing volunteers to fight in Iraq and to enable a more aggressive application of U.S. military force generally. So we do now have a situation where those who are cheering on more war and escalation really are needed not at the computer screen but on the battlefield, in combat. And their refusal to fight is actually impeding the plans of those on whom the President is relying for "Victory."
...
This surge in Iraq is gonna be a fizzle. They can't scare up enough troops, according to Greenwald 9000 is about it, and less and less of America's youngsters (the Yellow Elephants sure ain't going) are willing to sacrifice their bodies and minds, maybe even their souls, for a lost cause.
Time to leave, one way or another.
Like the high tide ...
Digby looks at the hypocrisy of the Rethugs' whining. I just pray the American people (whom I have little faith in after they gave us the past 6 years of Bush and the Rubber Stamp Congress) will see these assholes as spoiled, whiny ass babies:
I wonder how successful the Republicans would be in '08 if right at this minute, instead of playing all these bullshit political games with everything, actually did work in a bipartisan manner with Dems? As I said, I have little faith in the public, but I'm hoping the majority will see this for what it is; gamesmanship and the health of the nation be damned.
...
This has been going on almost as long as I can remember, from Nixon's crimes to Reagan/Bush and the Savings and Loan scandals and Iran Contra and now Bush Jr and well... everything. Every time they did it, the establishment watched these people rape the nation and then got all misty eyed for civility and healing and forced the Democrats to not only clean up the mess, but take unbelievable abuse while they did it. This has got to stop.
...
I wonder how successful the Republicans would be in '08 if right at this minute, instead of playing all these bullshit political games with everything, actually did work in a bipartisan manner with Dems? As I said, I have little faith in the public, but I'm hoping the majority will see this for what it is; gamesmanship and the health of the nation be damned.
...
Update: Jesus H. Christ. You just can't win with these people. John Boehner asks the Democrats to let him go to the Ohio State game today along with a bunch of other politicians and in the spirit of comity, the Democrats said yes. Now they are being slammed for being hypocrites because they have gone back on their pledge to work five days a week. Had they said no to Boehner, they would have been slammed for not allowing him to cheer on his team in the big game.
...
Monday, January 8, 2007
Quote of the Day
Shakes on McCain:
...
Either way, the contemptible old duffer needs to shuffle his pathetic ass off to a much-needed retirement in Arizona, where he can sit on the patio of his semi-detached independent senior living cottage all day writing Memoirs of Bush's Geisha, and where a sun-baked brain can serve as an excuse for any further such wanton idiocy.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
Go see the chart at the bottom of page two.
BUSH WILL SEND 20,000 IMPERIAL TROOPERS TO IRAQ
Surge represents first stage of Operation Empire Strikes Back.
Given They Knew Then What They Know Now, 57 Senators Wouldn't Have Voted for War
Given they know now what they'll know 12 months from now, 100 wouldn't have voted for it.
Oil Companies Express Alarm, Concern About Global Warming
Following precipitous drop in demand for home heating oil.
Administration Suggests Polar Bears Be Added to Endangered Species List
If executive branch is granted immunity from all prosecution.
Democrats Outline Bold Agenda
Go see the chart at the bottom of page two.
We Have a Sociopath as President
Like, DUH! A BuzzFlash interview with Justin A. Frank MD, author of "Bush on the Couch":
That's just part of the lead-in. Interview follows.
Well, that's just too goddam bad. The collapse of the United States will be a terrible thing for the rest of us, but since Bush can't make a mistake, I guess it'll be our own goddam fault.
Don't worry. He'll blame everyone, anyone, but himself.
It'll be the fault in part of the teeny-brained majority that actually sort of elected him in 2004. You're going to sow what you reaped.
And so will the rest of us. Thanks again, assholes.
I know crazy people. There's nothing wrong with being crazy, but when you combine crazy with evilness and stubbornness and a parallel universe in the most powerful office in the world, no good is going to come of it, as we are seeing.
I think what he does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn't matter whether it's actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he'd have to defy. -- Justin A. Frank, M.D.
A sociopath is someone (to grossly generalize) who exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others. In fact, a sociopath may take hidden pleasure in being able to cause emotional distress, suffering, and even death to others, while -- on a day to day basis -- appearing as Mr. Affability.
That, you might say, fits Bush to a "T." And that, you might say, is why he is willing to have everyone sacrifice for his own sociopathological "goals" (as unarticulated as they may be to even Bush) except for himself, his family, and friends.
We have a sociopath who has his hands on the steering wheel of America -- and that is a very dangerous thing indeed.
That's just part of the lead-in. Interview follows.
BuzzFlash: But he was quoted as saying, even if everyone is against him except Laura and his dog, he would continue. It struck me that almost everything he does seems to be distilled to this statement -- which is: I can't be wrong.
Justin A. Frank, M.D.: Right. He is being consistent. He is essentially saying that he can't be wrong and he is not ever going to be proven wrong. What seems like dithering or failure to react to the Baker Commission, is much more of a direct reaction, which is a way of ignoring it completely. He is very honest when he says I'm not going to change. He said that to Tim Russert in 2004. He also said that a couple of months ago, that if everybody in the world disagreed with him, he would sort of stay with Laura and his dog, and that that would be that. He is not going to change.
In his Wednesday press conference, he started talking about bipartisan behavior, but he tried to reshape what seemed to me to be a voter mandate about getting out of Iraq, or changing course, into a message supporting his own needs, and he's always done that.
It comes down to his psychic survival. It's the fear of being wrong. It's the fear of shame and humiliation at needing other people. It's a fear of dependency, like we were talking about earlier about the antipathy towards psychoanalysis. He is determined to never be wrong, and to never make a mistake, because shame is a terrible thing for him.
Well, that's just too goddam bad. The collapse of the United States will be a terrible thing for the rest of us, but since Bush can't make a mistake, I guess it'll be our own goddam fault.
Don't worry. He'll blame everyone, anyone, but himself.
It'll be the fault in part of the teeny-brained majority that actually sort of elected him in 2004. You're going to sow what you reaped.
And so will the rest of us. Thanks again, assholes.
I know crazy people. There's nothing wrong with being crazy, but when you combine crazy with evilness and stubbornness and a parallel universe in the most powerful office in the world, no good is going to come of it, as we are seeing.
Beach Impeach
From the Beach Impeach Project
I hope so too, Mr. Newsham.
January 6, 2007 -- Over 1000 people gathered in Nancy Pelosi's district, on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, to spell out the message "IMPEACH!" "America is a great country," said event organizer Brad Newsham, a local cab driver and author. "But President Bush has betrayed our faith. He mislead us into a disastrous war, and is trampling on our Constitution. He has to go. Now. I hope Nancy Pelosi is listening today."
I hope so too, Mr. Newsham.
The Timely Death of Gerald Ford
Frank Rich on Gerald Ford, Vietnam, Saddam's Big Drop, and Bush's escalation in Iraq:
Daddy Frank is usually right. This time, I hope he's wrong, but I fear he's not.
The very strange and very long Gerald Ford funeral marathon was about many things, but Gerald Ford wasn't always paramount among them.
What the Ford obsequies were most about was the Beltway establishment's grim verdict on George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. Every Ford attribute, big and small, was trotted out by Washington eulogists with a wink, as an implicit rebuke of the White House's current occupant. Mr. Ford was a healer, not a partisan divider. He was an all-American football star, not a cheerleader. He didn't fritter away time on pranks at his college fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, because he had to work his way through school as a dishwasher. He was in the top third of his class at Yale Law. He fought his way into dangerous combat service during World War II rather than accept his cushy original posting. He was pals with reporters and Democrats. He encouraged dissent in his inner circle. He had no enemies, no ego, no agenda, no ideology, no concern for his image. He described himself as "a Ford, not a Lincoln," rather than likening himself to, say, Truman.
Under the guise of not speaking ill of a dead president, the bevy of bloviators so relentlessly trashed the living incumbent that it bordered on farce. No wonder President Bush, who once hustled from Crawford to Washington to sign a bill interfering in Terri Schiavo's medical treatment, remained at his ranch last weekend rather than join Betty Ford and Dick Cheney for the state ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.
It's against the backdrop of both the Hussein video and the Ford presidency that we must examine the prospect of that much-previewed "surge" in Iraq - a surge, by the way, that the press should start calling by its rightful name, escalation. As Mr. Ford had it, America cannot regain its pride by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned and, for that matter, as far as Iraq is concerned. By large margins, the citizens of both countries want us not to escalate but to start disengaging. So do America's top military commanders, who are now being cast aside just as Gen. Eric Shinseki was when he dared assert before the invasion that securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops.
The "surge," then, is a sham. It is not meant to achieve that undefined "victory" Mr. Bush keeps talking about but to serve his own political spin. His real mission is to float the "we're not winning, we're not losing" status quo until Jan. 20, 2009. After that, as Joseph Biden put it last week, a new president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof." This is nothing but a replay of the cynical Nixon-Kissinger "decent interval" exit strategy concocted to pass the political buck (to Mr. Ford, as it happened) on Vietnam.
As the White House tries to sell this flimflam, picture fresh American troops being tossed into Baghdad's caldron to work alongside the Maliki-Sadr Shiite lynch mob that presided over the Saddam hanging. Contemplate as well Gerald Ford's most famous words, spoken as he assumed the presidency after the Nixon resignation: "Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."
This time the people do not rule. Two months after Americans spoke decisively on Election Day, the president is determined to overrule them. Our long national nightmare in Iraq, far from being over, is about to get a second wind.
Daddy Frank is usually right. This time, I hope he's wrong, but I fear he's not.
I don't get it
And before you tell me that I'll never get it because I don't have kids, what's with these Quiverfull people? I have a lot of friends and relatives with kids, and I know how much shit costs for them, and the replacement rate when they grow out of their clothes every few months, not counting doctor visits, education, let alone feeding 'em. So I ask the question, what the fuck do you have fifty million of 'em for?
I mean, aside from the fact of the screaming and bodily fluids abounding, how much money do you have to make to support a house full o' kids? I mean, were we of the child-producing mind, I figure Mrs. F and I could afford to have two and still give them the stuff they needed. We both make decent money and two would be the limit, the point where we would have to begin shortchanging them on the things that really mattered; education, nutrition, health care.
Are these people independently wealthy? I doubt all of them are. So tell me, what are these kids in huge families missing out on? I know, if children are loved it shouldn't matter how much money is available, and I agree. But this isn't 1906. It's 2006, and you can't grow food to support yourselves in your backyard. Most people can't build their own house, or work on their own cars. There are expenses that can't be avoided in this day and age.
What if these folks fall into the category of the 46 million who don't have health insurance? I'm sure it's real difficult to look into your sick kid's eyes and tell him you can't afford to take him to the doctor.
And what about other stuff? My parents took two weeks vacation in the summer every year, the years I wasn't in Germany. One week would be spent in the Catskills, the other would be spent taking me to places that would be educational. Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, Howe Caverns in Upstate New York, Boston and Philadelphia to learn about the foundations of this nation, Gettysburg to give me a sense of what it meant to fight against one's own (amazingly, this from two naturalized citizens but I digress). I learned a lot that's helped me later in life on those trips.
My point is that while you're following God's plan to be fertile, where do you find the time to raise your kids (especially when mom's on her back all the time, spittin' 'em out)? Where do you find the money to buy them the tools to become productive, responsible, and successful adults? I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something but I thought you wanted to give your kids the best and it seems to me that 8, 9, 10, or fifteen children isn't the way to do it, no matter what God says.
If there is a grandmother to this movement, it's Nancy Campbell. Her magazine has been advocating this lifestyle for decades. Campbell explained why followers even have a problem with natural family planning or the "rhythm method."
"When we really stop and think about it, it's not natural," she said. "We have to go against the way that God designed our bodies. He designed them to be fruitful, so if a couple [doesn't] want to have children?they've got to do something to their body so it doesn't work the way God planned it."
What about simply not having sex?
"What married couple is not going to do that?" Campbell asked.
I mean, aside from the fact of the screaming and bodily fluids abounding, how much money do you have to make to support a house full o' kids? I mean, were we of the child-producing mind, I figure Mrs. F and I could afford to have two and still give them the stuff they needed. We both make decent money and two would be the limit, the point where we would have to begin shortchanging them on the things that really mattered; education, nutrition, health care.
Are these people independently wealthy? I doubt all of them are. So tell me, what are these kids in huge families missing out on? I know, if children are loved it shouldn't matter how much money is available, and I agree. But this isn't 1906. It's 2006, and you can't grow food to support yourselves in your backyard. Most people can't build their own house, or work on their own cars. There are expenses that can't be avoided in this day and age.
What if these folks fall into the category of the 46 million who don't have health insurance? I'm sure it's real difficult to look into your sick kid's eyes and tell him you can't afford to take him to the doctor.
And what about other stuff? My parents took two weeks vacation in the summer every year, the years I wasn't in Germany. One week would be spent in the Catskills, the other would be spent taking me to places that would be educational. Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, Howe Caverns in Upstate New York, Boston and Philadelphia to learn about the foundations of this nation, Gettysburg to give me a sense of what it meant to fight against one's own (amazingly, this from two naturalized citizens but I digress). I learned a lot that's helped me later in life on those trips.
My point is that while you're following God's plan to be fertile, where do you find the time to raise your kids (especially when mom's on her back all the time, spittin' 'em out)? Where do you find the money to buy them the tools to become productive, responsible, and successful adults? I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something but I thought you wanted to give your kids the best and it seems to me that 8, 9, 10, or fifteen children isn't the way to do it, no matter what God says.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Rumor has it ...
The Plank, via TPM, via Maru (well, it is a rumor, isn't it?):
It would figure Condi would be the one to break the gender barrier in the Executive.
Update:
Related staff notes from Cdr. Huber:
Because standards are lower on weekends... here's a new rumor straight from an insidious "Washington cocktail party": John Negroponte is becoming deputy secretary of state as preparation to replace Condi Rice when she leaves her job. Why would she do that? To take over for an "ailing" Dick Cheney as vice president. Sure, Cheney resignation rumors are about as old as the Bush presidency. But one well-informed person said that, while he doesn't think this will happen, he also doesn't dismiss it out of hand.
It would figure Condi would be the one to break the gender barrier in the Executive.
Update:
Related staff notes from Cdr. Huber:
...
Many were surprised when Bush named Navy Admiral William "Fox" Fallon to replace General John Abizaid as head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). At first blush, it seemed unusual to place a Navy man in charge of an area of responsibility (AOR) in which two ground wars are taking place. But the CENTCOM AOR also includes Iran, and any military confrontation with Iran will be a major maritime and air operation. A naval flight officer, Fallon's credentials as a maritime and air power expert, his combat experience, and his record as a force commander at the three and four-star level, are unmatched. What's more, from what I've observed and heard about him, he possesses a super-human intellectual capacity. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he still remembers the serial number on his baby spoon.
So it I were Mr. Bush, and was determined to press forward with Bill Kristol's neoconservative agenda, Fallon is the exact guy I'd put in the CENTCOM billet.
...
Bush makes it clear: He will only listen to impeachment
OpEd News
Remember I5: Investigation, Indictment, Impeachment, Incarceration, Inhangthesonofabitch.
Let's do it before he commits his next sociopathic crime against law and humanity.
In these two short months since an election that was supposed to have turned the country around, it has become increasingly clear that everybody got the message except George Bush.
Bush is clearly determined to ram his plans through, in the pursuit of a dreamed-of victory in Iraq, come hell or high Congress. The ONLY card that Congress can legitimately play, against his dog-headedness, is the impeachment card.
This is precisely what that playing card is for, and the means are at hand to accomplish it. Everyone knows, very well, that Bush has been guilty of crimes for which he can be tried and impeached. It's quite true that we have no way of being sure that an impeachment will follow the trial . . . but isn't that what a trial is all about? We'll know when we get there. But we shall NEVER know if we don't get there.
Are trials normally avoided because we cannot be sure of guilt in advance?
What a quaint notion that is!
WE KNOW WHERE BUSH IS GOING, IF HE IS NOT IMPEACHED.
And from my perspective, that is precisely reason enough to pursue the impeachment.
Remember I5: Investigation, Indictment, Impeachment, Incarceration, Inhangthesonofabitch.
Let's do it before he commits his next sociopathic crime against law and humanity.
Cross-posted at aitcHQueue.
An AOB catch up post
1) I shall be disappearing as of about 7pm this Wednesday(the 10th)because my surgery is scheduled for 10 in the morning on the 11th(Thursday). I'm having 4 teeth surgically removed,I'll be under a general anesthetic(hold me,I'm scared of that shit) during that and on pain meds for a couple days after. So,if I happen to post something that looks like this between Thursday and Monday:
Snertfurm @#$%!,forsenatrus oestricula lberg gabba whee
You'll know that somehow I managed to get to the computer without falling on my face,and Fixer or Gord can just delete that nonsense. I apologize in advance,just in case.
2) Calling all geeky nerd types:
I am a complete moron when it comes to computers or technology of any sort,so,I am placing a call for recommendations for the following:
a)an inexpensive yet well made laptop computer for surfing the internets,email,pictures from my digital camera and for writing(more on that in a moment). Appearently we have wireless capability now,according to The Husband. Not that I need a laptop,but if I know what I want,it's entirely possible I could get one for my birthday in few months. I don't even know what a reasonable price is for a laptop. I've seen 'em for 500 bucks all the way up to 2 grand,yipes.
b) What would a person need to create audio files,and how would one set up a website for said audio files? I ask because I'm thinking of starting a project with my son,a fledgeling mom and son internet radio station type thing. Also,the kiddo wants to make movies,perhaps even his own animations and I have no earthly idea how to encourage that by getting him what he needs to do such a thing. Obviously he needs a video camera for live action filming,but it needs to be one that will load onto a computer and then maybe even eventually make it to the internets. He's going to be 13 in March,and I figure the things he'd need to get started would be a good b-day gift,as long as it doesn't cost me a king's ransom. He's a kid,so the camera especially needs to be able to take some abuse.
c)My stupid ass Microsoft Word program keeps shutting down. I write a half a page and it dies. This has been going on for awhile now,I have no clue wtf is wrong. I need a word processing program because I want to start submitting articles and essays to magazines and the like and perhaps make a dollar or two this year. Plus,I want to write a book and I need a program that allows for that. Something reliable that won't fuck up every 5 minutes. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
3) As of tommorrow night,it has been 4 weeks since I've smoked a cigarette. Yay me. I step down to the lowest dose of nicotine patch after tommorrow,and then it's supposedly pretty easy to go from that to no patch at all. I shall find out how easy it is soon. This whole process has not been even a little easy,especially with another smoker in the house. The nicotine withdrawl,even with the patch, has triggered serious depression,there's been a couple days where I cried over dumbass shit all day long. If I could do one thing over again in the process I think I would have prepared a little more before I quit. I've also gained almost 10 lbs,which isn't helpful to me feeling all that fabulous and stunning.
Ok,enough of me now,and as always,thanks in advance for anything helpful or wonderous you care to contribute.
Snertfurm @#$%!,forsenatrus oestricula lberg gabba whee
You'll know that somehow I managed to get to the computer without falling on my face,and Fixer or Gord can just delete that nonsense. I apologize in advance,just in case.
2) Calling all geeky nerd types:
I am a complete moron when it comes to computers or technology of any sort,so,I am placing a call for recommendations for the following:
a)an inexpensive yet well made laptop computer for surfing the internets,email,pictures from my digital camera and for writing(more on that in a moment). Appearently we have wireless capability now,according to The Husband. Not that I need a laptop,but if I know what I want,it's entirely possible I could get one for my birthday in few months. I don't even know what a reasonable price is for a laptop. I've seen 'em for 500 bucks all the way up to 2 grand,yipes.
b) What would a person need to create audio files,and how would one set up a website for said audio files? I ask because I'm thinking of starting a project with my son,a fledgeling mom and son internet radio station type thing. Also,the kiddo wants to make movies,perhaps even his own animations and I have no earthly idea how to encourage that by getting him what he needs to do such a thing. Obviously he needs a video camera for live action filming,but it needs to be one that will load onto a computer and then maybe even eventually make it to the internets. He's going to be 13 in March,and I figure the things he'd need to get started would be a good b-day gift,as long as it doesn't cost me a king's ransom. He's a kid,so the camera especially needs to be able to take some abuse.
c)My stupid ass Microsoft Word program keeps shutting down. I write a half a page and it dies. This has been going on for awhile now,I have no clue wtf is wrong. I need a word processing program because I want to start submitting articles and essays to magazines and the like and perhaps make a dollar or two this year. Plus,I want to write a book and I need a program that allows for that. Something reliable that won't fuck up every 5 minutes. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
3) As of tommorrow night,it has been 4 weeks since I've smoked a cigarette. Yay me. I step down to the lowest dose of nicotine patch after tommorrow,and then it's supposedly pretty easy to go from that to no patch at all. I shall find out how easy it is soon. This whole process has not been even a little easy,especially with another smoker in the house. The nicotine withdrawl,even with the patch, has triggered serious depression,there's been a couple days where I cried over dumbass shit all day long. If I could do one thing over again in the process I think I would have prepared a little more before I quit. I've also gained almost 10 lbs,which isn't helpful to me feeling all that fabulous and stunning.
Ok,enough of me now,and as always,thanks in advance for anything helpful or wonderous you care to contribute.
Are they kidding?
This* will mean our end.
Okaaaay. I thought Israel didn't have nukes? Oh, right. Moving on ...
Cajole America into action? If this country takes unprovoked action against Iran, Dr. King's March on Washington will look like a hangout on the corner. Do these Neocon idiots actually believe the American people won't drag 'em out and string 'em up?
Soften up world opinion? World opinion of the Israelis, and us, is probably at an all time low. Who in Hell do they think will condone this aside from the deranged and moronic 20-percenters in this country who've been advocating nuking the Islamic world for years?
Um ... duh.
Sorry about that 3-eyed kid you got, Mrs. Ibrahim, but shit happens in wartime.
Sorry you can't afford to drive to work anymore, Mr. and Mrs. American, but the Iranians cut off all their exports to us and OPEC has cut theirs back to a trickle. But you know, we all have to make some sacrifices.
Future history: "And we all remember how American President George W. Bush signed the terms of surrender of the American Empire aboard the Iranian frigate Martyrdom in October 2008 in New York Harbor. The world's last superpower was brought to its knees after the unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran's atomic energy facilities by the Israeli Air Force. Faced with their oil reserves dried up and the flow of Mid East oil almost halted, the U.S. had no choice but to surrender after the economy collapsed and anarchy broke loose. Most will mark 11 September 2001 as the day the Islamic nations finally gained the upper hand over the West, but empires take time to crumble.
The end finally came when Russia and China, afraid of the same fate as the U.S., signed non-agression treaties with Iran and covertly supplied them with weapons and expertise in their struggle against the Americans and Israelis. Most are certain, though there is no evidence, that the nuclear device exploded in Tel Aviv was one of the old Cold War suitcase devices developed by the Soviet Union in the sixties."
My man Cenk Uygur has some thoughts on this lunacy too.
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters", according to several Israeli military sources.
...
Okaaaay. I thought Israel didn't have nukes? Oh, right. Moving on ...
...
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
...
Cajole America into action? If this country takes unprovoked action against Iran, Dr. King's March on Washington will look like a hangout on the corner. Do these Neocon idiots actually believe the American people won't drag 'em out and string 'em up?
Soften up world opinion? World opinion of the Israelis, and us, is probably at an all time low. Who in Hell do they think will condone this aside from the deranged and moronic 20-percenters in this country who've been advocating nuking the Islamic world for years?
...
Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.
...
Um ... duh.
...
Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.
...
Sorry about that 3-eyed kid you got, Mrs. Ibrahim, but shit happens in wartime.
...
Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world's oil.
...
Sorry you can't afford to drive to work anymore, Mr. and Mrs. American, but the Iranians cut off all their exports to us and OPEC has cut theirs back to a trickle. But you know, we all have to make some sacrifices.
Future history: "And we all remember how American President George W. Bush signed the terms of surrender of the American Empire aboard the Iranian frigate Martyrdom in October 2008 in New York Harbor. The world's last superpower was brought to its knees after the unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran's atomic energy facilities by the Israeli Air Force. Faced with their oil reserves dried up and the flow of Mid East oil almost halted, the U.S. had no choice but to surrender after the economy collapsed and anarchy broke loose. Most will mark 11 September 2001 as the day the Islamic nations finally gained the upper hand over the West, but empires take time to crumble.
The end finally came when Russia and China, afraid of the same fate as the U.S., signed non-agression treaties with Iran and covertly supplied them with weapons and expertise in their struggle against the Americans and Israelis. Most are certain, though there is no evidence, that the nuclear device exploded in Tel Aviv was one of the old Cold War suitcase devices developed by the Soviet Union in the sixties."
My man Cenk Uygur has some thoughts on this lunacy too.
*Big tip o' the Brain to our pal Lambert.
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