Bloody twits ...

Of course he went public when he had a book to sell, but the Brit says what a lot of us knew before the shit hit the fan.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.

The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".

...

Just an aside. Were I a general officer and a knight commander, I think I'd break down and use the formal 'Michael'.

...

His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003.

...

General Sir Mike, in the end, feels the invasion was legal but, being a Brit officer, if he didn't convince himself of it he'd already have swallowed the barrel of his pistol.

The invasion of Iraq was a war crime and everything that strems from it are additional counts.

Whore of the Week

The next chapter of my novel The Fourth Estate is up at The Practical Press.

Pimp your own in comments.

Quote of the Day

The Ranger:

...

Killing people in any way, shape or form is not sexy. It is destruction, the antithesis of any life-affirming activity which might be termed sexy.

...

I (heart) NY

Why I love my city:

Great thanks to Watertiger for the pic.

"Topmost meatball on a great steaming pile of Republican sex-scandal spaghetti"

Go see Rachel Maddow's GOP Hooker Scandal Countdown.

Ms. Maddow is not only an insightful, intelligent, well-spoken progressive commentator, she's also drop-dead gorgeous. Which brings me to my own question about sex:

Is it OK to jack off to a lesbian?

Update:

Go hear the audio of me'n Fixer's Mom Randi Rhodes riffing on the same subject.

The same question applies, only...

The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing

Go enjoy this interview with Will Durst:

Will Durst talks about his new show in Manhattan, getting flipped off by Olympia Dukakis, helping the terrorists win, necrophilia and other things liberals enjoy.

Katie Halper: Why do you hate America?

Will Durst: I'm not an America-hater, I'm an America-lover. Dissent is the ultimate patriotic act. Just like every liberal commie pinko weenie says.

Halper: Yeah. How does it feel being flipped off by a Democrat?

Durst: Well somebody's gotta do it. I feel like Dennis Miller.

I remember Dennis Miller. He used to be funny before he wet his pants over terrorists and went all wingnut. "Right-wing comedian" is an oxymoron. Any wingnut who's funny isn't trying to be. They're just 'morons', no 'oxy'.

It's funny because there was a time when you couldn't do jokes about Bush. Even though we were, starting on Jan. 21st, 2001. Then Sept. 11th happened, and you couldn't touch him. It was seen as unpatriotic; we were involved in a war. Then Katrina happened. And taking on Bush became fashionable, and now it's considered old hat. We had a window of 18 months for Christ's sake when it was OK. And then it was, "Oh no, Bush is low-hanging fruit," or, "Everybody bashes Bush." Fuck you! We haven't hit him hard enough, and we're gonna hit him until ... until he dies, OK, until he dies, and we'll keep hitting, and then that still won't be enough.

Halper: And then you'll have sex with him?

Durst: Exactly, goes back to the Schwarzenegger law.

Boy, Durst is one sick puppy. I like that.

Halper: We've really come full circle. Speaking of dead people and perverts, let's go back to the Democrats. My favorite part of the show, obviously, is when you focus on your Clintons, your Kerries, your Dukaki. More of your thoughts on them?

Durst: The Democrats seem more interested in getting re-elected than they are in changing anything for the better. When Gore ducked the Kansas Board of Education teaching intelligent design along with evolution and said, "Children should be exposed to varying theories," I just wanted to dick-slap him, I really did. And he would have had to have been very close, and I understand that. Not that I don't believe in Giselle the Mountain Sprite. She's from where all things flow. She's my goddess.

Much, much more.

'Brownshirt' Bush among top mass murderers of all time

So says former Reagan SecTreas Paul Craig Roberts. Via Raw Story:

President Bush's apparent plans for a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran will only add to the civilian death toll as a result of US intervention that has placed the president "high on the list of mass murders of all time," a former aide in President Ronald Reagan's administration known for strident anti-Bush rhetoric said Friday.

"Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening 'the security of nations everywhere' and of the Iraqi resistance for 'a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power,'" writes Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury. "Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration."

[...] "For Bush, civilian casualties are a non-issue. Hegemony uber alles."

From the linked article in the quote, aptly titled "The War Criminal in the Living Room":

Whatever form of government Bush is operating under, it is far outside an accountable constitutional democratic government. Bush has transitioned America to caesarism, and even if Bush leaves office in January 2009, the powers he has accumulated in the executive will remain. Unless Bush and Cheney are impeached and convicted, there is no prospect of the US Congress and federal judiciary ever again being co-equal branches of government.

As we used to say in the '60s when imploring the truth, "tell it like it is, bro".

Note to Mr. Roberts: Have someone else taste your food and start your car for a while.

Just a question

Because it's bugging the shit out of me.

Why would anyone want to fuck* someone in a public toilet they just met there anonymously? I just don't get it. I wouldn't fuck someone I knew and wanted to fuck, in a stall of a public toilet. (Mile High Club gymnastics excepted. Heh ...) I don't see the turn on.

Late for work.

TGIF ...

*I am making the distinction between fucking and love-making. In a public toilet (or an aircraft restroom), you ain't making love.

The problem with Democrats ...

BooMan looks at why the Dems continue to roll over for the Chimp. Basically, they're still scared of the Rethugs:

...

Let me be really clear. If you are a member of Congress who has taken an oath to protect the Constitution, you better allow yourself to be voted out of office before you violate your oath. Being afraid of a fascist 30-second attack ad is no excuse.

...

If we don't primary some of these weak-kneed Democrats we'll deserve a reputation for having no stomach for a fight. The Republicans are a party of bedwetters, afraid of every dark person, every foreign langauage, every shadow. And, yet, these Blue Dog Democrats fall for it every time.

...

The Blue Dogs are just politically expedient Republicans in my book. Time to relegate them to the dustbin of history. Serving in Congress is not a career, it is a calling.

"I'll have a large Devil's Combo, please"

Ad for a pizza joint in New Zealand:



So's this one that replaced it:

Pentagon Gives Up; Hands War Over to Bush

DailyKos

Mark it down. August 29, 2007. That’s the day the Pentagon announced it was done being responsible for Mr. Bush’s waste of lives, time, and money in Iraq. Tonight, the Defense Department has essentially told the President, "Thanks for the war, George, but it’s all you from here on out, buddy."

So much for the Petraeus Report. That’s the sound of America’s largest department collectively throwing its hands up in exasperation, shaking its head, and saying, "You deal with it, tough guy. We’re done with your asinine war. Have fun facing the American public."

Face the American public? He doesn't think he needs to and he wouldn't dare anyway even if the dim little bulb in his head comes on.

That bears repeating: The military commanders want to be able to distance themselves from Iraq strategy by making it clear that whatever course is followed is the president’s decision. This can be translated as: "Here, George. Hold this."

Miers. Bartlett. Rove. Gonzales. The Defense Department.
Ship.
Sinking.
Commander Guy.

Fresh out of friends.

I hope the Chimp begins to understand that Cheney made him do the devil's work when the crow's nest he's standing in fills up with water.

New Orleans two years after

Greg Palast with today's 'must read':

"They wanted them poor n*ggers out of there and they ain't had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor n*ggers, you know? And that's just the bottom line."

We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes. But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing "Blackwater" badges: "Try to go into your home and we'll arrest you."

These aren't just any homes. They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others. But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.

If you get the idea that I'm a little down on Blackwater today, you're right. I just read No True Glory by Bing West. It's an account of the first and second battles of Fallujah, which were started because of Blackwater employees who blundered into that city. They were killed, roasted, and hung from a bridge because of their own stupidity, but a lot of Marines died because of it.

They might think doing their mercenary 'security' thuggery inside the U.S. is easier, but there's going to be sad times ahead for them.

I wasn't naïve. I had a good idea what this scam was all about: 89,000 poor and working class families stuck in Homeland Security's trailer park gulag while their good homes were guarded against their return by mercenaries. Two decades ago, I worked for the Housing Authority of New Orleans. Even then, the plan was to evict poor folk out of this very valuable real estate. But it took the cover of a hurricane to do it.

Hurricane recovery is class war by other means. And in this war of the powerful against the powerless, Mr. Bush can rightly land his fighter plane in Louisiana and declare that, unlike the war in Iraq, it is, indeed, "Mission Accomplished."

Rotten motherfuckers, Bush and his enablers and cronies, every last one of them. They're going to get theirs, somehow, some way, some day.

Blackwater Air Force

Decline and Fall

As if having them run around Iraq like loose cannons wasn't bad enough, Blackwater is building an Air Force. Via Scholars & Rogues:

Security company Blackwater U.S.A. is buying Super Tucano light combat aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. These five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft are built for pilot training, but also perform quite well for counter-insurgency work.... The bubble canopy provides excellent visibility. This, coupled with its slow speed (versus jets), makes it an excellent ground attack aircraft.

Blackwater's been in negotiations with several state governments in the United States. Blackwater met recently with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger about doing disaster response in California. They're opening up a new private military base in San Diego. Another one is in Mount Carroll, Illinois. They have applied for operating licenses in every coastal U.S. state.

That's right, folks: the U.S. military whose expenditures are almost half of the total military spending worldwide needs private military bases in the United States for some reason.

What might that reason be? Perhaps it has something to do with National Security Presidential Directive NSPD-51, which lays out exactly how the Executive Branch would run the entire government in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency," which could be anything from a terrorist attack to the next Katrina, as far as the ambiguous wording of the directive is concerned:

Does the presently-scheduled '08 presidential election count as a "Catastrophic Emergency"?

[...] I just can't help but see a mercenary force of palace guards looming in the not-too-distant future.

Go read the rest and the comments. Tinfoil hat recommended. Also see:

sapper - a Viet Cong or NVA commando, usually armed with explosives

If there's going to be a domestic civilian mercenary force in this country, there's going to have to be a civilian insurgency to deal with it. This time, we get to be the Viet Cong. Whoopee.

Stall tactic

Maybe we should all pamphleteer for Repug campaigns in this manner. Let's make sure they're printed on scratchy paper, though.

Update:

Go see this video of Craig from 1982. His shit's been covered up for thirty years.

Update II:

SPR

GOP To Move Internal Debate From Cloakroom To Bathroom

"Everyone knows that's where we take the real 'head-count' of our 'members'."

Chortle!

Update III:

"Little Britain" channels Larry Craig at Crooks & Liars. Also at YouTube.

"If you find my watch..."

Hypocrites on parade ...

They're all coming out to rationalize Larry Craig's behavior. The lovely Pam Spaulding (one of my favoritest bloggers by the way) documents:

...

First up, Jim Smith, editor of the Jacksonville-based Florida Baptist Witness:

"If someone's walk doesn't match their talk, of course it's relevant. But a politician's conduct "also has to be evaluated in light of other considerations, and we aren't electing saints here," Smith said. "All of us are fallen and subject to sin. We're not looking for perfection. But we do want integrity."

...

Hmmmm. Where was he during the hysterical impeachment of Bill Clinton?

...

My personal favorite comes from Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, associate of Jack Abramoff, and frequent talking head when the MSM wants a rep from the far right:

Let's be clear what voters of faith are saying. They're not saying that every single politician who professes a conservative viewpoint should live up to that standard. It's really the opposite. None of us are perfect, and we all fall short of God's grace. A lot of times that gets lost when someone's failing becomes politicized."

...

And was he saying "none of us are perfect" when the Rethugs were vilifying Clinton?

I think not.

People in glass houses shouldn't get stoned.

Update:

Keith Boykin has a good article up* on this very subject too:

...

If the Republicans were smart, they would get out of the business of serving as the nation's morality police once and for all. The only reason why the Monica Lewinsky scandal didn't kill Bill Clinton's political career is because he never pretended to be a saint in the first place. But any kind of scandal with the Republicans is going to be magnified until the party learns to stop lecturing adults about what they can and can't do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Once society finally opens up and allows gays and lesbians the free expression to be themselves, then people like Craig won't have to go trolling the public restrooms looking for a hookup. [my em]

...

Thing is, if the Rethugs gave up being the morality police, they'd lose the evangelical crowd, and then they'd lose everything.

*Thanks to TerranceDC for the link.

Oh, okay ...

Yesterday I mentioned that the Chimp wants another $50bln for his failed war/occupation in Iraq. This morning I hear the GAO released a report that says (in effect) the money, like all the rest, will be tossed down a dry hole:

WASHINGTON -- Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet a majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq war strategy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure success remain unfulfilled before a Sept. 15 deadline for the president to give a detailed accounting of the Iraq situation, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public.

They also said the Bush administration is preparing to play down the findings, by arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair "all or nothing" standards when compiling the document. [my em]

...

The propaganda is already coming in like the high tide and it'll get deeper when the White House Petraeus gives the surge report in a couple weeks.

All we're doing is throwing good money after bad, throwing good lives away. It's time to end it, period. No more money. No more lives. Nothing else for Cheney's plan of taking the Iraqis' oil.

Brain, F&G honored by USPS

Click for even Superer Heroes

Fixer, of course, is top row right. I'm 2d row left. Wordsmith is 2d row, 2d from the right. Jersey Guy and Bustednuckles, and our Illustrious Emeritæ can identify themselves, but in 'Nuck's case, I'm holdin' out for right next to the F-Man. Mechanic, you know.

Cross-posted at the other "Best Blog in the World".

Tongue, meet cheek.

Quote of the Day

J. Thomas Duffy at Michael's:

Beleaguered Republican Idaho Senator, Larry Craig, issued a statement this morning, following up on his "I am not gay" admission yesterday, indicating he will begin rehab treatment for "Restroom Leg Syndrome".

...

Ooga-booga!!!! ... revisited

UL, as usual, gets to the crux of the biscuit:

...

Conveniently ignoring reality, and any semblance of facts Presidunce Awol McFlightsuit warned a drunked up American Legion crowd that the Middle East faces an imminent danger of A Nookuleer Holocaust due to Iran's LEGAL pursuit of atomic energy. He also acknowledged in a garbled up collection of sentence fragments that it's perfectly alright for Pakistan, Israel, and India to have nookuleer toys because he is the deciderer.

...

Oh yeah. Be scared! Be afraid! Ahhhhhh! [hiding under bed]

What's another $50 bil ...

When you've squandered everything else:

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

...

I'll give the Chimp this much. He's got chutzpah.

Link thanks to Steve Benen.