"Despite America being the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal . . . 19 young men were able, by the grace of Allah, the Most High, to change the direction of its compass."
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Another meeting with leaders of other countries, another rank humiliation, with Bush oblivious or just apathetic to how much he's walking around with piss stains on his pants, except now others are pointing out the wet marks to him. Bush, though, doesn't give a fuck. Why should he when his own nation doesn't seem to?
The US president thanked Australian premier John Howard for visiting 'Austrian troops' in Iraq.
Talking at a business forum on the eve of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, Mr Bush also told Mr Howard: "Mr Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit."
Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq — as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.
There are five things I hope Democrats in Congress will remember.
First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue, hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no decline in the average number of daily attacks.
So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post that “if a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian. If it went through the front, it’s criminal.” So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.
Second, Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters.
Third, any plan that depends on the White House recognizing reality is an idle fantasy. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, on Tuesday Mr. Bush told Australia’s deputy prime minister that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq. Enough said.
Fourth, the lesson of the past six years is that Republicans will accuse Democrats of being unpatriotic no matter what the Democrats do. Democrats gave Mr. Bush everything he wanted in 2002; their reward was an ad attacking Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, that featured images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats, not because they think Congressional leaders are too liberal, but because they don’t see Congress doing anything to stop the war.
And six or seven months from now it will be the same thing all over again. Mr. Bush will stage another photo op at Camp Cupcake, the Marine nickname for the giant air base he never left on his recent visit to Iraq. The administration will move the goal posts again, and the military will come up with new ways to cook the books and claim success.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has obtained a copy of a purported new videotape of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and is studying it, U.S. officials said on Friday.
He can release it as soon as the WH approves it.
"Six years after 9/11, the arrests in Germany and Denmark this week, and the battles we fight against al Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan ... remind us of the continuing threat we face from extremists and why we must continue to take the fight to them wherever they are."
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Europe has been dealing with terrorism, and doing so effectively, for many years now, and they have done so with common-sense security measures and with good, old-fashioned police work. Today, they led the way once again, showing us once more that the way to effectively fight terrorism is law enforcement, not blowing shit up, invading countries that didn't attack us, and terrorizing the citizens of said country.
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New Rule: For the next 18 months, let Bush be Reagan. A completely dissociative personality who lets the real work of the nation go on elsewhere, while he sits behind his desk and hums. I don't think the problem is that Bush lives in a bubble. I say make the bubble thicker. Use the armor we can't get to the troops. For example, on this whole "bomb Iran" thing. Let's not, and just tell him we did.
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Why are you promoting sex so intensely? Wet, slippery, dirty sex?
Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That’s like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.
So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let’s call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.
Then he told me something I had not heard before.
Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.
Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can’t think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don’t know, but it is a question worth asking.
What we now more fully understand is how the CheneyBush Administration utilized the murderous terrorism of 9/11 as the one-size-fits-all justification for their unfolding domestic and foreign agenda.
By and large, one can sum up that overall agenda as: Amass and control power in the U.S. and much of the world, and, in cahoots with their corporate supporters, loot the treasury. All this was to be carried out secretly, with no accountability.
In sum, we know that permanent-war policy abroad and police-state tactics at home are taking us into a kind of American fascism domestically and an imperial foreign policy overseas. All aspects of the American polity are infected with the militarist Know-Nothingism emanating from the top, with governmental and vigilante-type crackdowns on protesters, dissent, free speech, freedom of assembly happening regularly on both the local and federal levels. More and more, America is resembling Germany in the early 1930s, with group pitted against group while the central government amasses more and more power and control of its put-upon citizens, and criticizing The Leader's policies is denounced as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
The good news is that after suffering through six-plus years of the CheneyBush presidency, and despite the Bush-compliant corporate mass-media that often disgraces the journalistic profession, the public's blinders are falling off. The Republicans can count on no more than 30% of the voting population for support. The 2006 defeat of the Republicans in the House and Senate and Tom DeLay's fall from power are good symbols of this, and the true nature of these men and their regime is finally starting to hit home. Cheney is acknowledged as the true power behind the throne, and Bush is seen for what he is: an insecure, uncurious, arrogant, dangerous, dry-drunk bully who is endangering U.S. national interests abroad with his reckless and incompetently-managed wars, his wrecking of the U.S. economy at home, and with his over-reaching in all areas.
If a Democratic president and vice president had behaved similarly to Bush and Cheney, they'd have been in the impeachment dock in a minute.
The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.
We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.
The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?
How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.
I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…
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Virtually the entire top layer of Republican leaders, both political and media figures, are the very opposite of the virtues this movement claims to embody. From Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest of the right-wing noise machine, along with our brave neoconservative warmongers -- to say nothing of the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney -- it is virtually impossible to locate genuine acts of strength, bravery, regular-guy wholesomeness, or any of the warrior attributes and virtues of traditional masculinity they claim to exude.
Indeed, as this Mark Hemingway "sissy mary" outburst illustrates, the opposite is almost always true. The gap between the Mythological Right-Wing Male Leader and the reality of their actual leaders is virtually infinite. Examining that gaping disconnect between what their leaders really are and what they pretend to be -- and highlighting the manipulative cultural themes the right-wing has wielded to win elections -- is the topic of my current book. [my ems]
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GOP economics are coming together to build the perfect storm. Not so surprisingly the easy credit system that the financial market wanted and the GOP delivered has turned out to be a major problem and is dragging down the economy. Add to that the brilliant GOP plan to cut taxes during a war plus the black hole of spending in Iraq (including heavy payouts to GOP-friendly businesses) and you have just about all you need for a soft economy. While Greenspan never saw this coming, plenty of others did but were swept aside because everyone had houses and money was falling from the sky.
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In the wake of closeted Sen. Larry Craig’s self-outing in an airport men’s room this summer, Mike Rogers, the Washington-based publisher of blogActive who outed Craig, is threatening to reveal the secret sexual identities of two leading GOP senators, while two allegedly gay Republican congressmen are making headlines and drawing unwelcome attention to themselves, the timing of which could not be worse.
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(the recruiter) Diazdumeng hugged each one and whispered encouragement. "Hey, you'll do great," he said. As the recruits reached the door, he yelled out: "I love you guys!"
The intake officer, a thin, intense woman carrying a clipboard, sang out in a saccharine tone: "Oh, isn't that sweet! He loves you!"
The center's commander, a Marine major, gave a long motivational talk, stressing educational opportunities and pay -- $1,500 a month for most recruits -- that with increases in rank would accumulate to $100,000 over four years in the unlikely event they saved every penny.
The driver warned the recruits, just before reaching the Marine depot at dusk, that a drill instructor would soon rush aboard and "go crazy."
All night long and well past dawn, they followed orders. Recruits were selected at random and ordered to scream the same instructions at each of the 458 recruits processed that night.
Still, they had no regrets: They yearned for their eagle, globe and anchor -- the Corps symbol pinned to the chest of each newly minted Marine. And as corny as it sounded to some of their friends, they wanted to serve their country.
As David Walker, U.S. Comptroller and head of the nonpartisan Government Accounting Office, pointed out recently, the American government has also, in a remarkably short period of time, taken on the look of a faltering imperial Rome with "an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government." And imagine - it was only a few years ago that neocon pundits were hailing the U.S. as a power "more dominant than any since Rome." Think instead: The Roman Empire on crack cocaine.
Looking back, it will undoubtedly be clear, if it isn't already, that, with the adherents of the cult of force at the helm of the ship of state, the world of fantasy took over and, even in imperial terms, what resulted was an empire of stupidity, hustling headlong down the slope of decline. That's often the way with blind faith, with anything, in fact, that prevents you from actually taking in the world as it is.
The Bush administration is not alone in being unable to face the idea of defeat. Sometimes even crushed imperial states, blind with defeat, can't admit what's happening to them. Think of Japan in August 1945, facing a defeat so total that just about every one of its cities had been burnt to a cinder. Japan's leaders still couldn't say the word. When the emperor gave his surrender speech (and his previously god-like voice was heard for the first time by ordinary Japanese), he claimed that, well, things hadn't turned out quite as expected. You can search that speech in vain for an actual acknowledgement of defeat.
So imagine a country whose fundamentalist leader sits in an untouched office, where the crisis of the day seems to be a faltering of the home sales market or a foot under a stall in a public bathroom, where the young he's sent to their deaths have largely come from out of the way places, where the stock market remains reasonably buoyant, and the worst casualties are taken on holiday highways.
It's important to remember, however, that there was once quite another tradition in America. Whatever our country was in my 1950s childhood, Americans were still generally raised to believe that empire was a dreadful, un-American thing. We were, of course, already garrisoning the globe, but there was that other hideous empire, the Soviet one, to point to. Perhaps the urge for a republic, not an empire still lies hidden somewhere in the American psyche.
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KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.
So, US deaths are still high. Civilian attacks are still high. Civilian deaths still high. There's been no political reconciliation.
It's been an awesome surge, with hundreds more dead US troops because of the vanities of old men. [my em]
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Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine.
An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline.
The technology also could help invigorate the renewable-energy sector by providing efficient, lightning-fast storage for solar power, or, on a small scale, a flash-charge for cell phones and laptops.
Skeptics, though, fear the claims stretch the bounds of existing technology to the point of alchemy.
The result is an ultracapacitor, a battery-like device that stores and releases energy quickly.
Batteries rely on chemical reactions to store energy but can take hours to charge and release energy. The simplest capacitors found in computers and radios hold less energy but can charge or discharge instantly. Ultracapacitors take the best of both, stacking capacitors to increase capacity while maintaining the speed of simple capacitors.
Until EEStor produces a final product, Perry said he joins energy professionals and enthusiasts alike in waiting to see if the company can own up to its six-word promise and banish the battery to recycling bins around the world.
"I am skeptical but I'd be very happy to be proved wrong," Perry said.
But at this moment in our history, 220 years after the Constitutional Convention, the way to get citizens involved in civic life, the way to create a common culture that will make a virtue of our diversity, the way to give us that more capacious sense of "we" — finally, the way to keep the Republic — is universal national service. No, not mandatory or compulsory service but service that is in our enlightened self-interest as a nation. We are at a historic junction; with the first open presidential election in more than a half-century, it is time for the next President to mine the desire that is out there for serving and create a program for universal national service that will be his — or her — legacy for decades to come. It is the simple but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.
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Of course, seeming to be gay is not the same as actually being gay, despite what the Minneapolis police department believes. In fact, the more one looks at the evidence that Craig seems to be gay, the more one can see that it is really just evidence of being conservative. There are many attributes of conservatism that seem really gay and unfortunately the more we deny that we are gay, the gayer we seem. This incident should put a chill in every conservative who has a "wide stance" or belongs to a barbershop quartet.
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Unfortunately, many conservatives are awkward and shy around women, which just fuels rumors that they are gay. That is why, for example, blogger Ace of Spades often seems so gay even though he is one of the most heterosexual unmarried bloggers on the Internet. Like many conservatives, Ace of Spades tries to overcompensate for these unfair perceptions by making a lot of anti-gay jokes. But sometimes his efforts to use light-hearted anti-gay humor to deflect these false impressions make him seem obsessed with homosexuality. And no matter how many times Dan Riehl tells us that he turned his back on his gay brother who died of AIDS or that he can't stop thinking about how homosexual acts disgust him whenever he sees Barney Frank on television, there are still people who will say that maybe he protests too much. It is a Catch-22 situation that many conservatives sadly get caught in.
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The White House says the decision to have the president fly into Anbar was to show the successes of the surge in that region and touting this as “a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation’s capital.” The truth of the matter is that the president is nowhere near an Iraqi city, he’s tucked away in a remote area and safe — surrounded by soldiers. I guess this is the best spin they could put on this seeing as how after four years of U.S. occupation, it still isn’t safe enough for him to fly into Baghdad.
Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I’ll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell
My daddy was a miner
And I’m a miner’s son
And I’ll stick with the union
Till every battle’s won
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You’ll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Don’t scab for the bosses
Don’t listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organize
Florence Reece*
“In 1931, coal miners in Harlan County were on strike. Armed company deputies roamed the countryside, terrorizing the mining communities, looking for union leaders to beat, jail, or kill. But coal miners, brought up lean and hard in the Kentucky mountain country, knew how to fight back, and heads were bashed and bullets fired on both sides in Bloody Harlan. It was this kind of class war -- the mine owners and their hired deputies on one side, and the independent, free-wheeling Kentucky coal-miners on the other -- that provided the climate for Florence Reece's "Which Side Are You On?" In it she captured the spirit of her times with blunt eloquence.”
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.
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