In April 1994, Dick laid out his top 10–or at least 4– reasons for not invading Iraq. He should properly be wearing a turban and sit in front of a crystal ball in this clip, for his prognostications were right on the mark.
What I heard:
Based on Black Water by Patrick Simmons (The Doobie Brothers)
Well, I GOT TO IRAQ and she’s ready for FIGHTIN’
MESOPOTAMIA callin’ my name
CONTRACTS ARE jumpin'
That GRAVY TRAIN RUNNIN’
BLACKWATER keeps rollin’ on past just the same
Old BLACKWATER, keep on rollin’
MERCENARY moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
(X3)
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, AL-SISTANI
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain’t SHOT no SUNNIS
’cause I WAS OUT IN THE BOONIES ALL DAY
Well, if IRANIANS, I don’t care
Don’t make no difference to me
TAKE OUT that streetcar that’s going TO town
I’M IMMUNE TO LEGAL PROSECUTION
I GET DRUNK AND I KILL FOR SPORT
And I’ll be SHOOTIN’ ev’rybody DOWN all ’roun’
Old BLACKWATER, keep on rollin’
MESOPOTAMIAN moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
(X3)
Keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, AL-MALIKI
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain’t SHOT NO SHIA
’cause I WAS DOWN BY THE PIER ALL DAY
I’d like to HIT some funky CIVILIAN VEHICLES
BABYLON’LL take me by the hand
By the hand, take me by the hand pretty SADR
Come and dance with SISTANI all night long
I’M IMMUNE TO LEGAL PROSECUTION
BABYLON’LL take me by the hand
By the hand, take me by the hand pretty BADR
Come and dance with MALIKI all night long
I want to ………… you all night long
George Bush was walking through Baghdad.
"What a majestic surge!"
"What a powerful shock!"
"What awe!"
As he was walking beside a burnt out Humvee, he heard a click behind him. He tuned around and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun held by an Arab. The Arab yelled out, "Prepare to die, Infidel!"
Bush cried out, "Oh my god!"
Time stopped.
The Arab froze.
The war zone was silent.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.
"You have used my name without permission. You said you consulted with me when you didn't. Now everyone thinks I am responsible for this mess. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?
The neo-con looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as a honest Christian now, but perhaps You could make the Arab a Christian?"
"Very well," said the voice.
Stunned and relieved at the benevolence of the Creator, Bush decided to make an additional request. "Excuse me? While you're at it, dear lord, is it asking too much to make him an American, too? I really, really will consult with you next time, I promise I will."
"You test my patience with your requests. Yet, the power of repentance and forgiveness is unlimited. I shall grant your request, and go one further. Let him be a Christian, an American, and a woman. These things usually come in threes."
The light went out.The sounds of machine guns and carpet bombing resumed. A sharp boot kick to the chin knocked the crouching neo-con onto his side. He tasted the unexpected taste of "doo-doo" sticking to his beard. "You got dog shit on your boots, bitch!" he shouted, but only gibberish came out. He could have sworn that he didn't have a beard. He realized that he was naked, and that a dog collar was clasped tightly around his neck, as he looked up at the vacant face of Lynndie England.
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but by now it ought to be painfully obvious that the Democratic Party is a pro-war party. What’s different between them and the Republicans is that this pro-war party has an anti-war base. This leads the Democratic leadership to create the façade that they’re simply inept at stopping the war, rather than successful at prolonging it with continued funding. The Democrats are known for being weak and conceding to conservatives the same way Alberto Gonzales or Bush are known for being incompetent or stupid. It’s all an act to keep their real motives hidden. Both sides play on the unquestioning loyalty of their constituents to accomplish the exact opposite goals they promised to achieve.That seems to have hit the nail right on the head, articulating the suspicions of many of us. I don't think it is preaching to the converted, however. If we already knew this we wouldn't have acted as we had. Rather than deserting the Democrats to create a third party, the best path may still be to infiltrate the party (or ruling parties) and change it from within, the tactic favored by the other big durable 20th century multiethnic autocracies of China and the USSR. We need to do the same thing in the United States. Also, throw out the Democrats who voted to fund the war at the primary stage.
By dropping the timelines for withdrawal, the true motives of the Democratic Party have been revealed to the Democratic base. More Democrats are finally waking up to the fact that the “good cop” and the “bad cop” are on the same team. Yet some naïve voters and bloggers are still praying for the Dems to save the world. It’s not going to happen. The Democratic Party holds allegiance only to money and votes, not to any ethical set of ideals.
Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now: makes it clear why the neocons in the United States went to war in Iraq: $20 trillion worth of oil reserves at estimated future prices, an amount that dwarfs even the $1,000,000,000,000 (one-trillion) in asset appreciation enjoyed by Exxonmobil, Bush's largest backer after Enron.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, you know, there’s a fundamental misperception about the path the Democrats should be taking. We shouldn’t be offering any legislation at all. We should just simply tell the President we’re not going to fund the war. And this idea about funding the war to help the troops is absurd. You want to help the troops, bring them home.Too bad Dennis couldn't convince his fellow Reps that less is more, and doing nothing would get the job undone. See the full article (Democratic Leadership Failing U.S. Citizenry on War) at Democracy Now for the full transcript!
I offered a plan, HR 1234, that would provide for a plan that would bring the troops home, close the bases, end the occupation and reach out to the international community for an international peacekeeping and security force that would move in as our troops leave. But we can’t do that until we end the occupation. We can’t end the occupation until we stop funding the war. We simply do not have to have a bill, Amy. It’s just as simple as that.
…
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Kucinich, you spoke for about an hour on the floor of the House about the proposed Iraq oil law. Can you talk about this?
…
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: …You have to keep in mind that this process that the Bush administration has been pushing began even before the invasion of Iraq. They were meeting with oil companies, looking at how they could create a beachhead, essentially, in the Middle East, and they have been looking at the prize of Iraq oil for many years now.
And so, you have to remember that even though it looks like this legislation isn’t going anywhere, there is enormous pressure being put on the Iraqi government, and you can bet that before too long they’ll put the kind of pressure on them that the Iraqi government will break, will relent, and go ahead and pass this law that will permit about 80% of its oil to be controlled by multinational oil companies. Now, keep in mind that Iraq has as many as 300 billion barrels of oil. At a market price that looks like it’s going toward $70-a-barrel, you can be talking about $21 trillion worth of oil, 80% of which will be under the control of multinational oil companies, if it’s up to the Bush administration.
This is a crime, literally. And so, I’m challenging it. I’m letting the Congress know about it, and I’m going to keep an eye on this, because I think it’s the basis for a war crime charge.
…
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Vice President Cheney was meeting with oil company executives. They were planning this takeover of Iraqi oil. You know, everyone knows that it has one of the largest oil supplies in the world. This war has been about oil from the beginning. And I’ve been one of the few people who’s been willing to challenge it and say that. And I think the American people need to know that our government has been instrumental in trying to push the privatization of Iraq oil for the profit of multinational oil companies. Our soldiers shouldn’t be there in Iraq. We need to bring our troops home. And when someone looks at the long test of truth over the last five years, I’m the one who’s been telling the truth. This administration has not told the truth. And some of my colleagues in Congress have kept their head in the sand, while there’s been enormous catastrophe in Iraq, loss of life there, loss of lives of our troops, up to over $500 billion wasted already in American taxpayers’ funds. I mean, someone has to stand for the truth here. Someone has to stand for the Constitution. And that’s what I’m doing.
…
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the Democratic-led Congress has failed the American people right now?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Absolutely. Are you kidding? This isn’t even a close question. We were elected in November to end the war. That’s why people voted Democrat. That’s why they gave us control of the House and the Senate. And they expected us to take a new direction. They didn’t want a Democratic version of the war, and they didn’t want to be told later on, “Well, we just don’t have the votes.” Well, you know what? You don’t need the votes to say no. You just don’t offer any legislation at all.
Solar America Initiative. The Budget provides $148 million to continue this initiative toward the goal of making solar photovoltaic technology cost competitive with conventional electricity by 2015. If successful, the technology could help power the equivalent of one million homes by 2015.These figures, nestled in among our precious nuclear waste resources management, are $148 million for solar, $179 million for ethanol, $81 million for batteries, and $309 million for hydrogen. Grand total here is $717 million, or 0.75% of the Iraq War expenditure that is being approved by the Reprehensibles and Sedators. That amount is equal to 2 days, 17 hours, and 25 minutes of America's Iraq Occupation spending.
Biofuels Initiative. The Administration continues its commitment to make ethanol practical and competitive by 2012 by providing $179 million for research in producing ethanol not just from corn, but also from wood chips, dedicated energy crops like switchgrass, and other organic materials.
More Efficient Vehicles. Advanced battery technologies could reduce near-term oil consumption significantly with “plug-in” hybrid vehicles that can run on either electricity or gasoline; recharging their batteries at night. The 2008 Budget includes $81 million to accelerate research on advanced hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. The Budget provides $309 million to complete the President’s five-year, $1.2 billion commitment to support development by 2020 of commercially viable hydrogen infrastructure technologies and fuel cell vehicles that produce no air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.
This budget includes President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI) which aims to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil and transforming our national energy economy by promoting development of cleaner sources of electricity production. For too long, our nation has been dependent on oil. America's dependence leaves us more vulnerable to disruptions to domestic production like hurricanes, to hostile regimes, and to terrorists - who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy. In concert with the President’s Twenty In Ten initiative to reduce U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next ten years, or by 2017, a total of $2.7 billion is requested in FY 2008 to support the AEI. These funds support a diverse portfolio of energy research and development (R&D) and deployment programs designed to help meet the energy challenges of the 21st century. Highlights of the request include the following components of the President’s AEI:According to this, $2.7 billion is being spent to support the "AEI" (the sound made by readers of this) but the figures do not seem to add up unless this includes the energy from the nation's precious nuclear-waste reserves and coal, which are the two items this info is bookended between. If you choose to believe that larger number, know that it is under 3% of the Iraq request (disregarding the other $483 billion the Pentagon already spends) America would spend its energy research budget in 10 days in Iraq. These proportions should be reversed.
The President’s Biofuels Initiative. The President’s goal to make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive by 2012 is the focus of the biomass program. Biomass is the key renewable resource supported by the Department because it is a promising renewable option for producing liquid transportation fuels in the near term, thereby reducing our dependence on imported oil. In FY 2008, the Department is investing $179 million to support the goals of the initiative.
The President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. This budget request includes $309 million (an increase of $19.5 million above the FY 2007 request) for the President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and completes the President’s commitment of $1.2 billion over five years for this initiative. Increased funding is proposed to expand research in several areas, including: hydrogen production from renewables; materials for hydrogen storage; fuel cell stack components; and a new R&D effort on cost-effective manufacturing technologies to help industry build a competitive, domestic hydrogen and fuel cell supplier capability.
Vehicles Technologies and FreedomCAR. This year’s request emphasizes plug-in hybrid vehicle component technologies by increasing the requested research support to $81 million. These technologies offer the potential to make significant additional improvements in petroleum reduction beyond that achievable with standard hybrid configurations. By utilizing energy drawn from the nation’s electricity grid at off-peak times to charge high energy batteries, these technologies will be able to operate in an electric vehicle mode for expanded distances, potentially meeting most drivers’ needs for commuting and short distance driving.
The President’s Solar America Initiative (SAI). Launched in FY 2007, SAI is designed to achieve cost competitiveness for photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity by 2015. With a request of $148 million in FY 2008, SAI seeks to achieve its mission through public-private partnerships with industry, universities, national laboratories, states, and/or other government entities.
The FY 2008 budget request also supports renewable energy and energy efficiency R&D that could help reduce the overall demand for natural gas and lower emissions in the electricity sector. The FY 2008 request for the Wind Energy program includes $40 million to continue wind energy research to reduce costs and overcome barriers to large-scale use of wind power. The FY 2008 budget also includes $19 million to continue the accelerated development of Solid State Lighting technologies that have the potential to reduce commercial building lighting electricity consumption by 50 percent and could revolutionize the energy efficiency, appearance, visual comfort, and quality of lighting.
For FY 2008, the Bush administration has requested $647.3 billion to cover the costs of national defense and war. This includes the Defense Department budget ($483 billion), some smaller defense-related accounts ($22.6 billion), and the projected FY 2008 cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terror operations ($141.7 billion). However, it does not include non-DOD expenditures for homeland security ($36.4 billion) or the Veterans' Affairs budget ($84.4 billion). Nor does it include the request for supplemental funds for outstanding FY 2007 war costs ($93.4 billion).
The Democratic majority in the United States Congress has surrendered their policy-making and funding power and become enablers to the Perpetrator-in chief. (Truthdig, Huffington Post) They now will fund the occupation of Iraq by the invading forces with no exit strategy or withdrawal date. This makes any delaying they have done up to now a waste of time, validates the bad-dog attitudes of Cheney-Bush, and makes potty-training much more difficult. No wonder the Democrats have so quickly approached and actually exceeded Bush-Cheney-like low levels of public approval, and they didn't need six years or even one year to do it. (Gallup, AP/Ipsos)
Maybe some people need to be reminded that the U. N. mandate that granted some international cover to the U.S. invasion and occupation expires soon. This seems to be a little-known fact not even discussed in the Iraq debate! You need to search google news for Chinese news sources to find mention of this fact.
The UN Security Council decided in November 2006 to extend the mandate of the international forces in Iraq to Dec. 31, 2007.The Democrats in Congress who seek to fund and support the U.S. occupation should not just be removed from office, but ought to be brought before the World Court in the Hague, tried as war criminals, and imprisoned for long terms.
Noam Chomsky wonders what Americans might think and do if Mexico and Canada had been invaded and occupied by a nuclear-armed superpower. I have conducted the same thought-experiment but I use China rather than Iran as the alternate history superpower since it is easier to imagine a timeline where China was able to invade. Chomsky wants Americans to put themselves in Iran's place and see the world (and American/Israeli threats) as it appears to them, in which acquiring nuclear defenses is a no-brainer. He manages to get in a plug for Failed States, which seems to have a lot of different covers, more overtly anti-American, outside of North America. That one looks almost like a rip-off of something I once did, but maybe theirs was first, or, if not, it's all open-source for a good cause.
Read What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico? at these sources:
MJ
TomDispatch
Moves continue, in the House of Reprehensibles and Sedatorial chambers, to end the war in Babylon and greater Mesopotamia, where the US sitting duck soldiers are dying for the lame duck's pride and daily strengthening the Persian empire as they do the dirty work for the Shia militias. This was the so-called New Way Forward (to death), which was not new, but same old same old, is not a "way" as it is not a method or a means to an ends, and is not "forward" either, as it is another step in the wrong direction, digging a deeper hole, our own soldiers' graves.
Ending an illegal war should not, in theory, be a difficult matter for the Congress, which can declare and fund or not fund wars, but the thin majority is so fractured that their pathetic efforts so far have faltered, betraying the wishes of the American majority who elected representatives to carry out the wish to end the war. Some say the congressional democrats have a "slow-bleed" strategy, death by a thousand legal paper cuts. In the Senate, Joe "traitor" Lieberman holds the Democratic majority hostage to his threats to defect to the other side if war funding is cut.
In their first effort, the Congress passed a non-binding resolution, imagining themselves as something more like a newspaper editorial board rather than the body which funds the United States government. Recent efforts documented in the Washington Post included a proposal that would require troops to have had a year's rest between deployments, have completed training, and to have been fully equipped before being deployed. This was apparently too radical for conservative Demograts and Republicants, who prefer to "support the troops" by forcing them to conduct the illegal war and occupation on extended deployments without adequate breaks, under-equipped, and improperly trained.
The newest effort, scheduled for this coming week, is to focus on the November 2002 resolution which authorized the pResident to use military force to find and remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and remove the dictator there, who had not renewed the US approval granted to other local dictatorships such as the House of Saud and Pervez Musharraf. Legislators have noticed that the resolution to find WMDs and remove Saddam no longer describes or justifies the current occupation. Good thinking, Sherlock.
Personally, I would favor stronger tactics, such as shutting down the government until you get your way, a method used by Newt Gingri(n)ch. His Repuglicant contract killers held the neoCongress for 12 years, demonstrating that the public will not necessarily disapprove of strong-arm tactics. Unfortunately, it seems that these kinds of options are closed to Democrats, who have a wide range of opinions and diverse members. Democrats risk giving themselves a wedgie if they use Rovean wedge-issue tactics.
Nancy Pelosi inexplicably said that "Impeachment is off the table". Impeachment should be served quickly, hot or cold, before the Republicans have another coup, with Supreme Court approval, and do to the Democrats what one Reprehensible from Alaska has threatened (in a fabricated Abraham Lincoln quote) -- arrest, hang, or exile them. They also need to act before a new war in Iran kills millions. The Bushies could provoke a nuclear counterattack of some kind, and use the event as an opportunity to declare a national emergency and arrest their opponents in Congress. (Congress has been a thorn in Dick's side ever since Flight 93 failed to hit the Capital as planned.) Instigating a war is so much more convenient for them than strengthening and renewing the nuclear non-proliferation pact, which requires the existing nuclear powers to gradually disarm. Extraordinary rendition also beats having to talk to your democratic opponents, who continue to have their own opinions, different from the deer leader's, in many cases.
Do the Democrats have alternative proposals for Iraq? They have made proposals, but let's make it simple: If there IS a military solution to Iraq, it can not be performed by the United States troops, who now have earned a reputation for rape, torture, and killing. If peacekeeping forces are needed, these should be United Nations peacekeeping forces. There is universal support for the United Nations leading the way, in polls done in Iraq, the U.S., and worldwide. This will require going to the UN on bended knee (and with open wallet) to apologize for headstrongness (stubborn pigheadedness) and attempt to redeem ourselves for our errors. The US troops are not on US territory in Iraq, and hence are not subject to US law, but to international law, which makes them, their commanders, and their enablers war criminals. Removing US troops doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the Iraqis to local sectarian warlords. As each American is withdrawn, five Bangladeshi blue-helmets could be moved in, for example, paid for by the US. The US has responsibilities, and a price must be paid, but the price is not necessarily US lives.
If the Congress can successfully force a US withdrawal, which seems unlikely before 2008, they should support US troops by increasing, possibly doubling their pay, insuring that veterans and soldiers have free lifelong medical care and free lifelong educational opportunities. Everybody deserves these benefits, but perhaps veterans deserve them most and least controversially.
The idea that the US could be a world policeman is taking a beating (not unlike the beating you would get at the hands of a Los Angeles cop if you are black). World respect for the US is probably at a 100-year low about now. The US rushed into Iraq when there was no crisis, but ignored genocide in Darfur and Rwanda, among other places. Even in the US, probably only a minority still support "World policeman" policies, perhaps 3% of the world population, but certainly not a majority. We do not earn respect from stationing troops overseas any more than the Soviets did by having troops in Vietnam or Cuba. The "assistance" which overseas US forces provide is primarily the killing of people by bombing or shooting them.
The United States should withdraw all troops stationed overseas which are not part of a United Nations or NATO agreement. It could be announced that US forces would begin a two-year process of withdrawal, but where an internationally-recognized public referendum finds a majority support keeping US forces, the withdrawal would stop and refresh to prior levels. In this way, a review of the global deployment of US troops would insure they are not stationed where they are unwanted, but if countries like Japan decided to keep the status quo, they could. Done quickly, this would weaken the hand monkey's paw, of the chimperor-in-brief.
Certain NATO deployments are poorly thought out and badly implemented, too. The near-100% support for the death penalty for converting to Christianity in Afghanistan shows that the values of the Afghan people are quite different from ours. (Their religious fanaticism is a different religion, mainly.) Negotiations should aim at creating a reformed Taliban as a political party competing for power democratically, not as a military force. We (NATO?) only require that they recognize democratic procedures and not harbor terrorists. The current deployment can never end as it is now conceived, and will eventually cause a bigger war. Similar progressive thinking created the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan and the Christian Democratic Party in Germany. As you will recall, the US did not stay and fight remnants of the defeated regime indefinitely. It is simply more practical to negotiate an end to it -- even if you do plan on stationing your troops there.
As we continue to see the solutions to world problems as being killing people, that mindset will eventually return home. If the solution to political problems in Iraq and Afghanistan were to kill people, why won't those solutions work in the US, some veterans may wonder, and apply their knowledge of guerrilla urban warfare to the US.
As I have said before, the Department of Defense is not really concerned with "defense", but is a ministry for foreign aggression. If it were "defense", its duties would overlap with "homeland security" --although I guess you could argue that "homeland" is an internal security ministry like the East German Stasi. One or both of these agencies should be abolished or radically downsized. The Pentagon is an interesting building that would make nice artists studios, a Peace Center campus, or some kind of multifunction center. If 300 million Americans with the world's strongest military cannot defeat a popular insurgency in a nation of 23 million, what would it take for someone to successfully defeat and occupy the United States? Clearly there is no threat to the United States now. The massive agency dedicated to sending millions of Americans overseas to defeat the Nazis went against the previous 150 years of American history, and is not appropriate now.
What can the US contribute to the world if not killing foreigners in its role as world policeman? America can be a leader in the United Nations again someday when its reputation is restored. The US can make an improved nuclear nonproliferation agreement to replace the broken-down old one, rather than threaten Iran for doing what the US did 50 years ago. People around the world respect the American educational system (universities and graduate schools, research institutions), technology, and medical technology, so we can build hospitals and universities around the world, and pay for their staff and professors. In places like Iraq, the lives saved by American hospitals and university-trained medical professionals would eventually overtake the number of people killed by the US invasion.
Progressive policies will probably not take place until the Kucinich administration takes office. In the meantime, the congressional nancy-watch continues. Will they find the means to stop the illegal war and occupation, or fail at that and be replaced by more gutsy Republicans, such as Chuck Hagel, in the next election.
The fact that Americans, unlike most (really all) other countries, have an agency that spends hundreds of billions of dollars -- over a thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child-- projecting military forces overseas to kill non-Americans, while they have no agencies (unlike many countries) to provide free medical care, lifelong free education, or free childcare services, says a lot about the values of Americans. The values projected are that it is more important to kill foreigners that they dislike than to educate, care for, or maintain the health of their own people. This is, of course, both unethical and uneconomical. These values do not arise naturally but are encouraged and expressed by the corporate culture. After the department of death is dismantled, simply replacing the anti-human spending with pro-human spending will not be enough. Republicant sympathizers in the military complex will have to be fed contracts for the maglev rail system that will connect our cities and the windmills, solar cells, and wave/tidal energy systems to power the grid.
We know that the American public wants out of Iraq.
We know that the Iraqi public believes that Americans make the security situation worse, and 71% want the Americans to leave within a year.
Polls of US troops in Iraq have shown that 72% wanted out within a year.
Most members of the US House and Senate would like to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq, or are at least not in favor of an increase. To my disappointment, the Congressional Nancys have not yet taken a strong stand.
Generals in the US military said troops should be withdrawn.
Jim Baker and members of the Republican elites in the US want to get troops out of Iraq.
It was reported last week that even Prime Minister Maliki asked Bush to pull US troops out of Baghdad.
Then, there is the rest of the world, too.
It is getting harder to find supporters for keeping the troops in Iraq, aside from Osama binLaden, George W. Bush, Mister Vice President Cheney, Tony BLiaR, and John Howard of Australia.
The Nancys in the House of Reprehensibles must shut down the war machine before it starts in on Iran. The war has been so painless and profitable for Bush and cronies that they think they can still abuse their access and control of the military to ambush Iran. Americans need to insure that Bush feels their pain and the pain of the Iraqis who receive American "aid".
Update 20070131: As a grammar note for the syntax-conscious, note in the text of the AFP wire service article how the writer uses "more bold" as the comparitive form of the adjective rather than the "bolder" which was in use a few years ago. I hear these every day; the suffix "-er" is being regularized with "more". It appears that English may be becoming more of an isolating language and less of an inflecting language.
Interesting points of view from Frontline and www.socialistworker.org.
Frontline:At some point, inexplicably, his U.S.-paid executioners raised slogans in praise of Moqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric whom the Americans hate the most and have often fought, in Kufa and elsewhere. Saddam is said to have been surprised and shook his head. Soon after that he was led to the gallows, tied up, and hanged. That was on December 30. The next day, the very last day of 2006, The New York Times began its story on the execution with the sentence: "Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped."
That has an eerie ring of truth to it. It also makes me wonder if I'm just not paranoid enough. Leaving the deconstruction of signifiers on the intellectual and spiritual planes for a moment for an analysis of the material relations underlying the Iraq situation, we take you to the Socialist Worker:
It wasn't long before Washington began waking up to the huge global impact of Saddam's dignified behaviour, as contrasted with the crassness of his execution - the choice of day, the menacing rowdiness of his executioners in the solemn moments before his death, the snapping of the neck as he prayed silently. Such things are hard to verify, but it does seem to me that it is only after the facts had had an impact exactly the opposite of what the Washingtonian spinmasters anticipated that they decided to pretend that the successive videos had been produced clandestinely and that they had actually tried to dissuade the "sovereign" Nouri al-Maliki government from executing Saddam on such a holy day.
It was now said that it was the "sovereign" Iraqi establishment - much too "sovereign" to listen to the United States - which had chosen that day, against strenuous U.S. efforts. It was also claimed that the slogans raised by the executioners in favour of Moqtada al-Sadr were entirely spontaneous; that they were praising someone the U.S. detests only goes to show, it was claimed, how "independent" those executioners really were. Supposedly liberal but in fact corrupt and pompous senior journalists like John F. Burns of The New York Times were to play a major role in this subsequent campaign of disinformation which sought to relieve the U.S. of its culpability in the whole sorry mess.
All that, I believe, is plain hogwash. Only a month earlier, that same "Prime Minister" had complained publicly that he is not allowed to move even a platoon of policemen without prior U.S. permission. Death by hanging of a famous dictator is serious business; it is very doubtful that sundry hangmen can just take out their cellphones and video cameras to make unauthorised tapes and then just put them on the Internet. Secrecy is the essence of all such events; it is very unlikely that microscopic details of such proceedings can appear in newspapers the very next day if the real masters of the ceremony, the big U.S. officials, do not want them divulged. Nor is it very likely that hired hangmen, always fearful of dire consequences for unruly behaviour at such times, would raise slogans in favour of America's designated enemy, Moqtada, unless they are sure of not suffering any reprisals. It seems very likely that they were instructed to raise those slogans, in praise of Moqtada, to be caught on videotape that would be widely disseminated throughout the Arab world, to indicate that it was Moqtada's men who actually executed Saddam Hussein, so as to concentrate Sunni ire on Moqtada, the one major Shia figure in Iraq who is deeply opposed to American occupation, and not on the core clients of the U.S. who actually did it.
The hanging as well as the spectacle staged and taped at the time were meant to exacerbate the Shia-Sunni divide and to have the Sunnis turn against Moqtada even as the U.S. concentrates its fire upon his forces. (As many as 14,000 U.S. troops were diverted to Moqtada's stronghold in the Sadr City zone of Baghdad in October 2006 and the majority of the 30,000 troops that Bush and his new commanders in Iraq are looking for are expected to be deployed there.)
It seems very likely, in short, that the Americans had carefully choreographed the whole staging of the execution and dissemination of the pictures, but they had not imagined that Saddam's dignified conduct would have such an electrifying impact across the world, especially the Arab-Muslim world. Nor had they understood that most people in the world, especially outside the U.S., do not condone the hanging of a man on a day deemed holy in his religion and while he has his last prayer on his lips, even though the man to be hanged was once a dictator.THE U.S. war on Iraq was never about freedom, and it has been anything but moderate.
Both of these long articles are recommended reading. Just some snippets are presented here. They may help you fall asleep, but I can't say what kind of dreams they may inspire.
Take a look, for example, at the assortment of crooks and thugs the U.S. proposed to lead the “new” Iraq--after, that is, it gave up on direct colonial rule through the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The U.S. is no more committed to democracy elsewhere in the Middle East, where its favored ally Israel presides over an apartheid system designed to crush all aspirations of the Palestinian people, and where its clients among Arab regimes use dictatorial repression to maintain their grip on power.
So what has the U.S. war been about? Oil, for one thing--U.S. control over the world’s second-largest proven reserves.
The Bush surge comes at a critical time for his oil company pals, who are counting on the Iraqi government to deliver on a new oil law, expected to be voted on in the coming weeks and put in effect by March.
The law--“carefully scrutinized,” wrote Pepe Escobar in Asia Times, “by Washington, Big Oil and the International Monetary Fund, but not by Iraqi politicians”--would establish 30-year production-sharing agreements with Western oil companies and bar any future government from nationalizing the oil industry. “In essence, it’s a game of ‘if you nationalize, we invade you--again.’” Escobar concludes. “So the law fulfills the early-2003 neo-con boast of ‘we are the new OPEC.’”
Beyond oil, Iraq is the centerpiece of U.S. plans to project its military power in the Middle East through the establishment of permanent bases--and “to maintain the legitimacy of U.S. imperialism, which needs the pretext of a global war on terror to justify further military intervention, expanded military budgets, concentration of executive power and restrictions on civil liberties,” wrote Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, in the International Socialist Review.
Those who really are on the side of freedom need to speak out for immediate U.S. withdrawal--and for the right of Iraqis to determine their own future.
Some controversy has apparently arisen over the legacy of George W. Bush and the handful of documents that he intends to use to dedicate his proposed future "Presidential Library". Some worry that proposed plans to place the library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas will further cement the city's ugly reputation for killing Kennedy and encouraging Bushes. Residents fear the building may become an attractive target for terrorists. I haven't googled this to see if anyone else has made the suggestion, so they probably have, like that "50 Ways to Leave Iraq" idea that I was thinking about, but how about Abu Ghraib? Locating the George W. Bush pRedsiDenTal Lieberry in Abu Ghraib will send a bold message that this pRedsident idn't afeard to think outside the box, and will form an appropriate and lasting dedication to his legacy.
They might as well make an amusement park out of it and have an animatronic Saddam Hussein hung on a simulated gallows. Lieberrys are so dull, ya know, they need something for the kids…
It seems to me that Bush is not actually intending for a troop "surge" in Iraq but is choosing to promote a plan that has no chance of being approved by Congress in order to be able to say that he had a plan to win, but his opponents wouldn't let him fight to win. I may be misoverestimating the pRedisent's intelligence with an "I wudda whupped Iraq's ass but the liberals wouldn't let me" scheme; the poor fool may have just painted himself into a political corner and up the walls. It doesn't seem to appeal to many people now but could be revived as a myth in a future electoral cycle when people have forgotten what was happening in 06 and 07. Democrats should quickly put the "surge" out of its misery.
And what is this story about a Pentagon plan to go to war with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army?
Anthony Arnove states the case for ending the US occupation of Iraq as logically as anyone possibly could in this article.
Rather than stemming civil war or sectarian conflict, the occupation is spurring it. Rather than being a source of stability, the occupation is the major source of instability and chaos.The full article is much longer. That's just a short clip. If that's too short you could buy the book.
All of the reasons being offered for why the United States cannot withdraw troops from Iraq are false. The reality is, the troops are staying in Iraq for much different reasons than the ones being touted by political elites and a still subservient establishment press. They are staying to save face for a U.S. political elite that cares nothing for the lives of Iraqis or U.S. soldiers; to pursue the futile goal of turning Iraq into a reliable client state strategically located near the major energy resources and shipping routes of the Middle East, home to two-thirds of world oil reserves, and Western and Central Asia; to serve as a base for the projection of U.S. military power in the region, particularly in the growing conflict between the United States and Iran; and to maintain the legitimacy of U.S. imperialism, which needs the pretext of a global war on terror to justify further military intervention, expanded military budgets, concentration of executive power, and restrictions on civil liberties. The U.S. military did not invade and occupy Iraq to spread democracy, check the spread of weapons of mass destruction, rebuild the country, or stop civil war. In fact, the troops remain in Iraq today to deny self-determination and genuine democracy to the Iraqi people, who have made it abundantly clear, whether they are Shiite or Sunni, that they want U.S. troops to leave Iraq immediately; feel less safe as a result of the occupation; think the occupation is spurring not suppressing sectarian strife; and support armed attacks on occupying troops and Iraqi security forces, who are seen not as independent but as collaborating with the occupation.
It is not only the Iraqi people who oppose the occupation of their country and want to see the troops leave. A clear majority of people in the United States have expressed the same sentiment in major opinion polls and in the mid-term Congressional elections, which swing both houses of Congress and the majority of state governorships to the Democrats, in a clear vote against the imperial arrogance of Bush's "stay the course" approach to the disaster in Iraq. The public did not vote for more money for the Pentagon (as incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada immediately promised, announcing a plan to give $75 billion more to the Pentagon), for more "oversight" of the war (the main Democratic Party buzzword these days), or for more troops (as Texas Democrat Representative Silvestre Reyes, the incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has demanded), but to begin bringing the troops home. A clear majority of active-duty U.S. troops want the same thing, as a much-ignored Zogby International poll found in early 2005, with 72 percent saying they wanted to be out of Iraq by the end of 2006.
Recent news reports have suggested that rather than accept the will of the people and the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, and reduce the American bootprint on the face of Iraq, pResident Bush will instead choose to go the John "Nine-Inch-Nails" McCain route and increase the number of American soldiers currently being wasted there. I absolutely agree with Representative Dennis Kucinich, who argues that the Congress must use its budget power to cut off the funding for Iraq immediately. He argues that there is enough funding "in the pipeline" to get the troops out of Iraq. Even if funding is cut, it will be in 2008 when the troops come home. Without this action, the soldiers are unlikely to be back much before 2010, I fear. The Democrats are said to be afraid of the issue, despite the polls and election results, and are expected to back funding the continuing occupation. That will get the Democrats kicked out in two years, even before the troops are out of Iraq, if they can't do it. If they really want to bring the troops home, they have to show commitment and play hardball, at least cutting off the funding and maybe shutting down the government, Newt-Gingrich style, if need be. Apart from the representatives, the American people will have to get serious and make their opinions heard, not through the ballot box this time, but by mass demonstrations that stop traffic and close down entire cities. The pre-war demonstrations were large and passionate, but didn't stop the war, considering that there was a "silent majority" that was anti-Saddam and willing to trust Bush to do the hit. Now that there is a majority that wants out, they may have to make their voices heard again if the government still doesn't move on this.
I have to confess that I was also one of the people who supported military action in Iraq at one point. I supported the war before it started (and up until the occupation forces showed they didn't have a clue what to do). Although I despised Bush, I despised Saddam more. I didn't think that Bush was persuasive; he seemed incoherent, but I did think that Tony Blair expressed my feelings exactly. Unlike some people, I think that a Democrat would have probably done the same thing, (as Blair is an example) but would have been more effective at bringing in the UN and other US allies, and would have withdrawn successfully as in Bosnia or somewhat less successfully as in Somalia, before the situation became really ugly. There would not have been the blatant profiteering.
The Bushies were able to manufacture 80% public support for the war with fabricated documents, cherry-picking findings from the CIA, and outright lies. Now, 70% of the public oppose continuation of the war. 30% continue to support the US staying to kill more Iraqis. That means Bush has lost 50% of the US public. What I wonder is: How can anyone continue to support that?
Looking at where I went wrong, I see two things. First, I believed that if three governments' intelligence agencies were saying something, it was very likely to be true. I now know that the US was cherry-picking, and that British and Italian intelligence etc was also false, wrong, skewed, for various reasons. Applying my renewed faith in skepticism, I notice that the US, Russia, and China all said that North Korea has detonated a nuclear bomb. Their explosion was half a kiloton (550 tons of TNT) while every other country that has tested a nuclear weapon has used 20 kilotons or something more notable in the megaton range. I think the nuclear test was probably a lie, too; it serves the countries that hate the DPRK to say it is a nuke, and it serves Kim to fool people into thinking he has it too, although that strategy occasionally backfires, as in Saddam's case. If the US, China, and Russia tell us a huge asteroid is on a collision course with the earth, or that the sun is going to explode, I won't believe that unquestioningly, either.
The second thing is that I actually thought that Bush's team was capable of doing it right. I really thought they would be competent. They were miserable failures at everything. We really cannot trust them to do anything right, and everyone realizes it after Katrina. I suppose that the first George Bush's successful restoration of the erased nation of Kuwait, and actions by Clinton to stop genocide in Europe influenced me to think it was possible for an organized force to reduce suffering by righteous violence.
I realized something was wrong when the United States began talking about having elections a few years down the road. They should have been polling people as they rolled through towns and put the most-respected and least-despised non-Saddam-affiliated person in charge immediately, within hours or days. I also thought it was strange when they began patrolling the streets and announced that every person must turn in their gun. Given the widespread gun ownership in Iraqi society, the impossibility of (an invading army) disarming everyone, and the impossibility of a few occupation troops maintaining order, I would have expected them to order all able-bodied males between, say, 20 and 65, to form neighborhood defense committees of 10 or 15 people, and to take charge in patrolling their own neighborhoods. Perhaps the US would ask them to register with the US post in their vicinity and inform them of each defense committee's chairman, so the US could reimburse them with a small stipend. That didn't happen. I also would have thought they would have people come in with their old ration cards, any other identifying documents, 2 or 3 people to vouch for their identity, and that the US could take scans of people's fingerprints on a USB scanner, upload the identity to the networked database, and issue an new national ID card with a biometric so elections and the like could get underway. Giving a person $100 to show up and get a new ID card would be relatively inexpensive with only 23 million people in the country. That would also allow them to start weeding out the criminal prisoners which Saddam had released. The biometric would mean even if the card were lost, stolen, destroyed, or transferred, the ID would remain. By asking for witnesses and family contacts, a social network database could have been built up.
I am not a military expert, and these are just things I assumed would happen without thinking much about it. When the odd declarations such as disarming the entire population came out, I briefly wondered if it was some advanced military tactic beyond my comprehension, but time showed it to be the sheer idiocy it first appeared to be.
By the time of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, I figured that was the load of bricks that was dumped onto the camel's back, that the last American who believed in the war would log off, and that the occupation would end within weeks or months. I am still a little shocked that many people just shrugged and at how long it has taken, actually years since then, to realize that we lost. Saddam lost, too, but America lost very soon after that.
The war should finally be winding down, but it may take a little push. Incoming members of Congress may be afraid that Bush will use his special executive powers given him during the recent one-party-state period to declare congressional opponents "enemy combatants" and have them disappeared, as has been done by many US-installed client dictators and by Hitler, the old Bush family idol. If the Congress knows from their mail and from public demonstrations that the public will back them and will not tolerate the war for another day, the outcome will be the right one.
It was an interesting week last week. After getting out the boat and helping America vomit, the body politic was cleansed of dead political animals and their toxins as Democrats took control of the Congress, and then the Senate, with the defeat of George Felix "Macaca" Allen. The colonic cleansing of the country followed, with the removal of war criminal Rumsfeld from the Pentagon bowels by the "head" of government. Rummy, we hardly knew ye. You were a known unknown. Unfortunately, the replacement was expected to be by former CIA director Robert Gates, a key figure in the Iran-Contra deal and thought to be a negotiator who helped the deal to release the hostages on the eve of Reagan's installation.
The monkey boy king has said he is looking for new ideas for Iraq, now we see a new pattern emerging. Gates can use his contacts in Iran to ship weapons to the the mullah-fakirs again. With inflation and all, the weapons they want will be U.S. nukes this time. (Nobody does it better. ) The Iranian nuclear program will provide excellent cover, so that when they test one to see if the U.S. sold them duds, everyone will think it was homebrewed. With "America's Nemesis!" Daniel Ortega once again in power, Gates can return to funding death squads to terrorize small Central American nations, and kill and rape them until they let United Fruit and Somosa run the government again. A faked crisis and successful invasion of any small, easily-conquered country will give the military a much-need boost to morale, and divert attention away from failures, as the Grenada invasion diverted attention away from 400 dead Marines killed by the bad judgement of the iconic 80s chickenhawk Jellybeans Reagan. The crack operations that the CIA used to run can be scaled up with Langley's new control of the Pentagram, with the resulting crack-fueled stupor and crime leading to a rightward swing and pacification of the increasing U.S. domestic dissent. In exchange for the favor to Iran, the U.S. asks that they take Iraq off our hands, slipping 600,000 of their own agents into the country to shape things as the U.S. pulls out, and they agree to keep things cool and not make the U.S. look bad. Gates' skills will also be useful in avoiding future "gates" – along the lines of Watergate, Iran-Contra-gate, Abu Ghraib-gate, 9-11-gate, memo-gate, Katrina-gate, Gates-gate, and the whatever-gate of insert-your-own-gate-here-gate. The guy is a fixer, in other words, sort of a Johnnie Cochran for the misAdministration.
In other news of the enema was that the man who is currently posing as the American ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, may not be approved and allowed to become a real ambassador, even by the lame duck congress which is being shown the door. Mr. Bolton was not approved by the full U.S. Senate, as required by law, but was instead a rare "recess appointment", requiring only the approval of the un-pResident himself, his wife, and White House dog Barney. I wonder how they expected the world to recognize him as a representative of the United States, when the United States itself had not yet recognized him in that role. This is the way to influence the U.N. and push them in the direction of ignoring and hating Americans.
the experience of Viktor Yushchenko, who was served dioxin soup when he sat down with his political enemies, very nearly turning his Orange Revolution into an Agent Orange assassination before it even started, and seriously defoliating his face. (Agent Orange is a product of Monsanto.)
September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center. This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television. Featuring interviews with eyewitnesses & firefighters, along with expert analysis by Professor Steven E. Jones, Professor David Ray Griffin, MIT Engineer Jeffrey King, and Professor James H. Fetzer. This film provides stunning evidence that explosives were used in the complete demolition of the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7.To summarize, as Charlie Sheen says, the real conspiracy theory is the theory that 19 Arab hijackers did this. Consider that no U.S. airplane had been successfully hijacked for decades, no steel frame building has ever collapsed from fire even when completely gutted top to bottom by fire (kerosene-based aircraft fuel burns around 800 degrees while steel melts at 3000 degrees), and there are numerous eyewitness accounts of explosions and injuries throughout the World Trade Center even before the planes hit. You can see the explosions going on (on floors far below the collapsing part) in the WTC as it falls, as in a controlled demolition. The building fell in 6 seconds, a complete free-fall, not compatible with the pancake theory, which engineers say would take about a second or at least a half second for each floor, ten times longer. The second plane is clearly not a commercial airliner, but is a military plane, as shown in photos of the radar equipment protruding from the bottom and the evidence that it was grey and had no windows. Bush's brother (?) was put in charge of security at the WTC before the attack (can this be true?) and Larry Silverstein bought a massive amount of insurance and admitted on TV to "making the decision to pull WTC7".
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4194796183168750014
See how an incendiary flash was launched from the incoming ECM- and explosives-packed JSTARS E-10 that sparked the pyrotechnics of the WTC attack. However, this was just a stage display - it was demolition charges that ultimately brought down the Twin Towers.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4583272800838178987
William Rodriguez, a janitor, reports an explosion in the basement moments before the airplane hits the North Tower. He was in basement level 1 (the basement has 6 sub levels) when the first explosion occured from under him which traveled up the elevator shaft and burned a co-worker in the basement. To learn more about 9/11, visit http://www.truth911.net
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8536008651248732897
A typical excerpt from the longer movie above. MIT Engineer Breaks Down WTC Controlled Demolition. Jeff King goes into detail why the WTC Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1822764959599063248
Historical Precedents for 9/11/01I thought that was well-written, demonstrably true, and what people need to know. An informed and alert citizenry that knows that these things have occured in the past and may occur in the future is the best way to prevent governments from daring to try to manipulate people with such tactics in the future. We also need a media that dares to ask questions.The largest single obstacle to people's acceptance of the fact that the 9/11/01 attack was an inside job is the refusal to admit that the "leaders of the free world" would perpetrate such a cruel and deadly hoax. Yet history provides numerous examples in which governments have attacked their own nations, while blaming a target group.
The closest example in many respects is the 1933 Reichstag Fire. Today it is widely believed that the Nazis themselves set the German Reichstag ablaze as an excuse to suspend most civil liberties guaranteed by the 1919 constitution. While Hitler established himself as dictator, the Communists and other minorities were scapegoated.
There are several examples in the United States of precedents for 9/11/01 as an inside job, in one or more of the following respects.
- Authorities ignore warnings and allow attack on their own people to proceed.
- Authorities engineer an attack on their own people.
- Authorities falsely blame a target group or individual for the attack, and use the incident to violate human rights and justify military adventurism.
- Authorities destroy evidence and sabotage investigations.
Despite a certain predictable noughtian amount of voter intimidation and vote-hacking, the will of the people has prevailed, as independent voters have given up on giving Bush time to pursue his war. In 2004, it was only about 18 months into the war. They could give him the benefit of the vote. Patience has run out with the obvious incompetence displayed during Katrina. Rovian politronics can only swing 5 or 10% of the vote, not enough the pacify the independents and badly-shagged-by-gay-old-party-evangelical born-agins, whose young'uns are dying in Iraq for corporate profits.
The four-year-long experiment with a one-party republicant dictatorship is over. Checks and balances are back. Viva los checks and balances!
The chickenhawk is now officially lame, making feeble quacking noises, with clipped wings and a broken leg or two to stand on.
Repeal the traitorous and un-American patRIOT Act. Restore the rule of law! Let the investigations begin! Restore the Constitution. Incarcerate the traitorous Bushian kleptocrats.
Excuse me. I had to get that out of my system.
Can America now have automatic universal voter registration, like a developed country? Remember the Census, which asked all kinds of intimate questions for the benefit of corporate marketing? The census can be used to automatically register voters, particularly if a current driver's license, passport application, or other document matches up. You should only need to "register" if you have recently moved, and all official records of your residence are out-of-date. It works in Canada, Australia, Germany, and most countries. You might object to some elections commission combing through these databases in order to build an accurate list of voters, but please note that they are already going through these lists in a much rougher way, and for the purpose of deleting voters from the lists! Perhaps automatic voter registration could be one of the first acts of the newly democratic congress. They must have a lot of ideas after 12 years in the congressional wilderness.
The Robert Greenwald documentary film Iraq For Sale is also online.
Iraq for Sale site.
Via Bob Geiger.
For those over 40 (old enough to remember), or the educated, Daniel Ellsberg is the government whistle-blower par excellence. He is now calling for a "Pentagon Papers" of Iraq to come out.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0611-24.htm
Those documents, if they ever come to light, could be even more interesting than the Vietnam edition. I am reminded of the recent story about the CIA's secret prisons around the world, exposed in a Pulitzer-Prize-winning report by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest. Human Rights Watch has more documentation of detainees who have disappeared in secret prisons.
An article by Steve Kangas entitled A Timeline of CIA Atrocities seems almost naive in light of the more recent allegations of CIA malfeasance. His well-documented account of the global control wielded by The Firm turns out to have been not paranoid enough. I read his site with interest, noting how out-of-date it had become, before discovering that he hadn't updated it with stronger arguments because he was dead. His wonderful site, The Liberalism Resurgent FAQ, lives on, although he died under mysterious circumstances in 1999. It's a sad story. See also http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/steve.htm
I have to wonder what really is going on, if Bush is so far to the right of the CIA that he ordered the agency to be purged of liberals. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1114-01.htm
Maybe they will destroy each other? (But I thought that of Bush and Saddam Hussein, too.) Is this all just a show? The CIA had started to include too many real people, even liberals or democrats, and needed to be cleansed?
