Shouting into the void that is US political thinking ...

... At some point, a rational person has to wonder whether people like Jacob Weisberg -- who endlessly advocate policies that fuel Islamic extremism and intensify tension between the West and the Muslim world -- aren't desirous of exactly that outcome. After decades of pursuing this blatantly counter-productive approach, what else could explain such moral and intellectual blindness?

How could these people (like Weisberg) possible fail to imagine how they would respond to the injustices we have heaped on Iraq and Afghanistan? They couldn't! Which leaves us with Greenwald's conclusion that this is all deliberate policy to seek perpetually increasing death and destruction.

These are the same kind of people who also have such extreme and devastating effect on internal US law enforcement policies: wars on drugs, the three-strikes mentality, inhumane treatment, arbitrary penalties, prosecutions and incarcerations based on race and economic class.

All the money they want for war. A fight for any penny spent for jobs or health or education or the general well being of the citizens. After all why would the Weisbergs of this world spend money on the fodder for their wars.

The US government as war-machine, like Hitler's Germany, instead of government as the people's representatives. This has nothing to do with Obama or even Bush the Lesser. Eisenhower even warned us that the machine was already in place and building up steam. Bush apparently relished how powerful this war machine made him feel. Cheney spent his time servicing the machine. Obama, it appears, will do nothing against the machine.

The truth that can't be heard ... in the US ...

We can't combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat in the first place. All of that is so basic. It's been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It's not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Undoubtedly, there is some small faction of "Islamic radicals" principally motivated by religious fervor which will likely hate the West regardless of what it does, but -- as the 2004 Pentagon-commissioned Report found -- their most potent weapons are American policies that inflame anti-American hatred in the Muslim world, beginning with ongoing wars waged by the U.S. military in Muslim countries. That's so self-evident it shouldn't require a report to document it, but since it seems to, here's a very credible report that does exactly that [pdf].

A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terrorism by Glenn Greenwald

From his cushy air conditioned chair, Killer Kyl enjoyed destroying Iraq so very much he wants to do the same to Iran ...

A very blood thirsty man is Killer Kyl.

What we're trying to do here eventually is to get a regime change with a group of people in there that are more representative of the Iranian people -- who we really can talk with in a way that might end up with a good result. I think it's very difficult to do that with the current leadership, and especially with the elected President.

Regime change. Seem to remember hearing that term before. One of the many euphemisms for murder isn't it? Kyl wants to select a group of people to represent the Iranians. Throw in a little verbiage about women's rights, democracy, freedom and Kyl's on his way ...

But we won't ...

If this incoherent, boot-strapping rationale is the best we can come up with for our/Obama's Iraq policy, I'd said its time for us to get out. The issue isn't just the photos; it's the unthinking, unexamined presumptuousness of the occupation. We no longer have any moral claim, any valid justification for being there, if we ever had one.

We need to end that occupation; then apologize, come home and, as General Sanchez said on Countdown, try to confront what we've done to them, and to ourselves, and ask why/how we let it happen. And while we're doing this, it is we who need to be looking at the photos, not just the Iraqis.

[excerpt from McClatchy: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos; What That Says for Our Occupation by Scarecrow]

Obama, as a leader of the United States, should think this issue through and attempt to lead us out of the moral morass in which the US is drowning. But he won't. Unlike Bush, Obama has a brain. But like Bush, Obama is not a thinker ...

Obama, remember you are the Commander and Chief of the US armed forces ...

... or are you going to try bi-partisanship on them too and let the military run you like the GOP is doing?

Sack Odierno

You ARE President. The country needs a President and you are IT. You are going to get criticized no matter what you do. You might as well do the good and right. You will not stay popular by doing nothing. This is not a game!

Ah, so now they admit that what Blackwater did was a crime?...

The Bushies hired their buddies in Blackwater. I can just picture cowboy hatted Bush holed up in a back room watching films of Blackwater's 'old West approach to life on the frontier.'

Hire killers and exempt them from laws that cover most human beings, such as US citizens, US soldiers, Iraquis and what not. Then take years and years to search out some law, any law, to hold these goons accountable. That appears to be what has happened. Blackwater was exempt but for some reason the best prosecutorial minds have dug out a law that can be used?

Blackwater Shooters To Be Charged Under Obscure Drug Law

Now that Bush's on his way to do as much harm as he can somewhere other than in the White House, now some fine prosecutor finds one out of all our millions of specially written and targeted laws to cover Bush's arrogant murderers.

Not for murder mind you. Not for war crimes. Not for recklessly firing a firearm in a crowed area. Not for manslaughter. Evidently there are no such laws that cover Blackwater. No, the thing they might get them for is a law covering "the use of machine guns in violent crimes."

So it was a crime? Have we gotten that far ...

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Today's QUOTES:

First of all, putting people to work for the police and endangering their lives in the process is a disgusting by-product of the failed war on drugs. Police do not use only "hardened criminals" for this task, but they use anyone that they can. Sometimes they make good on their promises to these people and sometimes they do not, and sometimes these people get hurt in the process. ... --The Confidential Informants by Bobby G. Frederick, South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

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It sure is nice ...

... to have someone who is NOT an idiot be the face of America. I must admit he does it well but I sure do wish he believed in some of the things I believe in, such as the Constitution, the rule of law, universal health care for starters.

"The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''

If we assume that an idiot such as Col. Bud Day who is quoted in this post's title represents all of the citizens of the United States then those outside the US would be justified in assuming that all US citizens are idiots. But Bud Day does not represent us and we are not all idiots such as he (though all humans seem to have some brand of idiocy in varying degrees).

Some Moslems do apparently believe that forceful conversion or death is the only options for dealing with non-believers but it's rather obvious that not all do believe so. (Christians are not so innocent in this regard either, by the way.)

And even if all Moslems did believe this way, what idiot thinks that before we invaded Iraq they had any chance of accomplishing such a feat. Before we invaded Iraq we could have just laughed in anyone in Iraq that claimed such a preposterous goal. We could have taken steps to protect us from the few crazies. We could have used old fashioned detective work to find those who actually did threaten us or did act out on those threats. And right after 9/11 we would have had the worlds support in going after those who actually planned and engineered 9/11.

After invading Iraq without cause and without benefit, we are weaker than we were (though 'the people who matter' are much, much richer). And if the Bush gang continues down this road and invades or bombs Iran we will be weaker still. We are collecting the hate of the world. We, as a country are very, very stupid. And too few of the non-stupid are in power at present.

Link: McCain backer's comments anger Muslims by Marc Caputo and Beth Reinhard, The Miami Herald

ADDED: Just think, we placed Americans in Iraq as handy targets for any who would like to take a shot at them and then proceeded to treat the country in such a manner to increase the number of people who, and not necessarily for any reasons having to do with religion, want to kill and humiliate as many of us as they can. It's called hate and the monkey in the White House, George W. Bush (a self proclaimed Christian who evidently believes he is doing Gods work), is very, very good at engendering hate, cruelty and all that is base about humanity. What a legacy.

ADDED II: Speaking of God. Since the Moslem, Christian and Jewish God are the same God wouldn't 'believers' begin to wonder if they have understood the message correctly? Either this god is very much like George W Bush(cruel, vindictive, petty, and shallow) and deliberately setting his 'children' at each others throats for some cruel purpose of his own (which I'll admit I am unable to fathom) OR based on the more uplifting teaching of these same religions many are perverting the true teachings OR there is no god and those in power manipulate the message to whatever works to keep and increase their power.

Ya think?

It's not that simple ...

Arthur Silber asks:

So what is your choice? Do the world -- and your life, and the lives of those you love -- mean so little to you, that you will risk losing them all? Is that what you want? Do you still choose to do nothing?

Do you?

He's says we should do something more than writing letters. We should do something like they did in the 60's. If I remember rightly, and I'm definitely not a historian, the impetus for the civil rights marches started with churches and college students. And those marches, and other forms of civil disobedience, were reported and televised.

Today, churches seem to be on the side of authoritarianism. Rights and justice just don't seem to interest them. I don't know where college students stand today but I think they are quite aware that the protests against the Iraq war were hardly reported or televised. All that effort went down one big black hole.

In addition it's much easier, and more immediate, to look around you and see the injustices of segregation than to look into the future and understand what will happen if/when a criminal US attacks Iran. Specially when the media, the medium we depend upon to help inform us of facts, instead weaves fantasy while sending those facts down another big black hole.

A very brave man ...

Taking a stand against a corrupt administration, that has turned the US justice system into a political arm of the Federal government and instituted untold authoritarian, thugish and pre-FLDS like refinements to both American civilian and military life, is very brave indeed.

Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in the Army until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines, today publicly announced his intention to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. (via C&L)

There obviously are many brave and honorable US citizens around the country. If a sufficient number of them had been in Congress (or even the press) we might not have been in the situation we find ourselves in now.

We, the American People, have done a very poor job of keeping tabs on, and control of, OUR government.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... quite a few yesterdays as I have been camping in the White Mountains.

... scientists now predict that, at least among insects, global warming will take its biggest toll in the tropics--home to more than half the world's species.

... 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression

... As I often note these days, we are drowning in lies. Yet it is still no small wonder that this entire conversation about Wright, King, et al. proceeds in the almost complete absence of a discussion of what Wright has actually said, just as no one seems to remember what King actually said.

... [the chieftains of the Terror War] do not and have never cared a single instant about the freedom and well-being of the Iraqi or the Iranian people. (Or the American people, for that matter.) They are engaged on a long-range project of perpetual war toward an eventual goal of iron-clad military domination of a strategic portion of the world's energy supplies and distribution, and the establishment of America's "unipolar domination" over geopolitical affairs.

crAZy Person: Jon Kyl


In fact, the only way McCain's bankrupt domestic policies will not cause one misstep after another is if he confines himself to whistle-stop tours of gated communities and medieval castles.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Very troubling indeed. Sen. Clinton has this ugly and detestable habit of impressing people who get to know her well - especially independents and Republicans! The result? A powerful Republican and media magnate who hated the Clintons came dangerously close to endorsing her! We certainly can't have that! After all, according to The Clinton Rules and The Obama Rules it is only acceptable if Republicans endorse Sen. Obama - he who has courted them aggressively - in support of his campaign of hope, unity and change. ... how unfair can it get.

A new world order emerged when Mr. Gorbachev brought down the Berlin Wall. The next world order began when U.S. psyop forces staged the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue. From that point, it became apparent that America’s military might meant little without a peer force to compete against.

While the Bush Administration has demonized al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army since the invasion, it has never acknowledged one simple fact: between the two main Shiite factions in the country, Bush backs the one directly tied to Iran. Al-Sadr on the other hand is a nationalist, who will accept support from Iran but will never be an Iranian puppet.

... Yet after all this, our governing class and the foreign policy establishment have learned absolutely nothing -- except to commit their future crimes more "efficiently" and "competently." ...

[...] Be sure to appreciate the magnitude of the destruction involved: not only has the United States destroyed a nation and over a million human beings. As was true from the beginning, the U.S. is determined to destroy logic, morality, and your capacity to understand or make sense of anything at all: "The charges...were dismissed 'in order to continue to pursue the truth seeking process into the Haditha incident.'" ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... We did not go after the Saudis, who sponsored the attacks on this nation, because it would be bad for the oil industry. That is treason, is it not? We did not go after Pakistan, because it would be bad for the weapons industry (and likely the war on drugs industry). That is treason, is it not? When corporate profits are more important than national security, then we can safely declare that fascism is on the march. Onwards lied-to soldiers, the corporate war of terror beckons.

... That should be out primary concern above all else in November. Electing McCain will definitely make this country less safe as the rest of the world comes to realize that they are going to have to band together to contain us. ...
I'm surprised the world hasn't already started to band together against us. More of Bush's evil 'luck' I suppose.

Will Free Ride McCain get a free ride into the White House?

The media and McCain ...

Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy. Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans. Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists. Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system. Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary. Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee. "Man of conviction" cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock. Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it. ... the corporate media continues on its crusade of destruction.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... and so at 11:00 o'clock a.m. on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults ...


... But there should be no doubt in anyone's mind five years later that both the coverage and the attitude of the press towards the Bush administration in 2002/03 was disgracefully craven. ...


Is toppling Saddam so important that it warranted a trillion dollars of crippling debt, a busted military, thousands of dead innocents, a new haven for Al Qaeda, and the destruction of an occupied country?

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Noting this, Matt Yglesias added, “Few people seem to appreciate it, but it’s quite literally true that al-Qaeda’s strategy is to cripple the U.S. economy by dragging us into quagmires abroad. Osama bin Laden himself has said this, and it’s the only strategy that makes sense. A smallish number of people with no base of resources can’t possibly defeat us unless we shoot ourselves in the foot repeatedly as Bush and McCain propose.”

Wait, let me see if I get this. The FBI broke the law on orders from the White House and with the help of private corporations who were big donors to the Bush-Cheney campaigns. The private companies charged us - the consumer - on contract, which they then broke to get more of our money from the federal government. The White House and DOJ lied to Congress when caught, claiming that this illegal spying was only against "terrorists," and claimed that everything they had done was legal. Yet it is the White House who is demanding immunity for companies that they claim broke no laws. In the meantime, even though the FBI lied and misled Congress a number of times now, they claim that new reforms will keep the public safe from illegal domestic spying.

Hillary Clinton's supporters have gotten incredibly annoying, with their chants of "Yes She Can," and charges of cultism and their desperate yelps of schadenfreude every time Clinton looks like she might actually be "recapturing the lead" that she never had.

And Obama's supporters, yes, you too are incredibly annoying, with your accusations of Clintonian Republicanism and your whiny little cries about how you're going to take your ball and run home if your candidate doesn't win the primary.

You found "them" in Pakistan. So why are you not "there?" You found "them" in Afghanistan, so why did you leave "there" to go to Iraq? And "they" are certainly in and funded by Saudi Arabia, but you did not go "there" either. So what makes Somalia so special as to rouse the attention of our military industrial complex?

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Bates found that I had not demonstrated that “irreparable harm” would befall Al-Ghizzawi if the government did not provide the medical care or records. How Bates could expect me to demonstrate that my client would suffer irreparable harm without my first having access to those very records is beyond me. I queried whether I would have to wait for my client to die before the necessary “irreparable harm” could be shown, but Bates refused to reconsider his Kafkaesque decision and I filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court. Unfortunately for my client, that court has been too busy unraveling our Constitution and the appeal has sat untouched since late 2006.

Unless of course, we’re just not supposed to have a system that works too well. It’s a bit of a tinfoil argument, I know, but what else are we expected to believe when a solution is developed over the course of a year-and-a-half and, when nearing success, is quietly shut down? [...] I also find the timing of the scrapping of this plan somewhat … convenient. The springtime rush of illegal immigrants should already be starting up.

It has been 20 months since Siegelman’s trial ended and no trial transcript has been produced by Fuller's court. This is in violation of the rules of criminal procedure which require a transcript within 30 days of sentencing. Siegelman can't appeal his conviction with out an official trial transcript ... Setting up this kind of injustice is what the Republican Torture Party would find enjoyable. I suppose some would call it (un)Christian? Not to mention criminal.

Is it possible that corporations are placing "swallows" inside the offices of our elected officials? If someone would have suggested this to me a few years ago, I would have laughed it off.

But given the almost lock-step approach of Congress to consistently voting against the citizens of this nation in favor of corporations, this possibility becomes that much stronger. If my theory on Ms. Iseman holds, then her past will reveal some interesting connections. My guess is that she got her sudden rise to stardom much the same way Susan Ralston did.

Cuantos son muertos por mentiras ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Chameleons aren't hiding, they're advertising?
The study provides strong evidence that the chameleon's color change evolved mainly for communication, says behavioral ecologist Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. No one has ever shown that the chameleon's special ability provides camouflage, says Hanlon, who reviewed 100 years of scientific literature on the subject. That, combined with the results of this research, he says, should definitively debunk the popular myth--until someone else finds a new species that justifies the belief.
"It's like a wristwatch: If it runs slow, you're late for everything; if it's too fast, you're early for everything," ...
A cluster of brain cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) runs the clock in humans, and the body's other cells have their own "slave clocks" that are synchronized to the SCN. With timekeeping outposts throughout the body, the main clock helps regulate everything from sleepiness to concentration.
Our own worst enemy ... Also worrying is a flash point created by drying soil and dying vegetation. Fires are a natural feature here, as shown by periodic dark bands in tree rings. But fires are growing more frequent and fierce, says Boldgiv. The worst-case scenario is that drought and wildfires converge in a regional conflagration. Huge swaths of taiga forest and steppe grasslands could be lost in a single summer, he says. There is no fire brigade out here.

Just what ecosystem might emerge from that apocalyptic scenario is a central question of the Hovsgol project. After a decade of research, ecologists have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that receding taiga and overgrazed steppe tend to leave shrubby wasteland in their wake. Islands of this "semidesert" of sparse plants and few grasses are expanding. Goulden is worried that this may warn of a wholesale transition to semidesert, which would be "disastrous," he says, because it supports a fraction of the animal density that grassland supports. And it could ruin the country's best source of drinking water if topsoil eroding into Hovsgol's tributaries spurs algal growth in the lake.

As was to be expected, the media was quick to ask the superficial question immediately after the first two-candidate Democratic debate of this campaign: “Who won?”

They totally missed the obvious point: The Democratic Party won tonight.

Body language, everything was different ... so refreshing.
The worst is yet to come ...
What's breaking is not necessarily revealed in Iraq but when these psychologically scarred men and women return home, without adequate medical care or mental health treatment at their service. It's as big a landmine as the next President will have to face; being handed an Army that is withered to the core, and then if he or she attempts to pull out of Iraq to save the military, being chastised by the neocon faction about hating the country and loving to lose, etc., etc.
... and a tragedy that the GOP will use with glee to the detriment of us all.
Another Uniter? ...
The reality is that the person who is being divisive in this campaign is not Sen. Clinton - it is Sen. Obama. Rather than behave as the UniterTM that he claims to be, he can't stop dividing the Democratic party with the use of false Republican attacks against his main opponent. If he really wants to be a uniter, rather than a divider, and set an example to his followers, he can run a campaign on the issues, criticize his opponent on the merits of her positions (but not by making stuff up about her repeatedly), and not write and deliver divisive speeches using faxed talking points from the Republican National Committee. Now, that would be a simple and easy way to unite the Democratic party and the country. We'll see if Sen. Obama is up to the task.

How Republicans think, if one can call it that ...

To paraphrase:Per United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey, torturing Mukasey would be torture (to Mukasey) but not necessarily torture if Mukasey weren't Mukasey. Got that?

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Arizona is among five states in the nation either in recession or on the verge of it, Vest said. The others are Michigan, California, Florida and Nevada, he said. For most, the primary cause was likely a boom and bust in the housing market with heavy speculation and prolific use of risky mortgages, he said.
The purpose of government is to promote the general welfare of the people. There is no other reason to have a government except to promote the general welfare of the people. Therefore health care is a civil right. -- Randi Rhodes
... that would be $3,500,000,000,000. Mostly for an immoral, illegal, unjustified war of aggression that has wrought hell on an innocent people, and is now expected to accomplish nothing. ... Except for making certain individuals and corporations very very rich.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

McCain is a bloodthirsty right wing warmonger. But he's not an outright sadist. That is the range of what passes for morality among the GOP candidates.

And by the way, he's losing because of it.

... No one seems to notice that, as with everything else in Iraq, the Iraqis are going to do what they want, when they want. When al-Sadr lays down his arms, there will be relative peace. When he takes them up, Americans will die in dozens.

Regardless, the fortunes of Iraq will turn on Iraqi decisions made in Baghdad and Najaf, not in Washington, D.C. and the halls of Congress. As this situation shows, peace in Iraq lies in the hands of Iraqis. It cannot—and will not—be forced by Americans at the point of a gun.

Remember the Democrats we put in charge to stop the war ...

If the Democratically 'controlled' Congress approves another $200 billion, for which timing alone seems to be an issue, then this $200 billion of $680 billion (that's BILLION) that's going down the war rat hole so that Republicans can make Republicans richer while claiming that the United States can't afford health care for all Americans, not even all American children; so that the Republicans can raid the SS fund and then claim it's just an entitlement, and not a payroll tax specifically targeted for the retirement of Americans (as apposed to corporations or Congress people, for which all government income is their own personal plaything and and certainly not to be shared back in any way with the populace) ... of that $680 BILLION, $290 billion will have come from the Democratic Congress.

Feel good about your representatives. They don't feel a thing about you. They think you will vote for them because you have no choice. After all as they demonstrate to us daily, they are so much better than the Republicans! Ya think?