Making a killing...

By Libby

War. Who is it good for? Well, these guys aren't complaining. And neither are they. The war has been very, very good to them.

For the rest of us -- not so much.

Excess Hoggage - Morning Edition

By Libby

Okay so it's afternoon already. I march to my own clock but I did write these rather early for a Sunday.

I'm willing to forgive Thomas Friedman for his years of wankery, if he keeps talking like this. Others are not so forgiving but as I told a commenter, you work with the crass opportunists you have, not the ones you want.

Our sainted GenPet admits violence is up but says that's not a bad thing. Maybe not for him. I have a feeling the average Omar on the streets of Bahgdad might take a different view.

And this one set me off. Why should wealthy people pay down the deficit when we can take it out of the hides of those lazy children of poverty? Let them eat ramen noodles.

Is Frank Rich reading me?

By Libby

Is it me or did Frank Rich rewrite my Newshoggers post for his last column? Okay so he added a few more words but it's good to see that the "serious" punditry is coming to same conclusions.

Excess Hoggage - Pity party edition

By Libby

I'm just miserable today. I am so sick. My nose is running. I have a sinus headache, I'm coughing up stuff I don't want to look at and my brain feels like jello. Of course, that doesn't stop me from blogging my crankiness into the intertubes. I managed to post a few stray thoughts at Newshoggers.

My anti-incumbent campaign is launching itself. If you need any more reason to throw all the useless bums out of office, there's this sneaky, lowdown, political trick the Senate just played on us. That stop-gap spending bill that was allegedly just a temporary measure also handed Bush another blank check to keep his war on. They gave him $9 billion outright with access to billions more and didn't bother to mention it to us.

I swear the Dems have a death wish if they can't see the trouble with Hillary.

I'm sure you already know that Rush Limbaugh is a lying sack of shit, but I expound on the reasons.

And mark my words. The CW pundits underestimate Ron Paul. One small reference to my discomfort with his domestic policies in an otherwise complimentary post brought out his defenders immediately. I thought they were being rather mean to me, being a sick person and all, but it's a testament to his grassroots strength that his defenders are so vehement.

Honoring the war dead

By Libby

I'm late in signing on to this appeal at Comments from Left Field, but since they've expanded the fundraiser it's not too late to participate.

It all started with a post on Sgt. Yance T. Gray, and Sgt. Omar Mora, who were killed in a non combat related vehicle accident on September 10th in western Baghdad. Gray and Mora, as you may remember were two of the active duty soldiers who wrote the op-ed in the NYT that was critical of the occupation. After Gray's father-in-law commented at the post, Kyle decided to host a fundraiser in their honor.

After exploring several options, we have decided to donate 100% of the funds to the Fisher House charity, an organization we have worked with in the past. Fisher House has a simple goal; to build houses near military medical facilities. Here loved ones of those who have been injured in the line of duty can stay free of charge while their service member undergoes necessary treatment.

If you have a blog, please help them reach their new goal by linking to their giving page. Even if you don't have a blog, please help spread the word and of course, if you can spare the bucks, please donate.

War made much too easy

By Libby

For some reason it comforts me a little to remember that our government has been lying to us for decades in order to keep us in some war or another. I'm trying to talk myself into believing that maybe it just seems worse under this administration because with the internet, it's so much easier and quicker to expose the lies.

Watching the clips from a new documentary, War Made Easy, I remember most of those speeches from when they occurred live. I wonder if the world would have been different today, if we had today's technology back then. I remember when it took three days to get news from say China, rather than three seconds on google. And it tooks years, indeed decades, for the truth about previous administration's deceits to come out.

In any event, this is a project undertaken by the Media Education Foundation, which is based in my old hometown of Northampton, MA and still employs some old friends of mine, so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to see the film when it comes around to my new digs here in the south.

Lily-livered Limbaugh lies again

By Libby

I am so sick today. I've come down with the worst chest cold I've endured in ten years and can barely breathe, much less think, but I'm trying to put together a couple of thoughts. I've weighed on the latest Limbaugh lies at Newshoggers just now, so I won't repeat that here, but since Cernig already posted a link to this, let me add that the must read post on this is at self-described phony soldier, Army of Dude's blog. He's got photos of a whole raft of those fake soldiers who fought and served and came home thinking the cursed occupation wasn't such a great idea after all.

Maybe that smug windbag Limbaugh can read it while he's deciding whether Oxycotin or Vicodin are the appropriate apertif for his cheezy chickenshit rhetoric.

Critique of the week

By Libby

This is why I love Norm Kinzel, my favorite critic at the Detroit News blog.

Libby if you were trying to write the four worst blogs in the history of mankind you were successfull nothing more can be said

What's not to love about a sweet talker like that? Seriously, I do love the guy. He's been ragging on me since I got there three and half years ago. And you know what? Secretly, I think he really loves me too. Or at least likes me a lot more than he'd ever admit.

Blogged elsewhere

By Libby

It's been a tough week kids. Sorry I've been so remiss but I see Fogg has been taking up my slack with better posts than I can write myself so I assume you haven't missed me too much. I'm posting at Newshoggers this morning.

A bit of under-reported news here. Bush preaches to Freepers at a gala White House luncheon.

Our DefSec's attitude on Iran is heartening but Gates priorities on Iraq, are all about the Bush legacy. Disgusting.

The wingnuts use a fake photo as a poster for their Islamo-hate week in DC. Where's Confederate Yankee? Nowhere to be found.

And I retreaded the Gates post for Detroit so I won't link that but I also pointed out the latest figures by National Priorities Project on what the occupation of Iraq costs the states. Fun interactive map at that link.

And of course, I had to take on Limbaugh's smearing of the troops. I'm rather of this line: "How dare that bloated windbag, who has never faced anything more dangerous than a pepperoni pizza attack the honor and integrity of the men and women are laying their lives on the line every single day to allow him to bloviate his hateful rhetoric?"

I'll be interested to see if any of the many outraged over MoveOn respond. I'm expecting the sound of crickets though.

Update: I've been falling asleep early this week but long time commenter Lester stayed up to watch the GOP debate last night and leaves a good review on the event in comments here.

Why grandpa says inappropriate things

by Capt. Fogg

That's the title of a smug little piece of fluff that appeared the other day on the Newsweek.com site. It contains a little anecdote about an elderly gentleman who used the word "colored" to describe someone and it continues with a bigoted diatribe about how the "social security generation" are all a bunch of senile bigots and maybe it's because their brains are all rotted out at age 65 as everyone under 30 knows.

Older adults might be "more prejudiced than younger adults because they can no longer inhibit their unintentionally activated stereotypes.” is the quote from some Australian psychologist dredged up for the purpose. "Studies since the late 1990s have shown that older Americans tend to be more racist than younger people." That seems odd to me since the people who were shot in Mississippi, and hosed and gassed and beset by dogs - the people who had that dream, who spent years fighting against discrimination, segregation and for civil rights are all in the "social Security" generation.

Of course you'll recognize that this is a rigged argument and one based on a bigoted stereotype. I'm not for instance, her "grandpa" and resent being told about how I am, what I am and how I think, based on her preconceived, negative notions of her elders. The definition of racist here has nothing to do with belief or action but is about the use of "inappropriate" words and guess who gets to decide when we stop saying Afro-American and start saying African-American lest we grow hair on our palms and be called racists for it? Guess who gets to decide that Mark Twain was a racist because he used the language of his day accurately or that Dr. King was a racist for using the word Negro or that the NAACP are a bunch of bigots for using the phrase "colored People?" And the people who got shot at and gassed and hosed and torn up by dogs and cracker cops for civil rights from Selma to Chicago become racists - and worse - old racists with decaying brains.

Of course to believe this bullshit at all, one also has to disregard the self-evident prejudice of younger Americans of all races. If you don't like the way I talk, perhaps you have to make allowances for the fact that I have a better command of English than those who learned it yesterday and I know what I'm doing when I choose my words. You might want to remember that I'm old enough to be fed up with the petty condescending scorn of tongue clucking 20 year olds who don't remember segregation or Jim Crow and spend their days examining the entrails of words and sniffing each other's drawers for the odor of racism while exhibiting the most galling contempt for those who handed them their civil rights on a silver platter.

"The frontal lobes’ decline is not inevitable. To the contrary: aerobic exercise enhances their functioning among older adults." says Sharon Begley who is probably closer in years to crapping in diapers than I am. "Next time grandpa utters something out of “Birth of a Nation,” suggest mall walking." Next time Sharon writes this kind of crap, I would suggest keel hauling. Those barnacles can rip the smirk right off your face, ya know?

And next time Sharon is out like mall walking with like her friends, maybe like she'll like remember that "Grandpa" owns it and just might have her and her stereotype-soaked frontal lobes thrown out.

Cross posted from Human Voices

General Pace or General Disgrace?

by capt. Fogg

Oh hell, let Congress censure me, but I'm an American citizen and I don't work for the government and I have a right to call it the way I see it. I have absolutely no obligation to respect the opinions of people I consider to be enemies of freedom and particularly those people on the public payroll who insist they work for an invisible entity not the taxpayers. I will not be bullied into worshipping authority or their authoritarian gods.

So when Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a Congressional hearing yesterday that our secular democracy should

"not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God's law."

I have to call it disgraceful. I have to call his "upbringing" disgusting and I have to call the private and legal behavior of consenting adults none of his God damned business. There is no religious test or requirement for service in the armed forces and our troops are not required to bow to the beliefs of generals.

Screw Pace, screw his superstition, arrogance and his upbringing - and as for his god - screw him too.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Our politicians have betrayed us

By Libby

Can it get any worse? If it can I don't want to know today. I'm maxed out on outrage. The Senate, meekly following in the footsteps of our useless House, has resolved to give Bush a free ticket to pre-emptively bomb Iran and our leading Democratic candidates for president can't bring themselves to promise to end the occupation of Iraq by 2013.

I expressed my disgust at Newshoggers this morning and I can't bring myself to talk about it anymore for the moment. I'll just reiterate here that it's clear to me the Democratic party has no real interest in reining in the excesses of the Bush administration because they think they're going to win big in 08 and they want to co-opt that unitary executive power for themselves. I think the only way we're going to stop them is to throw all the bums out in 08, on both sides.

You know, I'm not a religious person but I'm praying this morning that a true leader will step forward that the people can coalesce around and who is truly interested in saving our form of government. I sure as hell don't see one in our current crop of politicians.

One courageous judge rules for civil rights

By Libby

In this week of overwhelmingly depressing and disgusting betrayal by our political class, one small sign of sanity shines like a beacon of hope. A judge in Oregon struck down part of the Patriot Act.

Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment." [...]

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

If we could just bottle that common sense and courage and transfuse it to our elected politicians, maybe we could still save this country from the clutches of madmen, political opportunists and fools.

Take these medals and. . .

by Capt. Fogg

I guess he has no immediate plans to run for office and that's good for Josh Gaines, a 27 year old Iraq war veteran who announced his plans today to mail his medals to Don Rumsfeld. Since he did nothing, says Gaines, to protect our country or to further the Global War on Terrorism, he doesn't deserve them.

“I’m going to give those back because I truly feel that I did not defend my nation and I did not help with the Global War on Terrorism. If anything, this conflict has bred more terrorism in the Middle East.”

Gaines, according to Army Times today spent a tour of duty in 2004 and 2005 guarding two military bases and issuing ammunition to soldiers. He never fired a weapon.

Of course one doesn't need a weapon to shoot oneself in the foot and the man has reason to resent the Army for having discharged him "less than honorably" for smoking cannabis after his return from Iraq; to help him, as he says, to sleep. It's a shame of course, since I essentially agree that demolishing Iraq and presiding over the smoking ruins isn't protecting the United States and is creating more hatred towards us than anything else, but his gesture will only provide fodder for the war lovers who would like to dismiss all dissenters as dopers, misfits and fringe elements. It would hardly take the Swift Boat Veterans a moment to sink him with their wake.

I realize that Americans need faith that we're always in the right and our wars are always part of the good fight and I know that all soldiers are heroes save those with the courage to question the ruler, but like at least one man who served with him said, I'm also proud of him and I wish there was less pride in submission and obedience in the ranks. I wish that more generals could give their real opinions and I wonder what Colin Powell has to smoke to sleep at night.

Excess hoggage

By Libby

I didn't post much yesterday because I spent the better part of the day running from doctor to panicked doctor until I finally got to see a surgeon, who kindly waited for me even though I got stuck in a traffic jam and arrived 20 minutes after the office closed. It strikes me that the problem with our medical system these days, is it's a lot like the airline system.

Used to be you could fly direct just about anywhere but with these hub schemes you spend more time in airports than you do flying and you spend more time seeing doctors that can't help you than you do receiving good advice. What a racquet for the insurance companies. They set this up so they can make money processing forms and meanwhile the patient is exhausted by the traveling. But enough complaining.

I have been posting a lot around Blogtopia and I haven't put up links a couple of days so here's what I did this morning at Newshoggers.

Tom Friedman says the White House has run out of Friedman units and it's time to set a deadline.

Spain has leaked transcripts of a conversation with Bush from before the invasion in which he admits he was lying to get us embroiled in the mess in Mesopotamia.

And our country is being run by fools. The House passed an amendment on Iran that is just suicidal. I'm done with these idiots. I'm not going to support the Democratic party if they're too stupid to see through the White House propaganda. The only good news is the Senate may stand up on this, but I'm not holding my breath.

If you missed my previous posts, there was:

The blurring of church and state. It makes a good case for eliminating earmarks and further investigations into the politicalization of every blessed agency in our government.

This one has to be read to be believed. Neo-cons loving the hate. The man who has the ear of our president and now Guiliani thinks anti-Americanism is a good thing.

I try to ignore Insty these days, but this post was so irresponsible and cowardly, it begged for commentary.

And I suppose you heard this, but I'm sad that Marcel Marceau died. I've never hated mimes. Just bad ones.

Rudy's weird factor

By Libby

It's been an ongoing source of amazement to me that Guiliani's campaign has been thus far so successful. The guy is a meglomaniac who lies consistently about his record, hasn't demonstrated any real leadership skills outside of the ability to use his power to get laid, and yet his numbers are consistently high with the red meat base. One is tempted to speculate his supporters are either naive, stupid or deluded.

More than that, although I don't buy into the framing that he has "a record of accomplishment in New York, and he projects the kind of executive competence that many Americans want in a President," even the WSJ noticed, the man is just plain weird. I mean who would want a president that takes personal phone calls in the middle of his speeches? He makes Bush's arrogance look mannerly.

What, me worry?

by Capt. Fogg

Bush's speech before the UN today was all about human rights violations in Iran and Burma and Syria and Belarus, but unless my hearing is going, I didn't hear any concern for the crackdown on the opposition to Pervez Musharraf in recent days. Perhaps that was not a proper venue, but the concern remains over incidents like that in Islamabad yesterday where police broke up a protest outside the Supreme Court which is hearing a case challenging the constitutional validity of General Musharraf's dual role as president and chief Army officer. Leaders of two political parties have been jailed and are being held incommunicado.

It's disturbing enough that Condoleezza Rice expressed concern over the arrests in this nuclear armed country that contains both moderate and extreme elements including Taliban and perhaps Osama bin Laden. So unsettling indeed that our embassy has issued a statement calling the arrests "extremely disturbing and confusing for the friends of Pakistan," and calling on the government to free the detainees. Our moral superiority in such matters, of course is severely wounded by our denial of habeas corpus to perceived enemies at the whim of our own government and suspicion of election tampering in the last two presidential contests.

Accusations, explanations and justifications are flying around from various factions too numerous for me to comprehend and the concerns of the US have been rebuffed by Pakistan's Foreign Ministry:

"If the U.S. Embassy is confused, it would be well advised not to make such statements,"

said spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam. That doesn't do much to make me feel better and I'm sure it makes Dr. Rice feel as ineffectual as she is.

Dictator and treader upon human rights that Musharraf may be, and possibly worthy as some of his opposition may also be, there are worse who would like to depose him and al Qaeda in Pakistan is a far less dubious reality than al Qaeda in Iraq. Will his attempt to stifle opposition play into the hands of the worst of that opposition? Pakistan's Daily Times worries about it and who's to blame the rest of us that understand even less of this complex and fragile situation from worrying? The only thing that will help me sleep tonight is knowing that George Bush and his administration are on duty.

Cross posted at Human Voices

Moving On

By Libby

The wingers are apparently determined to make the MoveOn ad their life's work but two can play that game. Naomi Wolf looks at the kerfluffle and see somes disturbing historical parallels between the calls to silence the citizenry and the rise of fascism in other regimes. If you can read her post and still call me a wacky conspiracy theorist for suggesting we're on the road to a police state, I can only suggest you get thee to an optometrist because you're clearly never going to be able to read the signs until you get your vision corrected.

Meanwhile, Brent has a suggestion for all those Bush Dog Democrats who thought it was just jolly to condemn free speech. He's proposed they move on a resolution that I can condone spending time on. It actually does something to support the troops instead of the White House agenda. They should try it. They might find it better fare than the fetid scraps the GOP tosses to them.

Bush on the value of money

By Libby

Bush is doing some tough talking on those spendthrift Democrats.

The Democratic leadership in Congress is set to pass a host of domestic funding bills that would exceed Bush’s request by $22 billion. The extra funding would help go towards veterans health care, infrastructure improvements, education, and other domestic priorities.

Speaking to business leaders at a White House event this morning, Bush railed against the relatively modest increase in spending, arguing that $22 billion is “a lot of money”:

Some in Congress will tell you that $22 billion is not a lot of money. As business leaders, you know better. As a matter of fact, $22 billion is larger than the annual revenues of most Fortune 500 companies. The $22 billion is only for the first year. With every passing year the number gets bigger and bigger, and so over the next five years the increase in federal spending would add up to $205 billion.

Damn those Dems for wanting to spend that kind of cash at home. Bombs aren't free you know. He needs that money to spread freedom and democracy overseas.

More "Returns on success"

By Libby

Just another day of ordinary life in Iraq.

A suicide bomber struck a reconciliation meeting of Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders and senior provincial officials in Baqouba on Monday, killing at least 15 people, including the city's police chief, security officials said.

That would be the same city that the sainted Gen. "don't dare say betray" Petreaus held up as a sign of progress. As recall, he said we had cleared out all the bad guys and the locals love us and are ratting out the insurgents to help us. We've got thousands of soldiers there right now and we still can't secure a major meeting of our new allies? I guess it all depends on what you think the meaning of progress is. But that's not all.

Also Monday, Iran closed [five] major border crossings with northeastern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has condemned Farhadi's arrest, saying he understood the man had been invited to Iraq.

"The government of Iraq is an elected one and sovereign. When it gives a visa, it is responsible for the visa," al-Maliki told the AP in an interview Sunday in New York. "We consider the arrest ... of this individual who holds an Iraqi visa and a (valid) passport to be unacceptable."

Yeah, tell it to Petraeus, Mr. Maliki. We're busy winning hearts and minds here you know. It's all in the book.

The U.S. military said the suspect was being questioned about "his knowledge of, and involvement in," the transportation of EFPs and other roadside bombs from Iran into Iraq and his possible role in the training of Iraqi insurgents in Iran.

And you can bet he's going to keep being questioned until he comes up with the right answers. We've got a new war to sell here you know.

Not good enough Hillary

By Libby
Updated below

Cernig already has the quote of the day with this post on Hillary Clinton refusing to commit to any sort of drawdown of forces from the occupation in the first year of her presidency. Cernig has the links and details and the ultimate response.

Of course it's appropriate to be speculating, you weasel-worded harridan! Bush is speculating, the U.S. top officials in Iraq are in front of Congess speculating, every foreign policy thinker on the planet is speculating!

Look, either Hillary believes that the foreign policy debacle which the Iraq occupation has created will get worse if the U.S. stays or she doesn't. Either she thinks the continued U.S. presense incites increased violence and division or she doesn't. Either she believes a U.S. withdrawal will heat the Iraqi civil wars or she doesn't. Either she thinks Iraq is a frontline in a cold war against Iran or she doesn't.

She's already well informed enough - or should be - to venture an opinion on the biggest foreign policy question of the coming election and if she isn't then she shouldn't be running. Sitting on the fence trying to please all the people all the time won't cut it for anyone because people will see a prevaricator, not a president.

Amen. This is why I've been wary of Hillary all along. She's slick. She doesn't really take clear strong positions on the occupation and the greater muddle in the Middle East and when she does give us a clue on her position, she sounds entirely too hawkish for me.

We don't need more swaggering bravado. We need to elect a president that practices statesmanship, not brinkmanship. God only knows where we're going to find one.

Update: Michael van der Galien thinks we're going to have to learn to live with her. I rather hope he's wrong.

War isn't free

By Libby

Emboldened by the GOP's successful shootdown of any relief for our troops, Bush is about to ask more war bucks.

The request will total nearly $200 billion to fund the war through 2008, Pentagon officials said. If it is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.

...When costs of CIA operations and embassy expenses are added, the war in Iraq currently costs taxpayers about $12 billion a month, said Winslow T. Wheeler, a former Republican congressional budget aide who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

So where's all that money going? According to the government:

U.S. war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq in 2007 and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new technology, such as mine- resistant trucks designed to protect troops from roadside bombs. The new trucks can cost three to six times as much as armored Humvees.

The trouble with that strategy is that as we go high tech, they defeat the technology by going lower tech. How much armor do you think it would take to protect against an IED the size of a cemet mixer?

A small fraction of the money goes to the men and women fighting and dying in the sand pit. Most of it is going to private corporations for no bid, cost plus contracts that carry no performance stipulations and are virtually unmonitored. So far the Pentagon can't account for $88 billion tax dollars and that's just the fraud they've been forced to admit. You know it has to be bigger.

And as we pour our blood and treasure into a failed state thousands of miles away, we have a failing state at home. It's called Michigan. For what it costs to occupy Iraq for one week, $4 billion, Michigan's budget crisis would not only be over, they would be rolling in dough. Somehow I think that would make the citizens of that state feel more secure than another week of war.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

Black future for Blackwater

By Libby

It looks like Bremer's blanket amnesty for our mercenary troops in Iraq, that the administration barely acknowleges, isn't going to hold any Blackwater anymore. The Iraqis have the latest civilian massacre on tape and they're pissed.

The Iraqi government said Saturday that it expects to refer criminal charges to its courts within days in connection with a shooting here by a private American security company, and the Interior Ministry gave new details of six other episodes it is investigating involving the company.

Although Mr. Waili did not spell out what the investigative committee would recommend to the criminal court, a preliminary report of findings by the Interior Ministry, the National Security Ministry and the Defense Ministry stated that “the murder of citizens in cold blood in the Nisour area by Blackwater is considered a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operation.”

My man Cernig was first on this story but Ron at MEJ sums up my thoughts today. He reminds us that these are the same hired guns that patrolled NOLA after Katrina hit and issues this grim prediction.

The same thing could happen here in the US of A. Just the kind of mercenary force the likes of Dick Cheney and the neocons would need to fulfil their dream of an American police state.

Indeed. As I recall, Blackwater was instrumental in disarming the residents and I can't fail to remember those guys that were mysteriously killed on a bridge. I don't believe we've ever really received a satisfactory explanation for what happened there.

Excess Hoggage

By Libby

You know someday I'm going to give up this gig and get myself a real life again but until then, I'm always blogging somewhere. My latest at the Newshoggers:

Dear Dems - resolve this. Some unsolicited advice for the party. I think Soto gets this one right.

My old pals John Gilmore and Ann Harrison are making news with their latest salvo against the police state. They've discovered the DHS is datamining you in many more ways than you might expect.

There was a good piece on Iraq by a Canadian magazine that got the wingers all aflutter over the photoshopped cover pix. Get the link to the article, at judging a book by its cover.

I've been really ragging on the Dems for the last couple of days. I want them to close the book on cloture and I swear if Reid doesn't block this ruinous resolution on Iran, I am done with the Democrats. I'm resurrecting the Libbytarian party and that's that.

Meanwhile, Bush latest faux pas is a doozy. If words could kill, Nelson Mandela would be dead.

And finally, if macro economics interest you at all, I thought it was interesting that Baghdad's housing bubble is bursting but in a different direction than our own.

Little things - A soldier's story

By Libby

Obsidian Wings apparently has a fairly new blogger who is a soldier posting from inside Iraq. G'Kar puts up a moving post on the little things that put a more humanitarian face on the occupation.

He speaks of delivering flour to the poor villagers and of a factory built with US dollars that will eventually employ 50 locals. Now I'll admit, I've done my share of sneering about these tiny projects in comparison to the wholesale violence we're helping to perpetrate in the country, but hearing G'Kar's side of it reminds me of why it's important.

I don't expect that we will make any big differences in Iraq. The government doesn't appear to be interested in doing anything but preserve its power base, and I don't know if that will change even if the U.S. does decide to actually pull out, which seems implausible in any case. I can't make the Iraqi government work any better. I may not even be able to do much to make the Iraqi Army work any better. But I can try to help those Iraqis who want to make their country better succeed in their own small ways, and I can take advantage of my own position to directly aid Iraqis it is in my power to help. It doesn't sound like much. It probably isn't much. But few of us are destined to make a big difference in life; if I can make a little difference, that has to count for something.

Read the whole thing. It's a beautiful and clear-eyed post. It reminds me that if anything is to salvaged out of this debacle it will be because of men and women like G'Kar who reach out to help, not as occupiers, but as fellow human beings.

This is precisely the sort of operations we should focusing on instead of chasing down insurgents, however they're defined these days. One factory and couple of truck loads of flour won't erase the pain of the thousands of innocents who died, but for those 50 Iraqis who have a job now, and for those who saw the tanks come to deliver bread instead of bombs, it will at least leave a postive impression of individual Americans. That is important and I'm glad that at least some of our troops get an opportunity to build good will between our nations instead of being forced always to kill an ill-defined enemy that too often catches the innocent in the cross-fire.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

The draft

by Capt Fogg

Much is being made of the argument that re-instituting the draft would shorten or end the occupation of Iraq or perhaps would curb any further Napoleonic urges of our warpresident. At one time I bought into it, but as someone who came of age as the US had begun sliding down the bloody slope of increasing involvement in Indo-China I have to reflect on that experience which so disturbingly presages our world.

The arguments for the draft assert that it would increase opposition from those of draft age and their parents and thus impede capricious military adventure. Another argument is that increasing the difficulty of raising a large army would also make aggression less attractive.

I have argued from experience in other venues that the existence of the draft made it far easier for war supporters to dismiss protest and to marginalize the opposition with accusations of cowardice and lack of patriotism. It is after all, different to hear objective arguments from someone who is not in danger of any discomfort than from someone who may shortly be in harms way or is the parent of a draft age child. That war went on for some 16 years and that makes it hard to argue that the draft did more than make more noise and tear gas in the streets. Nixon supporters loved him more for standing up to or ignoring public protest and saw it as courage and character.

Lacking a draft today, the neocons have to work harder and use more absurd accusations against dissenters because that opposition comes from a non-draftable public. In my day, nearly anyone favoring withdrawal from Vietnam could be and usually was dismissed as a cowardly communist sympathizer and draft dodger -- regardless of his status or hair length. Bush doesn't have quite that ability at present.

I think I can argue too, that what has kept us out of Iran and perhaps Syria so far has been the inability of the Bush administration to go to war with the army they wish they had. If we had instituted the draft in 2001, he would surely have had it by now. In some respects, giving Bush a small but efficient, well trained, motivated, equipped and professional military is like giving Barney Fife one bullet to carry in his shirt pocket. He's going to have to think carefully before using it.

Of course Bush didn't think too carefully or listen to those who did when he decided to "liberate" Iraq; my arguments are more valid for a sane and intelligent leader than they are for George and it's true that the professionalism of our troops might have convinced him he could do this on the cheap and so avoid public wrath, but I still lean towards the belief that a peacetime draft would not have prevented the attack of Iraq and the neglect of Afghanistan and that the lack of it may have prevented the ground invasion of Iran and any other oil rich country Cheney might want to claim for his corporations. I have to ask myself: would the world be a safer place if George had a 2 million man army?

Cross posted at The Reaction

Hey Rudy - hold the phone

By Libby

Under the heading, what was he thinking? Did he forget who he was talking to?

While delivering his big speech today before the National Rifle Association, Rudy was interrupted by a cell phone call from his wife, Judith Nathan. An apparently surprised Rudy told the crowd, "it's my wife," spoke to her for a moment, and closed the call with a touching, I'm-happily-married moment, saying, "I love you" to her in front of a crowd of gun rights types.

Why he didn't turn it off before he started speaking might be explained by simple inattention, although the more cynical viewer, considering this has happened before, might think it was purposefully contrived to show what a family man he is. If so, this man has no understanding of gun owners.

The NRA crowd is macho to the max. Nothing gets between these folks and their firearms. Certainly not the "little woman." Rudy was presuambly there to convince them of his sincere conversion to 2nd amendment rights and this crowd is easily insulted. The impression he will have left is that his wife is more important than talking to them about guns.

I don't know what the semiauto-toting gunslinger calls it today, but in my day they would have called him pussy-whipped. I doubt they were favorably impressed.

I am not a lesbian

by Capt Fogg

And neither is Hillary Clinton but what's said cannot be unsaid. In our modern world, any accusation will be believed by someone and any denial will make it worse for the accused.

There is a legendary tale about Lyndon Johnson in his early political career having "leaked" the story that an opponent had made a lifelong practice of carnal intercourse with the sows he kept on his farm. When told by an adviser that nobody would believe such a story, Johnson replied that it didn't matter, he just wanted to make the guy deny being a pig-F***er. Even if there is no evidence, one reporter after another will try to gain notoriety by asking if the rumor is true and thereby validate the hoax that there is in fact a rumor. The trick is old, but the audience is always young.

Mrs. Clinton has been studying under that great teacher of experience for a long time and is no stranger to the slinging of the slime. "People will say what they want to say," was the perfect answer and the complete truth and it avoided the dilemma of confirming by denial or confirming by refusal to comment. If the Meth-addled Ann can call John Edwards gay and get away with it, the GOP skunk works has little to lose and may have a few votes to gain by trying it on Clinton.

Cross posted at Human Voices

Ahmadilooniness

By Libby

I read this and I have to ask, are we sure that Fred Thompson isn't really Michelle Malkin in drag?

"It's an insult to the America people and the civilized world," Mr. Thompson said. "He should not be allowed within miles of Ground Zero. In fact he shouldn't be allowed in the United States of America."

I mean has anyone seen the two of them in the same room together, because it sure sounds like something our relentlessly malicious Ms. Malkin would say. Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has the appropriate response.

A president with some dignity and sense of the greatness of his country would say, good he should go there. Maybe he'll learn something about us and our loss.

That was my first thought. The laying of the wreath thing was rather over the top but outside of the impossible security considerations, so what if he wants to visit the site like every other tourist in NYC. As if his using the site for an political photo-op is any more insulting to the dead than when Bush or Rudy do it?

If we were truly striving for peace in the Middle East, Bush would be graciously taking him there himself to demonstrate he isn't afraid of the little loudmouth. It would be the diplomatic thing to do. In fact it would be the ballsy thing to do. That is if you were trying to acheive peace instead of trying to drum up a cause for war.

It's useful to remember that the hijackers were Saudis, not Iranians and Bush has entertained the Saudi royal family more than once in the intervening six years. Bin Laden is Saudi. Bush's utter lack of statesmanship with Iran makes him look the cowardly boor and leaves Ahmadinejad looking almost reasonable in comparison.

Why the wingnuts would want to amplify that impression and why our presidential candidates on both sides of the fence would want to imitate wingnuttia outrage at the expense of a reasoned response, is beyond me. These people need to get out of the beltway more. I think the Kristol meth is rotting their brains.

Orrin Hatch a closet DFH?

By Libby

From a piece on the upcoming SCHIP bill on insuring uninsured children, which Bush is threatening to veto, comes the quote of the day.

Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a staunch conservative, said, "You bet your sweet bippy I will."

I haven't heard that expression since Laugh In went off the air and there wasn't a bigger bunch of dirtier f'ing hippies on the TV than that crew back in the day. Hatch even contradicts his supreme commander on the particulars.

Hatch, who helped negotiate the compromise, said it is flatly untrue that the bill would cover children in households with incomes of as much as $83,000. A recent Urban Institute analysis found that 70 percent of the children who would gain or retain coverage under the Senate bill, which resembles the compromise, are in households with incomes below twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.

Forty thou doesn't go that far these days. Certainly not far enough to cover insurance premiums for a family of four and still afford to eat and put gas in the car. It would be good to see a bi-partisan standoff with his Imperial Highness on this one.

The Homecoming

By Libby

Jim Henley snags the catch of the day and sums it up perfectly in one sentence.

Make no mistake, if the Congress “votes against money for the troops” and the angry antiwar “base” forces a precipitous withdrawal, you’ll see this nightmare scenario replicated on bases all over America, even in Western Europe and East Asia - a hundred-fifty thousand little “defeats.”

He's talking about Army of Dude.

It has been a week since our triumphant return to the states, to America, the first world. And as it wasn’t quite like I imagined in June, it was every bit as wonderful and surreal as I thought it would be. Every moment leading up to the march to the gym was met with cheers and hysterical laughter. Getting off the plane, turning in our guns, getting on a bus…at every step we got closer to seeing loved ones. You could feel it in your face and hear it in the voice of anyone you talked to.

...One of the first things I said to my dad after a big hug was, man, that was a long twelve months.

If you can read the Dude's whole post without getting a little choked up, well, you've got a sterner heart than me. If only this was the happy ending of his story. Unfortunately, with no signs of a changed course in the occupation, I'm afraid we're going to have to endure more nightmare inspiring chapters before we get to the end of the book.

We will not go quietly

By Libby

I was supposed to have the week off but I ended up working so posting has obviously been somewhat light, especially here, but I'm always blogging somewhere. At Newshoggers:

The unbearable boundlessness of betryal. It's not just Petraeus who has betrayed us. We've been betrayed up and down the line by our political class. I'm especially worked up this week over lame brained, do nothing resolutions like the condemning of MoveOn for exercising their right to free speech. Fight back and sign the petition.

I left a few choice words for my useless Senators. I told them I was appalled that they were wasting precious time and tax dollars on nonsense instead of addressing the important concerns of the people.

I was optimistic when I posted working the system for Webb. That Dole caved into White House pressure isn't much a surprise, but that Webb turned around and rebuked the very people like me, who tried to help him get the measure passed, is not sitting well today.

I posted Warner wavers, while Webb presses on in that moment I believed Webb was actually showing some principles beyond political convenience.

And in case you missed it somehow, there's no way out of Green Zone . Since Blackwater murdered random civilian Iraqis this week, they're lying low and since they provide the security for all our big honchos in Baghdad, nobody is even leaving their buildings, much less the Green Zone.

I have a few posts at the Detroit News as well. If you don't feel like wading through the winger musings that keep trying to drown me out, you can always go here for a list of my posts. The one you'll want to read that I haven't duplicated at all is Bushenomic house of cards teeter on collapse.

You probably read this morning that the Canadian dollar has just broken even with our own for the first time since 1976, but that's only one small blip on the warning screen. The cards are falling and when they hit it's going to feel like a ton of bricks on all our heads.

Not missing you...

By Libby

I'm getting a late start today. I slept for 11 hours and my head is still roiling with a jumble of dreams that seemed to prominently feature brightly colored electric cars and a couple of traveling diplomats. I can't quite recall the details. I hate when that happens. It leaves me feeling unresolved.

But I've been reading the news this morning and while I shake the sleep out of my head, here's an amusing article in which Vincente Fox calls Bush a wimp for being afraid of horses, but the money quote is this.

Donald Rumsfeld, his defence secretary until last November, asked recently if he missed the president, said flatly: "No."

Rummy joins a growing list of former loyalists now turned grumbling malcontents. Not to worry though. Bush says his feelings aren't hurt at all. Why should he be concerned about the opinions of the plebians when he's so certain history will vindicate him.

GOP death watch

By Libby

Digby has been on fire this week. She writes about the wilful self-destruction of the Republic party and the perfidy of its leadership. Read the whole thing, it's an especially good post, but here's the quote of the day.

We are looking at fifty-five of the most powerful people in the country. Collectively the Republican Senators represent almost a hundred and fifty million citizens. And they have allowed a callow little boy like George W. Bush along with his grey eminences Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to strip them of their consciences, their principles and their constitutional obligations. What sad little creatures, cowardly and subservient, unctuously bowing and scraping before Karl Rove the man who holds their (purse) strings and dances them around the halls of congress singing tributes to their own irrelevance at the top of their lungs. How pathetic they are.

Barry Goldwater is rolling over in his grave.

I'm finding this slow motion suicide rather painful to watch myself.

87.0736% extremist

by Capt. Fogg

New York Rep. Peter King thinks there are too many mosques in the US. I don't know whether that's true. I can only say that I've seen exactly one since I was old enough to know what a mosque was and I've been old enough for a long time. But Representative King is a Republican, a part of Guiliani's campaign and the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee and so has a personal financial interest in the marketing of hysteria and the promotion of irrational sectarian hatred.

85% of them, however many of them there might be, are controlled by extremist leadership, says Representative King. 85% -- although that number is probably there because it sounds like statistics but would be impossible to confirm or deny -- and besides, extremism is a relative and thus easily invoked term. Extremism can, according to traditional Republican values, be good: "no vice" as that icon of Republican virtue and multiple felon Spiro Agnew once told us. All in all, it's not a good argument, just one of the few left at the bottom of the barrel of bullshit.

Of course I think there are far too many Churches in the US and 87.0736% of them are extremist in that they are promoting the restriction of civil rights according to the teachings they invent for the purpose of undermining democracy and liberty and justice for all. They've succeeded in requiring our children to acknowledge their pantheon of bizarre deities and to swear that magic beings are involved in the government of the US. They have succeeded in replacing our coinage with little copper and paper religious engravings and they are constantly telling us what we can read, see, say and investigate; whom we can spend our lives with, how we can define our families, what we can teach our children about science and mathematics.

They not only promote wars and violence, they teach us that religious wars and violence are good when done in defense of an almighty dictator and are happy to provide all the fictitious history you could ever want to benefit their crusades and their war against science, math, physics, history, law, logic, cosmology, geology, paleontology, meteorology, statistics, probabilities and the origin of species through natural selection.

They promote the kind of mental illness that would allow, for instance, Mitt Romney, a follower of one Joseph Smith: demonstrable liar, forger and sexual pervert, to elevate his campaign to deny civil rights to people his sexually perverted and somewhat unclean looking prophet didn't like. It allows extremist followers of a Roman Bishop like Rudolph Guiliani to close a public museum for Blasphemy because he didn't think we should have the right to view a painting of a magic virgin who has babies with invisible gods that didn't adhere to the precise iconography of his church.

Too many Starbucks, too many SUV's and burger joints and way too Goddamn many churches.

Cross posted at Human Voices

Ground zero visit forbidden

By Libby
Updated below

I expect Commissioner Kelly has some 'splaining to do after having spawned a small tsunami of outrage with his mistaken remarks on an Iranian state visit to ground zero by Ahmadinejad. It turns out the little tourist trip was ruled out a month ago. As of course, it would have to be. Fully a quarter of that city would shoot the Ahmadilooney dead on sight. No way they could provide security for such an event. He's going to have to sightsee by helicopter just like all the other rich tourists.

That aside, I think the outrage over the request is way overblown. The man is a loudmouth boor, but he hasn't actually done anything to us yet and he is a world leader. He's not the first nutcase that somehow managed to rule a country. Think Idi Amin. Ahmadinejad asked to be allowed to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site to open the UN session. Who knows, maybe he sees himself as a emissary of peace and love, not so unlike our own president.

Sure it's crazy. But for myself, I don't think it's all that much crazier than say, jumping into an orchestra pit. It's certainly not worth turning into an international incident.

Update: Booman agrees with me but explains it more eloquently. He's right. It's the diplomacy, stupid. Making this huge deal out of a crazy but possibly well-meant gesture makes us look worse than Ahmadinejad. It's one thing for the Righty Ragers to go ballistic but it's a disgrace that our presidential candidates chose to make political points over it, especially before all the facts came out.

It certainly doesn't give me any confidence in their diplomacy skills either and what we very much need in 08 is to elect a statesman, not another hot-heated, overly aggresive loudmouth.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

Krugman joins Blogtopia

By Libby

Introductory posts are almost always a bit awkward and Krugman's opening one is a bit on the formal side, but then again it's still affiliated with the NYT so I suppose some constraint is necessary. I tend to temper my work at the Detroit News for the same reason. (Well okay, I'm not that temperate there either, but I don't use profanity and try to use PG appropriate analogies.)

In any event Krugman now has a personal blog and his first post is a bit dry and really just sort of a pitch for his new book but I liked this one point. We're about the same age, and I also remember when this was true.

It was also a society in which political bipartisanship meant something: in spite of all the turmoil of Vietnam and the civil rights movement, in spite of the sinister machinations of Nixon and his henchmen, it was an era in which Democrats and Republicans agreed on basic values and could cooperate across party lines.

As long as I can remember, political grandstanding has been the favorite sport inside the beltway and the movie images of smoky back room deals and back stabbing betrayals wasn't made up out of the whole cloth. But there were times when the good of the country required it, that the political class put aside their differences and worked together without the primary concern being who would score the political points.

I find that the single most disturbing aspect of today's political climate. Our "leaders" are willing to completely subvert the long term common good for short term gains, even knowing that long term damage will impact everyone - friend and foe alike. It's so senseless.

In any event, I welcome Krugman to Blogtopia and await with interest to see how his voice develops in this format.

Eye on the border

I'm a real roll this week with the template. I'm adding another blog to the roll, my friend R. Clayton McKee, whom I've known for years through a shared discussion list. He doesn't post nearly enough but he's a fab photojournalist and I love his work.

I didn't know quite where to put him since it's a photoblog and not really about politics at all, so he's been assigned a spot in Drunks and Poets. A category by the way that I recommend for those times when you just need a break from politics. Every one of those writers offers an alternate universe, some more alternate than others.

Tased and confused

By Libby

I'm just catching up on this kid that got tasered at a Kerry event. GTL has the videos and I have to agree with my gun toting friend that Kerry's response came late and was weak-kneed. But I don't think Kerry could reasonbly be expected to intervene in a local police action at the time and he could arguably have been unaware of the extent of brutality. Even with the tight shots on the video, you can't actually see the tasering.

However, that the cops over-reacted is clear from the tape. Sure the kid was a loudmouth jerk but he wasn't incoherent, just abrasive. That's not against the law. He wasn't presenting any threat to the public and Kerry was clearly willing to answer his question. Furthermore, with six freaking cops, there was absolutely no reason to taser the kid. This weapon was originally issued as an alternative to lethal force, not common sense.

But the real issue here is that the cops felt free to intervene at the exact moment it appeared to me the kid looked ready to step away from the mike that had just been cut off. The impression is clearly that the cops reacted to the content of his questions and not to any physical threat he made. You expect that at a Bush speech. Not at a Democratic function.

This is not an isolated incident. It's becoming all too common for LEOs to use their power to suppress dissent. Kerry fails in his response by not making a bigger point on the removal. He needs to issue a much more strongly worded statement in condemnation of the interference with constitutionally protected political speech.

Save Habe - do it now

By Libby

One of the singlemost destructive acts of this administration was the gutting of habeas corpus. You have a chance today to reverse that. Sens. Leahy and Dodd are bringing forward their Habeas Restoration Act again and the current word is it will be coming up for a vote tomorrow morning. FDL has the details and toll free numbers to call in your support.

Habe has been the foundation of our legal system for centuries, dating back to the 1600s. It's vital that your Senators know it's important to you that this bill be passed. If you don't want to call, then at least email your representatives and tell them to support Amendment S. 2202. You can get direct access to your Senators' email forms here.

Marching towards destiny

By Libby

Following up on my post at Newshoggers on the protest marches last weekend, I have a late arriving photo set from a correspondent I know and trust, my friend JackL who attended with his wife. He has one of the better crowd shots that convey the attendance. Jack has this to say about the event.

I didn't get any photos of the die in and arrests at the end...you've probably seen some of those on the news or on You Tube. Even that was pretty low key...you could choose to jump a barricade and be arrested, or not. (We chose the latter and walked back to our motor coach at Union Station).

I'm glad there are still demos where you can choose not to be tear gassed and arrested just for showing up to protest...very civilized.

I asked him for an estimate of the crowd and he pretty much agreed with the official assessment.

I think there were only about 10K in the start at Lafayette Park, comparing to music festivals...it wasn't that crowded and there weren't as many buses where they were parked at Union Station as I had expected.

Also in comments at the Newshoggers post, Kevin Sullivan of Van der Galien's Gazette notes he attended and estimated the pro-war crowd to be at about the 1000 stated in the media. I don't know Kevin well enough to judge his proficiency in estimations but I think it's a honest one and he's also promised me photos of the pro-war demo. Oddly, with all the coverage from the rightwingers, most of the photos have been of the anti-war side so I for one would appreciate seeing the view from the other side of the barricades.

Finally, via Avedon, here's some eloquent thoughts from NTodd about the march itself, which he attended and has some suggestions about what we can do as bloggers and ordinary Americans to light a fire under our Congress creatures.

Free to flee, just don't come here

By Libby

I had a crazy day yesterday. Although it ended up better than it started I didn't get around to posting much or even reading the news. But quote of the day went to Shamanic. Read her whole post, on the refugee crisis in Iraq and the US failure to accept any of the refugees we created with our "liberation."

It is a shameful and tragic outcome that the same elements of the American body politic who refuse to set timetables because we can't "abandon" the Iraqis are doing nothing at all to expedite the removal of those in the country who put their lives on the line for us every day.

It is truly shameful. Of all the ways Bush is claiming to be helping the Iraqis, the one most useful method, granting asylum, isn't even addressed while the neighboring countries in the Middle East carry a burden we more easily absorb.

Fight to be free

By Capt. Fogg

Everybody's had to fight to be free
You see you don't have to live like a refugee

-Tom Petty

Jupiter Island, Florida is one of the wealthiest spots in the US but its exact status is difficult to determine since the people who live there are so low profile. I'm not sure there is a phone book. Residents include Old Money and political Old Money families and a few more recognizable folks like Tiger Woods and Celine Dion. There are no commercial establishments of any kind and the streets are lined with security cameras and cruising police cars. You would think it was the worst place in Florida at which to drop off illegal immigrants from Haiti and the Bahamas.

It is. A crew working on some umpteen million dollar house last Saturday observed a rickety boat and some people struggling in the water with a few coming ashore. Although someone in the water was calling for help, other boats were ignoring him.

"And at that point, we were going, 'All right, there has to be something wrong going on out here.' Because if it was a regular person, just yelling for help or something, somebody would have stopped for them" said one observer.

Apparently, black people are not regular people and under the circumstances can be presumed to be without papers. This is the churchgoing, Bible studying, God pledging south, but illegal is illegal so let the bastards drown even if the law requires you to lend assistance. It's happened before and US citizens have been left in the water to perish by bad Samaritans. A host of comments attached to the article in the paper today confirm the anti-immigrant sentiment with a degree of passion that would make Lou Dobbs blush.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker is chastising the Department of Homeland Security for dragging its feet as concerns the processing of some 10,000 Iraqis whose lives are now worth less than a Dinar since they assisted the US government and are approved by the UN for political refugee status.

There are at least 2 million homeless Iraqis who are victims of the ethnic cleansing that has allowed the government coyly to argue that sectarian violence is down. There are 2.2 million more who have fled to other countries that are bursting at the seams. 60,000 are fleeing their homes every month or being forced out and there is no place for them to go. We are willing to use these people to argue that we must stay there indefinitely to protect them, but we are not willing to take 10,000 of them in. There's no oil in it for us after all and besides, like Haitians and Bahamians and Mexicans, they're different than "regular" people.

Cross posted at Human Voices

When wingnuts attack fighting men

By Libby

This is the stuff that really pisses me off. The cheerleaders for war who raise holy hell over the tiniest criticism of their sainted General, who for the record, did betray not only us, but also his men with his politically driven report, think nothing of jumping all over an active duty soldier who dares dissent from their rosy party line -- even a dead one.

You of course remember the seven active duty soldiers who wrote the op-ed criticizing the war. Oddly, after publication, one got shot in the head but will recover and two died in a mysterious auto accident in Iraq. The mother of one of them is still waiting for an answer from the Army on the details of the accident, which in shades of Pat Tillman are not forthcoming.

Meanwhile, Don Pogreba points us to an op-ed written by former conservative state Senator Dave Rye in Montana suggesting that the other victim "was neither intelligent enough to have written an editorial expressing discontent about the war nor able to escape the clutches of liberal propagandists."

The pure hypocrisy of this pro-war crowd is nauseating. This guy can diss a dead soldier, John Boehner can call the war dead a small sacrifice and blame military officers for the mess Rummy made and the Ragin Righties don't say a fucking word. But they made a month long federal case out of a botched joke by John Kerry, who actually served in a war, unlike like these chickenshit bullies.

Sometimes I wish we could round the whole lot of them up and drop their sorry asses into the middle of Sadr City for a week, without a platoon of armed bodyguards, and see how big they talk then.

Fredo's farewell

By Libby

This is quote of the day from our departing AG which I believe he said as part of his farewell speech.

"Over the past two and a half years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible," Gonzales said in prepared remarks at a Hispanic Heritage Month ceremony at Bolling Air Force Base. "I've seen things I didn't know man was capable of.

"... and that was just about his superiors
"...and that was just at my weekly staff meetings."

Okay so I made that up. I guess he was talking about his prosecutions, but the unholy trinity of Bush, Cheney and Rove did spring to mind when I read that.

[Ed. note: new punch line thanks to Max in comments.]

Always blogging somewhere

By Libby
Updated

At the Newshoggers:

On the stump with Hillary. Madeline Albright says what Hillary should be saying.

Quiet GOP defection. Chafee quits his party with a harsh goodbye.

No tight schedule for tepid Thompson. Fred's not about to test the theory that hard work can't kill you.

Where is Steve Fossett. This guy is one my heros. I'm sad to think he might be dead.

For what it's worth, I take a look at yesterday's demonstration in DC.

At the Detroit News:

Webb shows the way. Pushing Webb's proposal where I'm sure that the Democratic leadership will see it.

Only you can stop WWIII. This is my must read post of the day. Click over if only to get the link to Booman's post which has the details. These maniacs are really going to bomb Iran if we don't stop them somehow.

Greed guts GOP

By Libby
Updated below

I'm often struck by the similarities between the Bush administration and the Lord of the Rings. I read the descriptions of what is happening in Colorado and it reminds me of nothing so much as Mordor.

Meanwhile, under the heading, too little -- too late, Alan Greenspan admits the war really is about oil. Feh. Like we didn't know that already. How nice of him to wait until he could make a buck on that little revelation. As GTL points out, doesn't this prove Greenspan is just another war criminal trying to escape his just deserts?

Update: Ian at FDL doesn't think Greenspan deserves absolution and counts the ways the man screwed us when he had the power to change the direction of the economy.

Say hello

By Libby

I added a new blog to the left leaners roll. Fifth Estate is a new co-blogger at the Newshoggers and has his own place as well. Click on over to read his thoughtful post on the importance of blogging and check out his take on the Bush presidential library. He was way ahead of the curve on that one. Loved the proposed designs myself.

Rumsfeld: Don't bother me

By Libby

Shorter Rummy: I can't think about that today. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Rumsfeld isn't following the Iraq debacle he helped create anymore. He's much too busy organizing his papers and preparing for his new anointment as an ideology and terrorism expert at the neo-con think tank, Hoover Institution and setting up his own little foundation to promote PNAC style mayhem. Not to mention he's writing the obligatory book. No doubt he'll be the hero in the story.

I'm predicting a Fox exclusive interview in his future.

Thinking and drinking

By Libby

I've been totally uninspired by the news today. It's so dreadfully the same. The government lies, the media reports it as news, people dying in Iraq, politicians jockeying for prominence in the news cycle with outrageous pandering to the basest instincts of the voters. Worse yet, Iran is already being reported by the steno corps a/k/a media elite as a war accompli.

Some days it feels like I'm fighting the 60's battles all over again. I've got this Buffalo Springfield song rolling in my head. It strikes me that Nixon feels like a civil libertarian compared to this administration.

But I haven't been totally a slacker today either. If you didn't make the rounds, I posted this stuff.

Webb's way out. Of all the do nothing moves the Dems could make right now, this one seems to me to their best bet. And it has the added benefit of providing some badly needed relief to the soldiers.

I couldn't resist this story. I don't care at all who Condi's companions are, but I love a play on words.

I did a Bush speech recap for Detroit, Bush spins tales while Iraq fails. It's worth clicking over for the links to Cernig and Fester's posts on the latest MidEast revelations.

And as luck would have it, I ran across an interesting Question of the week for Detroit that has national implications. The question would work in many states troubled with unfunded federal mandates.

Snark of the day

By Libby

I'm getting off to a slow start today so while I kick my brain into gear and figure out what I feel like bitching about, here's a humorous op-ed that made me smile. I'm not sure whether the link is accessible without a subscription so I'm going to post the whole thing from old hometown paper. Andy Morris-Friedman envisions the future.

A show on C-SPAN about presidential libraries started me thinking what the George W. Bush Museum might be like. Here are some highlights you won't want to miss:

The Alberto Gonzales Room: Where you can't remember any of the exhibits.

The Hurricane Katrina Room: It's still under construction.

The Texas Air National Guard Room:You don't have to even show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room: Where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room: Where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room: Nobody has been able to find it.

The War in Iraq Room: After your first tour is finished they can force you to go back to take a second and third.

The Dick Cheney Room: In an undisclosed location, you get to shoot someone in the face.

There will also be an entire floor devoted to a 7/8-scale model of the president's ego.

Check out the K-Street Project gift shop, where you can buy an election, or if no one cares, steal one. Don't forget to visit the men's room where you could meet a Republican senator.

To be fair, the president has done some good things, and so the museum will have an electron microscope so you can see them.

When asked, the president said that he didn't care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better then his father's.

Sounds about right to me.

Iraq - The bandaid solution

By Libby

I put up my review of our president's Adventures in Blunderland speech at Newshoggers this morning so I'm going to take a quick look at the White House apologist's excuse for an editorial in the WaPo this morning. To be fair it does make a token attempt at berating the gross lies and omissions contained in that dreary ode to delusion but the money quote is at the end.

...But according to Gen. Petraeus, Mr. Crocker and the consensus view of U.S. intelligence agencies, if the U.S. counterinsurgency mission were abandoned in the near future, the result would be massive civilian casualties and still-greater turmoil that could spread to neighboring countries.

Mr. Bush's plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It's not necessary to believe the president's promise that U.S. troops will "return on success" in order to accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: "Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse."

Sometimes I wonder how much the White House pays this guy to write this drivel. Five years of pretty much trying to paint abject failure as progress and our leading editorialists are still pitching the conventionally wise punditry. These people that are so relentlessly and glowingly cited as serious thinkers have been wrong about everything they predicted from the outset.

Every predicted development by the vaunted foreign policy clerisy has failed to come true. So why should anyone still believe a word they say? Considering their track record, if the serious pundits are predicting mayhem if we leave, chances are they would be wrong again.

Surely an orderly and total withdrawal of our troops in a reasonably speedy manner won't magically solve the problems in Iraq. But considering the magnitude of the current disaster there, it's difficult to imagine that it could get all that much worse and allowing it to run its course and come it its ultimate end sooner still seems to be a better option to me, than perpetuating this endless cycle of violence and suffering for another ten years, only to be faced with the same bad choices at the end.

The choices we face aren't so unlike the choice of whether to peel a bandaid off a scab. Do you do it slowly or just yank it off. Either way, you still suffer the pain and it will still bleed, but it will never truly heal until you do it.

Me, I'm ready to yank it and get it over with. At least it will save lives over the long run.

Outrage overload

By Libby

Sometimes I wonder what the point of it all is. I think Blogtopia has made a real difference in public opinion but it's had zero effect on the outcomes with a president who does whatever he effin' well pleases, no matter what. And he gets away with it while the rightwing ragers incessantly whine about how they're victims of "liberal bias."

Ouote of the week, comes from John Cole who expresses my disgust with the whole charade perfectly.

So again- what are they so damned angry about? I don’t get it. I used to throw around the term the “angry left” myself, but watching this administration do whatever it wants to the cheerleading of imbeciles and first rate hacks, I am surprised the left is not angrier. Bush, the worst President of my lifetime and possible the last century, turned a 51% tightly fought election into a mandate, while the Democrats can’t figure out how to remove one god damned troop from Iraq with 60+% of the public furious about the war.

Cole is just on fire in the last couple of days. Click the link for more like that.

A word to our commenters

By Libby

It's been a hellish week and I'm not going to be able to go back and answer comments but I appreciate your contributions to the discussion and thanks for reading. If it wasn't for your feedback, I wouldn't have the heart to keep at what feels like shouting into the wind on a week that Bush gets everything he wants -- again.

Youssif

by Capt. Fogg

If you're a human being, you are saddened by the story of Youssif, the Iraqi boy set on fire by unknown assailants. His face is deformed and we can only imagine how this child's view of the world is deformed by the pain he's been through and the ugliness he sees in the mirror. Of course you and I are pleased to see that some American hearts bled enough that he will receive the best in burn treatment and reconstructive surgery in the US.

Dr. Peter Grossman spoke on CNN this afternoon, outside the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks California, about the course of surgery that will probably involve more pain and as much as a year of treatment, he seemed a bit non-plussed when the reporter asked him how seeing Youssif had changed his views. For a second I half expected a denunciation of war, of violence, of the unthinking, uncaring horror of using massive military force to bomb crowded cities, but no, Grossman gave CNN what CNN wanted.

Cross posted at Human Voices

Hit and run linkage

By Libby

It's another crazy day for me but just to let you know I'm alive and paying attention, here's a couple of links to peruse until I get home tonight.

The pundits can spin the polls and Petraeus can twist the statistics all they want, but the people who know the most, the military on the ground, are speaking with their wallets. Contributions to Democrats are at an all time high. Not sure exactly why, except to make a statement of protest against policy since the Dems have been all but useless in changing the course of the occupation.

Bush is due to make a big speech tonight to tell us his new way forward. That would taking two steps backwards, then one step back to where we were before and calling it progress. One guy unfortunately who won't be listening is the key tribal ally in Anbar who was murdered today. So much for security improving. This guy had to be the best protected person in the province.

Neither George Will or Robert Novak are fans of Freddie Thompson and wonder aloud why the hell he is even running at this point.

House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks the thousands of lives lost and billions of tax dollars spent on the Iraq folly are a small price to pay to spare Bush the embarrassment of admitting he's a total failure.

Our intelligence czar admits he lied to Congress when he said the new enhanced FISA laws had a bloody thing to do with the cracking of the terrorist plot in Germany. All that work was actually done with warrants.

Wondering why our country's infrastructure is failing? Could it be the $8 billion in earmarks that lard the transportation bills and supplant priority needs with personal pork projects? Most likely.

Petraeus clueless

I'm working today, so I won't be posting much but I did finally briefly address the Petraeus report at Newshoggers this morning before I left. I actually don't have all that much more to say about it except that I think MoveOn is right. Petraeus has betrayed us.

I don't think it was so smart of them to blaze that as headline on a full page NYT ad, simply because it gives the wingnuts a straw man to knock down instead of having to confront the truth that Petraeus is effectively lying to us. Not that they would anyway, but let them create their own strawmen. MoveOn shouldn't be doing the work for them.

In any event, the notion that Saint Petraeus should be revered and unquestioned as some military savoir is ridiculous. He has proven by his actions that he is little more than a political hack willing to put his own troops into harm's way simply to cover for Bush's failure and to avoid having to admit the failure of his own strategy.

Harassing the troops

By Libby

I've had a tumultuous couple of days, hence the lack of posting. The only thing I managed to do on the intertubes was bitch at fools. I'm tired and I'm cranky and I've just about had it with the 101st keyboard cowardists. This Beauchamp vendetta has gone beyond vanity and lapsed into cruel and stupid. It's bad enough when these people go after minimum wage clerks but to spend six weeks or so harassing a single soldier on active duty in the sandbox is beyond the pale. John Cole is on CY's case and I got into it with him the comments. This was my last one.

CY, in my unclever way, I see two things. One nobody on "the left" used those military records against the soldiers, as you predicted. We didn't comb the hundreds of cruel and needless deaths of civilian Iraqis because we actually do support the troops. We don't blame them for going crazy in that insane occupation. Even when they do bad things. We have no interest in ganging up on any single active duty soldier, in order to get attention. We go after the corrupt administration, not the guys at the bottom who are stuck fighting for it.

You feel like a big man for ruining one soldier's life for probably making up a story based on what he's heard? Who gives a flying leap? One hapless slub sees a chance to make a few extra bucks writing a story and it's a big victory to harass him and his entire platoon for, what is it now, five or six weeks? Bejus man, what you do think you've accomplished, cause I don't see it. You don't look like a hero to me. You look like the bully who steals kid's lunch money on the playground.

Two, I'd bet money that after being subjected to a month and half of being hauled in before the brass to testify about whether they were going to verify that some guy danced around with a skull on his head, that you're a whole lot less popular in that platoon than Beauchamp is.

It's insane. CY is whoring for hits by causing unnecessary stress on 700 men simply to hound a single soldier for telling a story, that even if it's not true, is mild in comparison to the documented misconduct recently released by the governent to the ACLU. On the day that happened, CY said, without a trace of irony, "Fine. Let us spin the data and the findings to support our political viewpoints. But please, let's do so without attacking the integrity of those who serve, which is a tactic becoming more common, and repulsive, as time goes by."

How Owens and his compadres in the Righty Ragers figure they're "supporting the troops" by subjecting an entire platoon to this extended meaningless witch hunt, generated soley so Owens and his little friends can play at being "citizen journalists," is beyond me. But he's right about one thing. It is grossly repulsive.

A man walks into a bar. . .

by Capt Fogg

“I can’t get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics."

–Woody Allen, Annie Hall

Nor can I, but I find it equally incongruous that we have television advertisements for a war financed by people who produce and direct it. Neither the Rosicrucians or Ari Fleischer hiding behind his war mongering Freedoms Watch group have invented anything here. Contrived religions, wars fought and passionately supported for business reasons, quack medicine and sports insanity are old traditions.

So when a man wearing a Texas Longhorns T Shirt gets his scrotum torn off in an Oklahoma bar by a 53 year old Church Deacon, Federal auditor and veteran of our much honored, supported and honorable armed forces, I'm not surprised. Although neither the scrotum ripping Sooner Supporter nor the de-horned Texas man had ever attended the schools in question, the incident was a clear intention to attack Oklahoma values and freedom by Lone Star insurgents. Pre-emptive castration was the only real option. They attacked Oklahoma, after all. Oklahoma and its barroom bullies had little choice but to defend their freedoms and values and honor. Oklahoma is OK.


cross posted at Human Voices