Dubya's Re-surgitation

Well, now that is a really good one, Georgie. Even the most audacious lies will serve the cause. Here is Dubya laying out the recent up-tick in violence in Iraq in plain terms for us:

President Bush: “This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them.”

By killing them, but that’s beside the point, I guess.

Last week, before the Medhi Army of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ended its unilateral cease-fire, Bush told us the surge was working because violence (or deaths from violence) was down by 50%. (As Patrick Cockburn, Iraq correspondent for the London Independent said on Democracy Now! last night,"50% of a bloodbath is still a bloodbath.")

Now, we’re expected to believe that the surge is working precisely because of the recent increase in hostile military actions in Basra and Baghdad and elsewhere. Evidently, despite the cease-fire, Medhi militiamen were targeted for attack by US supported Iraqi forces. Now they're shooting back and firing mortars into what was formerly known as 'the Green Zone'.

The Prez went on to say:

President Bush: "There is a strong commitment by the central government of Iraq to say that no one is above the law. "

Other than the USA, Israel , Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR and other select friends, of course.

A side note: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is trying to be nice - in the midst of a bloody crack-down - saying he would extend a deadline for Mahdi fighters to lay down their arms until April 8^th. (Let’s not all laugh at once.)

Then Bush gave us yet another caveat, lest we begin to hallucinate a light at the end of the tunnel.

President Bush: This operation is going to take some time to complete. And the enemy, you know, will try to fill the TV screens with violence. But the ultimate result will be this: terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society."

I don’t suppose there’s any real need to point out that there were no terrorists or extremist in Iraq before the illegal US invasion in 2003. Other than Saddam, his two demonic progeny and their henchmen, all of whom benefited in the most vulgar degree from the largess and friendship of St Ronnie, the Communicator’, Rummy ‘the in-fighter’ and everyone’s favorite Dick way back before Saddam left his back yard without permission for some mischief in Kuwait, that is.

Perhaps, though, I might just attempt to assert that those that the Dubya Administration and others call ‘terrorists and extremists’ would actually have legitimate recourse to rectify social and political conditions unfavorable to their community if they actually lived in a ‘free and democratic society’. Some might see that as ‘putting the cart before the horse’. I see it more as ‘the chicken and the egg’.

Of course, as VP Dick made clear last week, my opinion, like those of any other American, doesn’t matter a whit. What matters is what they in Bush the Younger's Administration think and what they want us to believe.

Up is down. Black is white. Might makes Right. The Surge is working.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/28/headlines

The Red, White and Blue Surge

“The ‘Surge’ is working.”

It’s the abracadabra mantra of the Bush administration and its adherents. If they say it often enough, they expect we’ll believe them. It’s a tactic that worked well enough for them when they chanted ‘WMDs’ leading up to the war. We can’t blame them for trying. (But we can try them for lying.)

What amazes is the brazen, unabashed arrogance by which they make this specious, perfidious declamation. The most disturbing example of this comes from everybody’s favorite ‘Dick’, the vice-president, Mr Cheney. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC’s Good Morning America:

Cheney: “On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.”

Raddatz: “Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.”

Cheney: “So?”

Raddatz: “So? You don’t care what the American people think?”

Cheney: “No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.”

Funny, maybe I’m being naïve but I’ve been under the impression that the United States of America was a representational democratic republic; ‘of the people by the people for the people’ and all that. Here’s the VP of the nation stating on a national television broadcast that the voice of the people is not something he or the administration needs to heed.

Let’s give ol’ Dick the benefit of the doubt and check what the American people have to say.

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted between March 14 and March 16, 66% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.

During roughly the same time period, 59% of respondents in a CBS News poll said they felt the US should have stayed out of Iraq and 65% disapproved of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken between Feb. 28 and March 2, 2008 found that 63% felt the war was not worth fighting.

According to the Pew Research Center survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International Feb. 20-24, 2008, 54% think the U.S. made the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq.

(There may well be polls that found substantial support for the war in Iraq - the student body at Pat Robertson’s Regent University, for instance – but I discovered none.)

Note that these polls were taken after the Bush apparatchiks had been chanting the mantra for months in news reports, press conferences, interviews and the like. Apparently, the majority of the US public polled had not been swayed.

Regardless of the polls, the VP says, “So?”

In a speech given at the Pentagon to mark the fifth anniversary of the illegal US invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq, Dub-ya proclaimed that the US is safer after its invasion of Iraq, adding that the troop 'surge' had succeeded in promoting stability there. "Because we acted the world is better and the United States of America is safer. Because of the troop surge, the level of violence is significantly down. Civilian deaths are down. Sectarian killings are down. Attacks on American forces are down.”

Pardon me, Mr Bush, but are you smoking jimson weed? What bizarro-world are you using as a benchmark if you consider the world and the United States a better, safer place since the invasion? Maybe you should ‘follow your bliss’, don a uniform and stand on the front lines before you spew such nonsense. (ref: this blog, March 17, 2008 ‘Irony #2’) Or how about taking a nice stroll outside the ‘Green Zone’ without a security detachment to discover for yourself how safe the world is for US citizens? Might I suggest Fallujah, Karbala or Tikrit?

Just as detached from reality is Dubya wanna-be, John McCain. Johnny Mac was in London trying on the ‘president’s new clothes’ and sizing up Gordon Brown for a dog collar when he offered his own syntactically fractured version of the party line.”We are now succeeding in Iraq and Americans, at least, I believe, are in significant numbers agreeing that the present strategy of the Surge is succeeding.”

Better check the polls, Mr Candidate.

100 more years. 100 more years.

To be fair, arrogant delusions about this ghastly conflict are not limited to the Neo-cons and Republicans. On the stump in Detroit, Senator Hillary Clinton, outlining her plan to draw down troop levels in Iraq said “… the Iraqi government has to take responsibility for its own future. We have given them the precious gift of freedom and it is up to them to decide whether or not they will use it." (Italics are mine.)

“We have given them the precious gift of freedom…”

Talk about arrogance. One can imagine an Iraqi widow wondering what the return policy is on such a blood-soaked gift.

"When you have at least 200 Iraqis dying every month in attacks on a per capita equivalent ... I don't know how anyone can characterise that as a success.” Hady Amr, a Middle East analyst at the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US-led invasion of Iraq was a strategic disaster. Mr Amr said: “The US took a country that had a lot of problems, a totalitarian state, and turned it into a haven for terrorism."

So, by what criteria is the ‘Surge’ working? Granted, the total number of fatal attacks against ‘Coalition Forces’ and sectarian violence is down from the disastrous highs of 2006 and 2007. Much of this reduction of violence, however, is due to the Mehdi Army cease-fire called by Muqtada al-Sadr last August, though that substantial fact is seldom mentioned in the corporate media and only in passing, never fully investigating the implications.

How could any rational individual call a return to the bloody, black days of 2005 ‘progress’? One must assume that the present level of slaughter, mayhem and atrocity is acceptable to the Bushites as long as they breathe deeply and keep chanting.

The ‘Surge’ is working.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/20/headlines

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/20/iraq.main/

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

The Daily Show video: Iraq , the First Five Years

The Road to Hell

Let’s begin with a parable; the parable of ‘the boy, the bird and the stone’.

A small child throws a stone and kills a songbird. The child might not have intended to kill the bird; perhaps he meant only to chase it away or practice his throwing arm. Whatever the intent, whatever the boy’s motive, the bird remains dead. The Audubon Society would care nothing about the child’s motives. And neither would the bird.

The Brookings institution is a well-known Washington think-tank upon which many administrations of the US government have depended for non-partisan research for almost a century. Kenneth M. Pollack is the Director of Research at the Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He is an expert on national security, military affairs and the Persian Gulf, was Director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council and spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst.

In an article posted on the Brookings website on March 16, 2008, Mr Pollack had this to say:
“If we leave behind a raging civil war in which the Iraqi people are incomprehensibly worse off than they had been under Saddam Hussein and the Middle East more threatened by the chaos spilling over from Iraq than they ever were by the dictator’s arms, then no one will care how well-intentioned our motives.”

How well-intentioned our motives? Motives?

Mr Pollack, with all due respect, please re-read your statement. Note the words “…a raging civil war in which the Iraqi people are incomprehensibly worse off than they had been under Saddam Hussein…” and the part where you say “and the Middle East more threatened by the chaos spilling over from Iraq than they ever were by the dictator’s arms…”.

If that is a proper assessment of the situation in Iraq – and I think that it is, with little room for disagreement – what does it matter what our motives were?

A recent World Health Organisation report estimated that 151,000 civilian Iraqi men, women and children were killed between March 20, 2003 and June 2006. The estimated number of civilian Iraqis killed by violence in 2007 is in the neighborhood of 22,000 to 24,000 according to Iraq Body Count, a British firm dedicated to making this grim tally. Do you expect the surviving family members of the 175,000 Iraqis killed as a result of American foreign policy to care a whit about the motives of the US?

Neither the Brookings Institution, the Pentagon nor even the Red Cross/Red Crescent, to my knowledge, have offered an estimate of the number of Iraqi men, women and children wounded since the onset of the invasion. (Here’s quite the party killing parlor game: Pick a number. Twice those killed? Three times the number killed? Four times? A factor of 10?) What do the wounded and suffering care if our intentions were well-meant?

The ICRC states “five years after the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world. Because of the conflict, millions of Iraqis have insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health care. The current crisis is exacerbated by the lasting effects of previous armed conflicts and years of economic sanctions.” The once developing nation of Iraq has been reduced to the dire, retched state of one of the poorest third world countries. Will the children dying of thirst and dysentery in the shell of a bombed out neighborhood clinic pause to weigh the pros and cons of our intentions?

Please, Mr Pollack, tell me what had the Bush administration intended when they rail-roaded the US Congress and the American people into this illegal war? The term ‘well-intentioned motive’ does not spring to my mind. ‘War profiteering’ does and that’s a matter that should be discussed along with war crimes and war reparations, but let’s leave that for another time.

To his credit, Mr Pollack has belatedly seen the light. Or at least, he’s caught a glimpse, for he goes on with this carefully worded under-statement, “…what I most wish I had understood before the invasion was the reckless arrogance of the Bush administration.” He then calls the Bush administration’s handling of the war “clumsy, careless and rash”. Clearly, Mr Pollack now thinks, like the majority of Americans, that waging war in Iraq was a blunder.

Better late than never?

Now, presumably, he and his fellow Saban Center intellectuals will spend months or years ciphering the tactics, strategies and operations to deduce where the fatal errors lay that lead to yet another less-than-successful, though valiant American crusade to bring the gift of freedom and democracy to an oppressed people.

Better luck next time?

The greater issue Mr Pollack and most of his profession seem blissfully oblivious to, however, is precisely the one which should be triggering red flag alerts and setting off klaxons and sirens of warning. Most of the rest of the world is aware of it. Much of the world resents it. Some of the world hates us for it. Some hate it enough to fly planes into buildings and blow themselves up in crowded markets to express their resentment and hatred for it. The issue referred to is not ‘our love of freedom’. It is not ‘our noble vision of a democratic world’. It is not our magnanimity, our wealth, our life-style, our sports heroes, our films or our music. The issue that gets under the skin of the rest of the world is the self-deluded, self-righteous, self-serving credo that the government of the US, while capable of the most egregious acts, is nevertheless motivated by only the most high-minded of intentions and ipso facto should be excused for its various transgressions.

(‘Transagressions’ is the euphemism that would be preferred in polite company. To come closer to the truth as understood by much of the rest of the world, transgressions should be read as ‘crimes against humanity’. Anyone with a shred of moral integrity need only recall Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti and Panama for past examples of such ‘transgressions’. )

It is said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That might be, but the larger paving stones on the road to hell are undoubtedly greed, murder, torture, corruption and hubris.

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0316_iraq_pollack.aspx

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22537.pdf

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/iraq-report-170308

McCain & Cheney in ‘the Zone’

The inimitable, legendary vaudeville tap-dance duo, McCain & Cheney made a surprise visit to Baghdad this week. John McCain, dubbed ‘the brash one’ quipped, “We’re here to kick up our heels to salute the troops.”Not to be out-done, ’Dick’ Cheney, the spry, younger member, waxed, “A little terpsichorean dalliance is just what the grunts need. If only Bob Hope were here.” And he wiped away a tear.

The veteran hoofers will be in the Green Zone all week. Be kind to your waitresses and try the veal.

In other news, it was revealed that Bob Hope was successfully cloned several years before he passed. It was further announced that more than 30 cloned ‘Hopes’ will be available in the next decade to begin entertaining US troops at the more than 700 US military bases in more than 90 countries around the world.
“It’s uncanny.” said the lead technician on the heretofore secret project, “Each of the clones has the same, brilliant comic delivery as the original Hope. And a golf club, besides.” The next phase of the project is the cloning of Joey Heatherton, Jill St John and Anita Ekberg.

“Thanks for the mammaries”?

In reality, Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain reportedly insisted his visit to Iraq was a fact-finding venture, not a campaign photo opportunity.

Yeah, pull the other one.

Want facts, John? Here are some to gnaw on:

The PBS documentary from 2004 ‘Private Warriors’ presented this fact: 6 months before the US invaded Iraq, former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, were already building bases and installations in preparation for the invasion. The commitment to an invasion of Iraq had been made and contractors hired to provide logistical support for an armed assault long before Bush and his administration got too far along in the litany of 900+ lies regarding WMDs and Al-Qaeda connections.

After searching through more than 600,000 documents Iraqi captured in 2003, the Pentagon has concluded that there was no "direct operational link" between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda.

Nevertheless, $12 billion in services were contracted from 2002 to 2005 to wage the war... uh... bring Democracy to the Iraqi people, that is.

In little more than a year, the New York Federal Reserve Bank made 21 shipments of currency to Iraq totaling $11,981,531,000. The Fed shipped 281 million individual banknotes, in bricks weighing a total of 363 tons to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Ultimately, $9 billion of the nearly $12 billion went missing.

Ooops! (Now, what’s this about a credit crisis?)

And check these killer bullet points, Johnny Mac!

• Nearly 4,000 dead Americans from hostile and non-hostile events
• 30,000 Americans wounded
• Upwards of 90,000 documented civilian Iraqis killed (or is that ‘liberated’?)
• 2 million Iraqis internally displaced (bureaucratese for ‘homeless’) due to violence
• More than two million refugees from Iraq have fled to neighboring countries
• The Iraq War is now costing US taxpayers almost $2 billion a week
• Total estimated cost of the war in Iraq? $3,000,000,000,000.00 (Yes, that’s $3 trillion.)

Enough facts for one visit, John?

How about another hundred years of facts like these?

Of course, the US will have gone broke long before it comes to that.

Meanwhile, everybody’s favorite ‘Dick’ – Cheney, that is - also dropped by the Green Zone to share the Bush administration’s delusional vision of prolonging “the campaign that liberated the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein's tyranny, and launched them on the difficult but historic road to democracy." Cheney stated almost wistfully, “So, if you reflect back on those five years, I think it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor and that we’ve come a long way in five years and that it’s been well worth the effort.”

No doubt he’s thinking of the billions reaped in no-bid, cost-plus contracts for his ol’ buds at Halliburton, KBR, et al.

http://ga3.org/campaign/Iraqi_refugees?gclid=CLvpktmFl5ICFQIaewodEn0R6g

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/09/28/cost_of_iraq_war_nearly_2b_a_week/

Irony #2

In a video conference last week, President Bush told U.S. troops in Afghanistan that he was: “a little envious” of them. Bush said: “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.” Bush went on to say: “It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks.”

Perhaps the President should step out of his neo-con fantasy and remember his own chance at personal involvement in ‘making history’.

It was 1968 and the war to defend Democracy against the communists in Vietnam was in full swing. It was the middle of the Tet Offensive. 16,511 US servicemen and women lost their lives ‘making history’ that year. Another 87,388 were wounded in 1968 in the effort to squelch nationalistic self-determination - otherwise known as stemming the tide of Communism in South-east Asia.

Dub-ya was just about to graduate from Yale like his daddy and granddaddy before him. (A legacy – meaning he didn’t have to earn it, just pay for it.) Knowing that he’d be eligible for the draft, did Georgie seek the ‘fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed”?

Not on your life!

He sought and found refuge in the shelter of his daddy’s political shadow, securing a safe, State-side billet with the Texas Air National Guard even though he tested in the 25^th percentile, the lowest possible passing grade.

It is widely known that Georgie was frequently AWOL from guard duty. By one account, he didn't report to his guard unit for 17 months and in order to help a family friend’s political campaign he tried to finagled a re-assignment to an Alabama Air National Guard unit which HAD NO PLANES. (Just as well for young Dubya as he had been grounded for failing to take his air fitness physical.)

In September of ’72, he was ordered to report to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Alabama. Bushie says he did so, but his superiors say they never saw him. There's no documentation he ever showed up, and despite rewards offered to anyone who could come forth and testify that they actually saw Georgie on duty, not a single one of the nearly seven hundred soldiers then in the unit has stepped forward to corroborate Bush's story.

When Dub-ya decided to go to business school at Harvard in the fall of 1973, he requested and got an honorable discharge eight months before his service was scheduled to end.

Just goes to show: it’s not what you know but who you know.

Now, fast forward to the present and Bush as the Commander-in-Chief, who sends National Guardsmen to Iraq and Afghanistan for a “fantastic experience… on the front lines” has the effrontery, the brass-balled gall to state, “It must be exciting… in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.”

Right.

Have you no shame, Mr President? Have you no sense of decency?

American servicemen and women deserve better than this.

The American people deserve better than this.

The world deserves better than this.

Impeach Bush and Cheney Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/17/headlines

http://www.awolbush.com/

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030411.html

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=166

p.s. Just for grins, check out Dub-ya’s Yale transcript (link below). We have a ‘D’ student for president! No wonder the country’s in the deep doo-doo.

http://2004.georgewbush.org/images/bios/transcript.jpg

Detecting Baloney

Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I do like conspiracy theories though, so it might be said that I am a fan of conspiracy theories without being a straight out fanatic about them.

What most intrigues me about conspiracy theories is the quest for knowledge and understanding exhibited by the theorists. It could be argued (and often is) that such quests are misguided, a waste of time and effort better spent on more ‘productive’ endeavors.

Who is to say? According to Professor Joseph Campbell in his study of comparative mythology, quests are not chosen but rather quests chose their ‘questers’. Campbell’s own quest was to discover and understand the links between the various myths of the world. Admiral Perry’s was to reach the Pole. Jake and Elwood’s was to save the orphanage. Whether great or small, grand or petty, quests are not to be ignored.

The source of the incentive, the drive to research and postulate theories about conspiracy is not solely a metaphysical one. Undoubtedly, there is an intellectual impetus to discover the truth about the world we inhabit. The search for truth is inherent in the postulations of conspiracy theorists.

The question must be asked: why are the postulators of conspiracy theories not satisfied with the accepted explanations given for enormously complicated event? Here is the nub that irritates many detractors. Why can’t conspiracy theorists accept at face value explanations such as the Warren Commission Report or the 9-11 Commission Report?

The answer to that query can easily be discerned if one reads over the arguments and examines the material presented by many conspiracy theorists. Whenever the generally accepted explanation of an event or phenomenon begs the question (whether it is regarding a terra-centric universe, WMDs or a ‘magic bullet’) there are questions which beg to be asked. In a conspiracy theorist’s postulation, one invariably finds a check list of questions about the event which have either gone unanswered, ignored, glossed or are answered in a less than satisfactory manner hence raising further questions. Here we find the same motivation that has initiated all of the great scientific discoveries and uncovered all of the scandals throughout history: the search for truth amid what are perceived as falsehoods and failing that, the search for acceptable answers.

Unfortunately, too often conspiracy theorists rely on specious arguments, tautology and emotionally driven thought processes rather than finely honed critical thought. (This is hardly over-stating the general situation.) Exacerbating the effect of these general deficiencies of argument, the fans of conspiracy theories too often accept these deficient arguments at face value. The result is well-known: the theorists and fans are roundly denounced as ‘crackpots’. Quite often this denunciation is deserved.

Nevertheless, points raised by conspiracy theorists challenging accepted explanations are very often thought provoking. These should not be brusquely dismissed as spurious even if in a many cases the points raised are very emotionally charged, taboo or politically unpopular. Interesting points should be examined and weighed critically for merit, substance and validity. Too often the treasure is tossed with the trash.

Here the failure to think critically is shared by theorists, fans and detractors.

So, in an effort to rectify that situation, here is a link to a crash course on critical thinking; Carl Sagan’s ‘Baloney Detection Kit’ as it was presented in his book,’The Demon-Haunted World’.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html

For a more complete treatment of the ‘Baloney Detection Kit’ by Michael Shermer and Pat Linse, here is a link to Skeptics.com where it can be purchased in a booklet form.

https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=32c4c614bdb2fd78c08c0c84faa4e4c4&

The ability to detect baloney will well serve us all when we are presented with dubious information and explanations from our governmental representatives, corporate leaders, their agents and functionaries. Perhaps if more members of the US Congress and the citizens of the United States had learned to think critically, the US would not have been suckered into going to war in Iraq. Or Vietnam. Or Nicaragua. Or Guatemala. Or Haiti. Or Panama. Or Grenada. Perhaps the ability to think critically may even allow us to detect the baloney that is leading us into armed conflict with Iran.

Impeachment NOW!

After searching through more than 600,000 documents Iraqi captured in 2003, the Pentagon has concluded that there was no "direct operational link" between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda.

Fancy that…

Furthermore, while the study does indicate that Saddam Hussein did much to support "terrorism" in the Middle East and used it "as a routine tool of state power", the report says "the predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq" who were seen as Saddam's enemies.

Saddam was indeed a very ruthless and hateful man. Then again, Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense declared that there was "bulletproof" evidence of a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and railroaded the US congress into an unending war that has thus far resulted in nearly 4,000 American KIAs, untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties and cost the US people more $500 billion, apparently crippling the US economy.

Additionally, Admiral William Fallon, the US military commander for the Middle East, has stepped down from his post amid reports he disagreed with Bush, over his policies on Iran. An article in Esquire magazine last week said Fallon was opposed to the US taking military action against Iran over its nuclear program. Fallon also told Esquire his reported disagreements with Bush over his policy on Iran could lead to his dismissal in favor of someone "more pliable".

Let’s cut to the chase.

It is time to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney before they lead the US into an armed conflict with yet another Asian country. Let us not in good conscience allow one more life to be shamefully wasted to serve the war-mongering and megalomaniacal greed of these men and their associates.

Write your congressman, your senator, your governor, your newspaper, Senators Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain demanding that impeachment proceeding be initiated at once. Go to http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer and sign the petition. (see side-bar link) and send the link to everyone you know.

Then, let’s find out how we can bring formal criminal charges against Rumsfeld, Rice and all of the other principals accomplices in this most horrific malfeasance and betrayal of public trust.

Enough is enough and this is far more than enough.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BC09965E-724A-45E0-BDF6-CC4681C87BFB.htm

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7D51BAB4-5FE3-4CD9-86F7-5E6C062EAED0.htm

Irony & Activism

"Of the corporate institution, for the corporate institution and by the corporate institution".

It doesn’t just roll off the tongue, does it?

If Lincoln had made his Address in the present era of ‘Corporatism’ – government policy directed by and politicians ‘funded’ by corporations and their lobbyists - that’s how he would have had to word his catch-phrase had he wished to convey any truth at all.

What can we do about it?

Now, think about it. Isn’t that an odd question to ask if you firmly believe (or even suspect) that you live in a free, egalitarian democratic republic built on personal liberty and are guaranteed the redress of grievances by the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States?

Noam Chomsky, MIT professor emeritus, gives talks on US foreign policy all over the world. Again and again, Americans ask him, “What can we do about it? What can we do to effect change in US policy?”

Note this: he’s never asked that question anywhere else in the world; Nicaragua, Palestine, the UK, Canada or elsewhere.

Only in America.

Professor Chomsky responds by commenting on the irony of citizens in the US even asking the question. The ‘cradle of liberty’, the ‘bright shining beacon of hope’, the ‘grand experiment’, ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ yet its citizens, who by law, by tradition and by the decree issued in the Declaration of Independence, are consumed by a sense of helplessness.

The answer?

Americans need to simply start holding informal meetings about the issues that concern them; local issues, State-wide issues, Federal, International, environmental, etc. Meet in twos and threes with family, friends, co-workers, church members, etc and talk about what needs to be done to help our nation.

Of course, this would mean skipping half an evening of television or an hour session at the Playstation to do some research and attend the meeting.

Maybe that’s too much to ask.

http://www.corporatism.org/

Debt - the American Way

It never rains but it pours.

Credit card debt in America reached a record high of nearly $800 billion dollars last November. A new report from the Center for American Progress warns that a rise in credit card defaults could produce economic fallout on par with the current mortgage crisis. Approximately 35 million credit card customers can no longer afford to make more than the minimum payment every month.

Meanwhile defaults on home mortgages have reached another all-time high. The Mortgage Bankers Association say nearly 80% of all home loans in America were past due or in foreclosure at the end of last year. The Federal Reserve also announced that Americans’ percentage of equity in their homes has fallen below fifty percent for the first time since 1945.

But that’s not all!

The price of oil hit a new high Thursday nearly reaching $106 a barrel, a 300% increase over 7 years ago, at the start of Bush’s neo-con regime.

And that’s only part of it. The record oil price came as the US dollar struck a new low against all major currencies.

The Bush administration pats itself on the back for sending out checks for a few hundred dollars to each American family to off-set the collapse of the dollar.

What a bunch of great guys.

On the other hand, the US government gives out more than $5 billion a year in direct aid to Israel. Has done for more than a generation.

$13,812,154 a day.

That works out to more than $10,000 per Israeli per annum.

You got bought off cheap, sucka.

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville

Oh, by the way, Dubya probably had to borrow the money he deigned to dole out to you. So, as US taxpayers, you’ll be expected to pay all of it back.

With interest. Just hope Dubya didn’t put it on his credit card.

http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/table.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/

http://www.mortgagebankers.org/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/7/headlines

Friends Like These

I was watching a CNN report about the attack by a lone gunman at Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem. 8 were killed and 9 others wounded. This was cited as the deadliest in Jerusalem in over four years. At the time, little other information about the shooting was available. No group or faction has thus far claimed responsibility for the attack.

CNN televised a boiler-plate statement by the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, denouncing the horrific act of terror. Then, as Mr Gillerman left the podium, another man walked to the microphone. CNN did not bother to televise his statement. My curiosity was piqued. This second man, obviously a UN official or representative, must have been about to make a statement regarding the same incident.

In point of fact, the man was Libya’s Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Al-Dabbashi who explained why Libya had vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the attack but I had to wait until the following day, on ‘Democracy Now!’, to hear the statement by Deputy Ambassador. The statement in effect was that the resolution should be “balanced” by including condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza because the shooting at the yeshiva, atrocious as it was, followed one of the bloodiest weeks in Gaza in years as Israeli troops had killed at least 120 Palestinians over the past week, mostly civilians.

Ibrahim Al-Dabbashi stated, “For us the human lives are the same. We don’t judge the incident in itself. We judge about the killing. We think there is no superhuman and human from second grade or something like that. We think that the lives of the Palestinians are the same as those of the Israelis.”

Why was the Deputy Ambassador’s statement not deemed important enough by CNN to broadcast? To my mind, this is one more example of how the US media skews its reportage to favor the Israeli side of this terrible conflict.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations decried Libya’s stance stating, “The Security Council was unable to reach a decision, a unanimous decision on condemning the massacre that happened in Jerusalem tonight. Unfortunately, this is what happens when the Security Council is infiltrated by terrorists.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Let’s do a simple cold-hearted body count: 120 Palestinians were killed last week in Gaza by the Israeli military using tanks, helicopter gunships and F-16 fighters whereas 8 Israelis were killed by a single shooter in Jerusalem with a single assault rifle.

Where will more tears be shed, in Gaza or in Jerusalem? Where was the more egregious crime committed?

To continue this morbid tally, at least 4,528 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000 compared to 1,031 Israelis; a factor of 4 to 1.

982 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis forces while 119 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians during the same time frame; a factor of almost 9 to 1.

An additional 31,815 Palestinians have been injured since that date compared to 6,845 Israelis; a factor of nearly 5 to 1.

Despite the lop-sided body count, Israel insists that it is the victim and Palestine is the accursed terrorist state.

Since 1980, 33 resolutions condemning Israel’s continuing, flagrant violations of international law and the Geneva conventions as regards the occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people have been put before the UN Security Council. All of them have been vetoed by the US.

Where are the sanctions against Israel? Iraq was invaded for much less.

With friends like Israel...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3516295,00.html

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/2008/0305killingspree.htm

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/7/headlines

http://www.uscrusade.com/forum/config.pl/noframes/read/1372

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/veto/vetosubj.htm

Dub-ya & Wicked Dick

“The voters of Brattleboro, Vermont have voted to seek an indictment of the president and vice president and arrest them if they show up in town. No specific crimes are mentioned, but organisers of the anti-Bush effort have referred to perjury, obstruction of justice and war crimes related to the Iraq conflict.”

"Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities....

"and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police, pursuant to the above mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecuted or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?"

Dub-ya and Wicked Dick are wanted men in the Vermont town – wanted for crimes against the US Constitution. With the great number of Iraqi civilians dead and wounded at the cost of untold billions of dollars, it’s time more moral and constitutionally-minded citizens follow Brattleboro’s lead.

Washington, D.C. would be a perfect place for such a measure to be introduced and enacted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/05/georgebush.usa

http://www.rubyan.com/politics/2006/09/bushcheney_escape_war_crimes_p.html

http://www.peoplejudgebush.org/crimes.shtml

http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/10/war-crimes-act-of-1996-bush-rumsfeld.html

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/impeachment-demands-spread-across-usa

http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer

Cost Analysis

$16 billion dollars is being spent every month on the undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

$43,835,616.00 per diem – give or take.

In 2007, Washington gave $6.8 million a day to Israel – mostly in the form of military aid. More than a quarter of a million dollars an hour.

The Pentagon plans to bleed the stone for $515.4 billion in 2009; $42.9 billion a month; $9.9 billion a week; $1.4 billion a day; $58.8 million an hour; $980,000 a minute; $16,000 a second.

The blink of an eye.

Tell us again about the cost of ‘freedom’ and the price of ‘national security’.

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp#InContextUSMilitarySpendingVersusRestoftheWorld

http://www.counterpunch.org/chretien04072006.html

US Politics

You know, my grandfather, Papa, was a real pro wrestling fan way back when. Killer Kowalski, Mad Dog Vachon, Gorgeous George. Crusher. Haystacks Calhoun.

He was totally rapt with the action bristling from that little black ‘n white picture tube.

By ten years old, I suspected that what was taking place was something other than a pure athletic competition. To Papa, it was real. I couldn’t tell him otherwise.

It was stage play. Sure people got hurt – two bruisers going at it in tights, somebody was bound to get banged up. Andy Kaufman found that out.

But win or lose, each wrestler got paid because they both worked for the same company. Whichever grappler got the champion’s belt depended on what back-room deals were made.

It’s the same today; the owners of the ‘league’ market muscle-bound goons as entertainment.

Is it sport? No. The outcome of a sporting contest is not known beforehand. If the outcome is pre-determined, it’s called a ‘fix’. The fix is in and the sport is out.

There have been more than a dozen US presidential campaigns during my life-time. Several, I have actually paid some attention to. Some I’ve even voted in.

The US presidential race, to me, is just a more wordy, less physical form of the Sunday afternoon wrestling shows that kept my Papa on the edge of his chair.

More stage craft than states craft. More showmanship than statesmanship. More PR than policy.

And when the ‘pin’ is made and the votes are counted will the results have already been determined?

Well, you figure it out. Presidential campaigners go begging for upwards of $500,000,000US to get a job that pays $200,000.

$500 million bucks comes with strings attached and those purse strings lead straight back to the fixers.

The fix is not for which of two representatives of big business gets to live in the White House for a few years. Whichever one will be awarded the temp job in the Oval Office, the new administration's policies have been determined in advance by the fixers. And, dollars to donuts, they will have little to do in the long run with what was promised on 'Meet the Press' except those that would further sweeten the pot for the moneyed elite.

Is it politics? Sure, down and dirty.

Is it democracy? Not even close.

OpenSecrets.org - Race for the White House

Dems, What About the Military Budget?

'Hard' Diplomacy

You’re walking down the street. You have two guns; a big one and a little one.

You come upon two men, one being robbed by the other, a brute with a club.

The two men turn to you and say, “Help Me!”

The brute with the club says, “Give me a hand. I’m gonna need more than this club. Sell me your gun and I’ll share what I get off this guy with you.”

You say, “Let me get this straight; you want to buy my gun in order to rob this guy more easily. And then you’ll split the spoils with me?”

The robber says, “Right. With one stipulation: I won’t have the money to buy the gun until after I rob him. Loan me the gun, I’ll pay for it afterward and share the spoils besides.”

The un-armed man is stunned and pleads for your assistance in thwarting this robber. “Please, give me a hand. This is all I have. Help me.”

What to do? What to do?

You can’t just loan the mugger a gun. That wouldn't be right.

Here’s the only thing you can do:

You keep the bigger gun, so the mugger can’t turn round and rob you.
(Hey! You’re no dummy.)

Then you loan the smaller gun to man with the club. He robs the unarmed man of everything he has, shooting him in the leg for daring to resist.

The robber pays you for the gun and, with your bigger gun trained on him, he divvies up the loot with you as he said he would.

Honor amongst thieves, after all.

You go buy two more little guns and walk the street looking for another robber with a club. Next time, you’ll sell the bullets, too.

This is what is called ‘US Foreign policy’.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/28/massacre_the_story_of_east_timor

Insult to Injury

You enlist in the US Army.

You want to serve your country, learn a trade, see the world, wear fatigues.

After training, you’re sent to Iraq.

Two weeks in country, you‘re sent on a patrol.

Your vehicle is struck by an IED. It’s not adequately armored because the DoD is trying to hold down the expense of bringing Democracy to the Iraqis.

You are wounded. In the disorder resulting from the attack, you lose your helmet.

You’re medevacked to Germany. One of your limbs is amputated.

You go home. A hero. You’ve sacrificed on the altar of Democracy.

After a while, you get a bill from the government for the cost of your lost helmet.

According to the book, The Three Trillion Dollar War’ by Nobel laureate and former chief World Bank economist, Joseph Stiglitz, and co-author Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that’s just what happens.

You defaulted on your contract with the government to serve three years by getting injured too soon, thus ending your service before the contract allowed.

Pay up you deadbeat.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/29/stream

Irony

A prince of the House of Windsor enlists in the Army as a matter of duty to his country. He then insists that he see combat with his unit in a foreign war. After much ado, he is surreptitiously assigned to a front-line unit in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

A prince of the House of Bush, on the other hand, finagles a commission as a pilot in a back-water Air National Guard unit to avoid combat duty in Vietnam. He then spends most of his time in the Guard AWOL from his post.

Even More Ironic

‘W’, as Commander-in-chief, commits National Guardsmen to extended tours of combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.