Politics: War Atrocities

Goya, War

Because, as you know, this blog is dedicated to peace, to the end of war and its atrocities, to the hope of a brighter tomorrow when we will no longer throw our children — and everyone else's — into the gaping maw of Moloch.

The combat soldier, as an absolutely deprived person, responds to direct situational exigencies. [...] Deadening fear intermingles with acts of bravery. [...]

If enemy prisoners are taken, they may be subjected to atrocities in the rage of the battle or its immediate aftermath. The soldier's distaste of endangering civilians may be overcome by his fear that [the enemy], of any age or sex, can be responsible for his own death (Ed: Or the death of those of his comrades whom he has been trained to think of as his best and only friends.) Where the opportunity arises, looting often occurs. War souvenirs are frequently collected either to be kept personally or later sold to rear-echelon servicemen. (Italics added. Editorial note from ThePoliticalCat.)

— Charles C. Moskos, as cited inMalaya and Singapore During The Japanese Occupation

The "absolutely deprived person" status that is inflicted on servicemen as part of their basic training has the effect of deadening them to all that is human and humane. Apparently, such deadening no longer has the desired effect, for even these poor, pitiful humans retain some vestige of conscience and feeling. They come back from their war crimes with PTSD, and inflict upon their loved ones, neighbours, families, and society in general, the cost of rehabilitating them and dealing with their costly and painful suffering.

Thus, our armies now seek robots, "unmanned drones," that do not, and cannot, suffer any twinge of conscience about killing the innocent, the unarmed, the civilians who are so unfortunate as to live in a zone of war.

It is stated as a matter of fact in many of the memoirs written by PoWs in the Pacific Theater during WW II that their Korean and Taiwanese guards were often more brutal and inhumane than even the Japanese soldiers, who committed unparalleled war crimes in their imperialist expansion into Southeast Asia. Upon reading at greater length of the treatment meted out to these unfortunate "Imperial subjects" of Korea and Taiwan, it becomes clear that the dehumanization process to which these unfortunate "subjects" were subjected could only be remedied or stalled by inflicting upon their helpless prisoners torments that were at least as unpleasant as those that they themselves suffered.

Thus the cycle continues. Each person one rung up on the ladder of abuse directs their kicks and blows to those one rung below. Those at the very bottom of that ladder have no one upon whom to vent their frustrations and rage, and so turn them inward and punish each other and themselves, as they have been taught and shown to do.

Picasso, Guernica

When will humanity emerge from these dark ages? When will we evolve beyond the need of war? It must come soon, or we will surely destroy ourselves and all we hold dear. Iran announced the existence of a hidden uranium-refining facility, and everywhere, the neocons have crawled out of the woodwork demanding an immediate attack upon that unfortunate nation. Why? Because the government of the State of Israel, a bunch of neocon hacks and hawks to the last man, are "afraid" of the possibility that Iran might soon have nuclear weapons. Earliest estimates of this happening range from one to five years. Not that facts should get in the way of hysteria, of course.

Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons, but will neither confirm nor deny that it does so. Israel is not a signatory to the NNPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Iran is. Iran has notified the IAEA, as required by its membership in the IAEA, of its "secret" facility. Iran has also agreed to permit IAEA inspectors to assess its nuclear sites. Israel, not being a signatory to this, most important treaty, refuses to release any information whatsoever about what its doing with nuclear power. Israel is a hawkish state, constantly engaging in acts of hostility against its neighbours, supported by the U.S. to the tune of $10 million in taxpayer money PER DAY. In addition to obscene yearly quantities of military aid. Just this year, despite our own horrendous economic situation, we gave Israel nearly $3 billion in military aid.

The interests of the Israeli people are not being represented by their government, which prefers to use its own civilians as an excuse for further armament rather than negotiate peaceful solutions with its neighbours. Children of Abraham, of Hagar and Sarah, the time has come to beat your swords into plowshares. If you do not, then you will all be obliterated when the Third World War begins, because there are too many people who want it to begin on your doorstep. It is not a war that anyone will survive.

As Tom Lehrer sang, "We'll all go together when we go." Rather than contemplate the death of every living being on this planet, let us work together to a just solution. It can be done, if we all insist on it. Those Christian Dominionists who want Armageddon and The Rapture, do you think that teacher who said "Love thy neighbour as thyself; there is no greater commandment than [this]" would care for your efforts to create Armageddon?

Crossposted over at The Peace Tree

Stumble It!

World: Iran

I'm with Kase Wickman on this whole issue of Iran: there's no point in turning your avatar green, we all need to do something to help the Iranians while simultaneously telling our so-called Leaders to Shut the fuckety fucking fuck up and quit trying to meddle in anybody else's internal politics.

So what, you may wonder, can you do? If you have money, you can send it to:

• TehranBureau. They need financial support. They're doing a sterling job of getting news and information from Iran.
  
  
• International Red Cross and Red Crescent. Even if their Iran branch is currently not giving assistance to injured demonstrators, they do good work in getting medical supplies to those who need them. I will have more information on this issue soon.

If you have tech skills, you can:

• set up a way for Iranians to stay connected to the world outside;
  
  
• Create a Twitter account, if you don't already have one, mosey on over to Twitter, enter #iranelection in the search box halfway down the right side of the page, and see if you can provide assistance to the many requests you'll encounter there. Be sure to check carefully that you're not providing assistance to the wrong people!
  
  
• Set your Twitter account settings to Tehran time.
  Apparently this will slow down the thought police searching for the protesters

If you prefer political action, you can:

• sign this petition to the United Nations requesting that they take action on the election fraud believed to have been perpetrated in Iran;
  
  
• sign this petition;
  
  
• sign this petition, supported by Anonymous Iran;
  
  Personally I find petition signing rather ineffectual, but perhaps the intent here is to show Iranians that there is support for them in other countries, and that is a good psychological tool and morale-lifter.
  
  
• Write a letter (not an email) to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon;
  Address it to him at 2 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017. Not sure how effective it will be, since the Iranian Supreme Council has already accused him of meddling, according to Ha'aretz, merely for requesting that they spend less time killing demonstrators.
  
  
• Write a letter or send a postcard or an email to, or telephone, your Congresscritters. You can send a copy to their local office and a copy to their Washington, D.C. office, if you like.
  
  
• Write a letter to the Ayatollah Khameini and the Supreme Council. Kindly address the son of an unmentionable as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Address it to Iranian Interests Section, 2209 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007. Be as polite as you possibly can. The more diplomatic you are, the more likely he will actually read your letter, as his paid underlings will be sure to sort and toss any that include death threats, insults, or sundry rudenesses.
  
  
• Write a letter to, or call, each of these morally reprehensible bloodthirsty chickenhawks who are slavering to see the U.S. embroiled in yet another conflict in which your children will die or be maimed or otherwise disabled, while theirs opine on the importance of foreign wars from air-conditioned offices on these shores:
  
  
  • Lindsey "Miss Thing" Graham;
    
  • John "Wut? Where R I?" McCain;
    
  • Chuck "Up" Grassley;
    
  • Dana "Asshole" Rorabacher;
    
  • Eric "Head Up Ass" Cantor;
    
  • Joe "Whiny Sanctimonious Peener" Lieberman;

To bring yourself up to speed on what is happening in Iran, you can see what Nico Pitney has to say over at The Huffington Post. He's been live-blogging the situation in Iran since it began, pretty much. Twitter has a constant stream of information, but no analysis, and the 140-character limit, while excellent for conveying important info quickly is, alas, not suited to thinking critically on the issue.

The Guardian has useful background information. Historical information, which is crucial to understanding the entire situation in the middle-east and Iran's place in that context, is available all over the Web. Some excellent books on the topic should be available at your local library or through inter-library loan.

Do what you can, whatever it is. Perhaps you can start a "boycott Iranian products" movement, talk to your Iranian friends, neighbours, acquaintances, and see if that is a useful solution; perhaps you can organize a petition signing or a collection of funds for the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Perhaps you speak Farsi, or know someone who does who is supportive of the movement and can translate articles or broadcasts. Perhaps you can just teach yourself and some of your friends a little about this faraway country in which such an amazing freedom movement is occurring at this time. Or vent some spleen at those so-deserving Congressidiots listed above.

It's gotta be better than sitting around watching some dumb bimbo-and-himbo with eight sprog display their decaying relationship on TV for the whole world to puke over.

From Tehran Bureau:

(An intriguing side note: Events inside Iran picked up steam at the same time as the Iranian presidential elections coincided with the Obama administration’s change of policy — as Washington backed off the threats and aggressiveness of the Bush years — and offered to engage with Iran on the basis of mutual respect. Would a more detached US policy towards Arab autocrats similarly open space for Arab domestic effervescence and indigenous calls for more liberal, honest politics?)

From lengthy personal experience, I can assure you that any attempt by the U.S. government to more directly engage with the demonstrators will lead to widespread anger, not just on the part of the ayatollahs but the demonstrators as well. They do not want to be seen as tools of the same government that once funded the overthrow of their elected leader and replaced him with a murderous torturing puppet. So write your Congresscritters today, and be sure to let them know this with as many hearty kicks to the ass as it takes.

Stumble It!

World: Iran

Yes, we're unbelievably upset over what's going on in Iran. We know you all know. If you don't, you really ought to. You can start by checking out HuffPo's virtual 24/7 liveblogging, or Twitter, if you prefer.

Essentially, the Telegraph is reporting that Mir Hossain Mossavi, the "reformist" Iranian candidate, won the largest number of votes (19 million) in the recent elections, with everybody's favourite nutter and the puppet of the Mullahs, Ahmedi Nejad coming in third (5.x million). Other candidates who stood in the elections: Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi. Ahmedi took it upon himself to announce that he had won 63 per cent of the votes, the little liar, and proclaimed himself the winner.

If you have a strong stomach, you can view pictures of what's happening in Teheran here. Apparently, protests are occurring in other cities also. Approximately 170 people have been arrested and detained in Teheran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have poured out into the streets to protest the fraudulent elections, and, as we say in certain parts of the world, much hangama has ensued. (You can get out your Hobson-Jobson for this one. I'm pretty sure it's in there.)

In the event, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the real power behind the throne, has ordered an investigation into Mousavi's claims of fraud, according to XinHua and the Belfast Telegraph.



How effective that will be, we have no idea. The neocons in the U.S. are, of course, slavering at the idea of starting a war with Iran. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of those purulent ambulatory slimebags with the departure of Bush the war criminal, eh? Not so fucking lucky. Think again. These bastards are clinging to power with every seta, the fucking cockroaches. They're starting the baying and howling on the right. Thank TPTB, President Obama is keeping a cool head over the whole issue. I don't think our Iranian brothers and sisters have forgotten that the U.S. deposed the lawfully elected Mossadegh and put the Pahlavi on the nation's throne. America SHOULD move carefully, very carefully, as any attempt to side with Mousavi's followers will only result in Iranians feeling threatened and paranoid about foreign meddling in their elections and cause them to back away from Mousavi and embrace Ahmedi Nejad.

The BBC claims that the Iranian government is doing everything it can to prevent news entering or leaving the country. Twitter has now become the medium of choice, if you're interested in what's going on. #iranelection, for those who care. Mousavi is warning his supporters not to show up at rallies any more, as the police are now using live ammunition against protesters. To show your support for our Iranian brothers and sisters, wear green, if you want. Don't, however, encourage your lawmakers or your idiot brother-in-law to do anything illegal or blatant. The Telegraph claims that Mousavi won, but won't publicize their source, and until we know more, we'd be fools to react.

Just because any creature with a working brain wishes Ahmedi Nejad would fall off the earth is no proof that his people did not elect him. I mean, I hate to rub salt in an old wound, but this country DID elect George Dumbya Bush — twice. So. Please tell everyone you know to calm down about this issue. We don't need to make the position of Mousavi's supporters worse by trying to meddle in a hamhanded way, or making stupid statements. Most important of all, we do not need to empower those fucking neocons who aren't happy unless somebody else's kids are being killed somewhere.

Iranian brothers and sisters, the people of the free nations of the world support your struggle towards democracy! Revolutionary Guard of Iran, please do not shoot your own people, your students and teachers, the brightest and best of your nation! We all hope that you resolve this issue in a way that causes the least harm.

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2008 Elections: The Tide is Turning, Alright

Ever since Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primaries by a whole 9.2 points &mdash after being slated to win by over 26 points in that state &mdash La Casa de Los Gatos has been receiving, on average, two or more emails each day from her (her campaign, really) announcing that the tide has turned and would we please give them money.

Our regular readers know she's shit outa luck there, because we have no money. Having been painfully unemployed for close to six months now, with no job offers on the horizon, we don't have a shekel to spare. Not that we'd give her our hard-earned moolah if we had any.

Not because we hate her, or even dislike her, or have animosity of any kind towards her. No, we would not give her a penny because we're fiscal conservatives and we don't like how she's spending her money and how she's accounting for it.

See, we've been following the money information in this campaign fairly closely. The economy is in the crapper, and we want a leader who knows what the economy is about and how to rescue it. Make no mistake, without the money, we don't get no honey. What we mean by that is, the country is at a pivotal point here. The economy is pretty wrecked. We've been losing jobs for eight years. Inflation, rising food prices, peak oil, joblessness, tight credit, a contracting job and housing market, a broken health and welfare system, and a decaying infrastructure must all be dealt with and dealt with immediately.

Failure to deal with these, the nuts and bolts of the nation, will severely restrict our ability to defend ourself, to cope with the threats of an increasingly dangerous world, to negotiate favourable treaties political and economic, to secure our strategic global interests.

Even as we writhe through the throes of finding our next leader, the current gang of thieves, crooks, and liars is planning &mdash and enacting &mdash steps to keep us mired in endless war which drains our resources further while ensuring that whatever we have goes straight into the pockets of profiteers, bypassing broken sewers, bridges, hospitals, and people.

Opening up a new front in an already two-pronged war that we are losing by every imaginable count only guarantees that whoever takes the helm will have to spend more time and resources dealing with the extrication from all three fronts than they can possibly spend on issues domestic, however pressing.

We believe that the Republican Party and the current crooks in power saw the results of the 2006 elections and came to the conclusion that the populace was not going to let them take power again in 2008. In order to guarantee maximum profits for the corporate swine at the top, they worked hard to engineer a situation in which external issues would have a higher priority than domestic issues while simultaneously launching an all-out media blitz on the election process. They selected which candidates they wanted &mdash or tried to, anyway, although the voting public refused to go with Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, their two preferred choices.

Now they're stuck with John McCain, whom they've never really liked, but they think they can control. And there's plenty of baggage there that is being covered up. His foul temper, his public assaults on colleagues, his treatment of his wife, his fondness for the high life, his cooperation with his captors as a PoW, his current psychiatric and medical records, his adulterous behaviour, his shameful treatment of his first wife. And no one's talking about the fact that 25 per cent of Pennsylvania's Republicans voted for two other Republican candidates rather than McCain, the party's nominee.

So, we believe the crooks in charge have made a pact with Hillary Clinton: if she will "bloody up" the candidate who appeared out of nowhere to destroy her shot at the current nomination, they will give her something in return. And they have. To see Richard Mellon Scaife, that hateful, crooked, rotten, nasty man, sit down with a Democratic candidate could only feed our suspicions. He's never, ever had one impartial word for the Democratic party and its candidates. We don't ask for a positive word. Merely an impartial word. His entire life, his fortune, his career have been spent to wreck any hope of social justice, fairness, in short, democracy. If ever a man was dedicated to the concepts of plutocracy and oligarchy, that man would be Richard Mellon Scaife.

For him to be sitting down with Hillary Clinton can only mean that he's buying and she's accepted his offer to buy. She won't win the 2008 elections if she manages to destroy Obama. What she will win, though, is the promise of competing in the 2012 elections, when McCain, already dangerously unstable, will probably have to step down. She might also win sufficient money to pay off her huge campaign debt.

And that's where the fiscal information comes in. Over the past four months, we've seen several reports that Barack Obama is outraising Hillary Clinton by substantial amounts. As recently as April 20th, the NYT carried a piece by Michael Luo outlining the plight of the Clinton campaign as its fabled fundraising juggernaut stumbled in the face of Obama's multitude of small donors. Caveat: Login required.

Now we hear that Hillary Clinton, in the wake of her poor showing in Pennsylvania &mdash winning by 9.x points when you've been predicted to win by 26 for months is a poor showing, and until the day the results were announced every worthless "pundit" who could draw breath was predicting that she would need a double-digit win to have a prayer of viability in the race &mdash has raised $10 million in 24 hours.

We don't care to do the math to verify that claim. We find it suspicious for several reasons, primarily that our visits to her site during that 24-hour period indicated much lower figures. Also, money pledged is not money in hand.

But the main reason we don't find her claims impressive is: according to our calculations, she owes at least $15.3 million in campaign debt. Most of this money is owed to the vendors, usually small businesses, who were kind enough to extend her credit for the staging of her campaign. According to Novakula, Clinton owes unionbuster Mark Penn between $2.5 and $3.1 million. Clinton's total debt includes a personal loan of $5 million that Clinton made to her campaign, that the Boston Globe reports has not been properly declared in her FEC filings.

Clinton claims that the $5 million she loaned to her campaign represents her share of the assets of herself and her husband. However, given that her annual income for the past X years that she has been a Senator is slightly under $170,000, and her book fetched some $9 million, and DC is an expensive place to live (as is New York), we wonder just how she is calculating her share of their combined assets.

What all this boils down to is, Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner a year ago. How she got our email address was, we wrote to her campaign because we were proud of her and confident that she would emerge the nominee. A campaign that boasts of having ten million but owes $15 million is not, by our standards, a successful campaign.

Admittedly, Senator Clinton does not have to pay off her campaign debt until after the campaign is over. However, many small businesses have extended her credit. According to USA Toady, she plans to spend the funds she has raised not to pay down campaign debt but to continue to campaign. That's all well and good for her campaign. It's not so good for the little people who are struggling to stay afloat in an economy circling the toilet bowl.

The best thing she could do for herself, her party, her country, would be to step down now and pay off her campaign debts. After all, back when she pledged not to campaign in Florida and Michigan, she claimed those two states didn't count. Her top advisor, Harold Ickes, voted to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates. A significant proportion of the Democratic voters of Michigan preferred "uncommitted" to Hillary Clinton.

What that says to us is that Clinton is a tough candidate, attractive to many in the Democratic party. But she is not trustworthy or competent on fiscal matters. In the final analysis, we need a leader who can get us out of this mess we're in. All the continuing campaign does is make the voting public really tired. And run up huge campaign debts. And prolong the moment when the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama &mdash because Clinton doesn't have a prayer of getting enough delegates to win the nomination &mdash can concentrate on ensuring that we don't have a doddering hawkish ill-tempered unstable and dangerous fool in the White House. That is, other than the current [string of adjectives] fool.

Even the Wall St. Journal has stated that Obama is the Democratic nominee. Senator Clinton, you fought a good fight. It's time to step down now.

Stumble It!

2008 Elections: The Nuclear Threat

Good grief. Just when we were starting back on that old Clinton Love Roller Coaster, beginning to feel sympathetic to Hillary for the misogyny of the media vultures, she finds a way to knock us back on our behind and go WTF??

Raw Story tells us that Senator Clinton went on Good Morning America yesterday to issue this statement:

“I want the Iranians to know, if I am president, we will attack Iran,” if they launch nukes against Israel, Clinton said. “I want them to understand that. … We would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that.”

Clinton said she hoped her stern warning would serve as a deterrent from Iran doing anything “foolish and tragic.”

Say WHAT??? The Iranians don't have nuclear weapons. Israel does. The Iranians are a decade or more away having functional nuclear weapons. Israel has a goddamned nuclear arsenal.

So how exactly will Iran launch nukes against Israel, Senator? Or is this a different verse of the "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song that Senator John McSenile has been singing lately? Wait, let us rephrase that. Are you fucking insane, Senator? Are you out of your fucking mind? Are you just tossing off this statement because you, like Senator McSenile, share the hope of keeping your nation in a state of perpetual war?

Iran has not threatened Israel with nukes because Iran has no nukes. We hold no brief for the mullahs who run that country. But threatening to obliterate a nation, threatening a nuclear attack &mdash isn't that the reason we helped Israel acquire an arsenal of nukes? Israel is perfectly capable of defending herself. She has more nukes than the rest of the Middle-East combined. Because no one else in the Middle East has, or has plans to acquire, nuclear weapons.

Don't you read the intelligence reports? The NIE reports, the IAEA reports? Oh, that's right. You don't. That's why you gave George Bush your vote to authorize the endless war against and occupation of Iraq. Despite the fact that 42% of the Senate voted against such authorization. Despite the fact that Senator Carl Levin proposed an amendment that would have forced Bush's neocon warmonger cabal to seek further permission to wage war. You preferred to give an idiot a blank check and then acted surprised when he used it.

And now you talk so lightly about obliterating an entire nation. Using nuclear weapons against Iran will affect these countries:

• Iraq
  
• Armenia
  
• Azerbaijan
  
• Turkmenistan
  
• Afghanistan
  
• Pakistan
  
• Oman
  
• Qatar
  
• UAE
  
• Saudi Arabia
  
• Kuwait
  
• Bahrain

In addition, fallout would affect:

• Yemen
  
• Egypt
  
• Jordan
  
• Syria
  
• Lebanon
  
• Turkey
  
• Cyprus
  
• Georgia
  
• Uzbekistan
  
• Kashmir
  
• India

Are you insane? You're threatening an imaginary enemy with real consequences that could affect half the world's population?

Back away from the red button, Senator. Do not pass Go. Do not collect delegates or votes. We don't need another lunatic within a mile of the controls of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Holy quacking duckshit. Why do you do this to yourself, and to all the people who once loved and respected you? Why?

People, anyone who cannot distinguish between enemies real and imagined, threats real and imagined, anyone who can talk so casually of obliterating a nation and possibly killing and definitely sickening billions of people has no business being near the reins of power. Do you want that kind of blood on your hands? Vote for Ron Paul, vote for your local dogcatcher, write in your grandson, but do not let this woman near the red button.

Update: To his credit, Barack Obama sounds a welcome note of sanity. His comments, in part:

Obama promised a swift and forceful response to an attack on Israel by Iran, but he said the hypothetical of a nuclear attack “presupposes a failure to begin with.” Iran does not have a nuclear weapon yet and the US should do everything possible to stop that, he said. Obama has said he would open diplomatic channels with Iran, but he has not ruled out the possibility of an attack on the country to prevent its acquisition of nuclear weapons.

We can live with that.

Raw Story has the video clip.

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Iraq: Teh Success Is Killing Us

The WahPoo reports that yesterday provided further evidence of success in Iraq. In fact, that particular day in Iraq was so successful that we may not have an army left at all, if each day to come is exactly like that one.

Shoot, we may not have any Iraqis, either. Then we can just mosey on in there and suck up all the oil for our Hummers. According to the article,

Two bombings killed nearly 60 people Tuesday in parts of Iraq where U.S. and Iraqi forces have claimed significant success in combating Sunni insurgent groups.

Just imagine what the death toll might have been like if we weren't that successful.

Bombings took place in Baquba (Diyala province), Mosul, Ramadi (Anbar province), and Baghdad. Some 82 people were wounded, and the carnage inspired one Iraqi spokesman to add to our treasury of unforgettable quotes this particular remark:

"Half of the dead people are still at the Baqubah morgue because it is so hard to identify their bodies," Jassem said.

Being cursed with an overactive imagination, we're currently searching for our psychoactive meds while speculating on just why identification appears to be so elusive. Possibly, the difficulty of identifying a knee or a wrist is greater if it is no longer attached to the person one might know and love.

What a terrible thing this war is. Day after day, our purported "leaders" lie to us, until even the tinpot soldier in charge of the current efforts (since all the better men were forced out for daring to tell the truth about this misadventure) is forced to admit that no corners have been turned, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and the "last throes" of the insurgents have persisted for three too many long, weary years even as the U.S. Army is in its last throes thanks to the throe-er's friends and cronies accumulating wealth by winning no-bid contracts to give our military insufficient arms and equipment and poisoning them with bad food and dirty water.

Some people are doing something about it. Some very courageous people. Grateful thanks to those of you speaking out against the war.

Crossposted over at Out of Iraq Bloggers' Caucus

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Politics: The Drumbeat For War in Iran

Persian Gulf regional map

Attention, people! The Bush/Cheney Misadministration is starting the drums beating for a war with Iran. Seymour Hersh warned us about this two years ago. Now that the elections are only six months away, what better present could the crooks and thugs in power deliver to John McInsane's presidential ambitions than to start yet another war?

Here's the evidence: Yesterday (April 11th, 2008), the Times told us that "new satellite photographs" have uncovered a secret launch site in Iran for long-range missiles. Iran has always claimed that this site and the launches therefrom are part of their civilian space program, by the way.

Yesterday (April 11th, 2008), AP informed us that a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Typhoon, trespassing in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf (in order to access which body of water, vessels must first pass through the Straits of Hormuz, Iranian waters) "encountered"

... a small Iranian high-speed boat in the central Persian Gulf and warned it away by firing a flare, the Pentagon said Friday.

Two other similar Iranian boats in the area did not come as close.

The USS Typhoon tried unsuccessfully to establish radio contact with the Iranian boat after it came within an estimated 200 yards of the Typhoon on Thursday, outside Iranian territorial waters. A Navy official said the ship then fired the flare and continued on its way without incident.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there were no signs any boat was armed.

Question: How exactly did the USS Typhoon "try unsuccessfully" to establish radio contact? Do they have Farsi speakers on board? Or was it the old tourist stratagem of "If they don't speak English just shout louder and slower"?

The Iranian authorities are claiming that there was no incident.

Today (April 12th, 2008), in the WahPoo, Staff Writer Karen deYoung tells us that Robert Gates, General Betrayus, and Ambassador Ryan Crockoshit have determined that Iran is the biggest threat to Iraq.

Consider this: Iraq is majority Shi'a. Iran is majority Shi'a. They are two of the very few majority Shi'a nations in the Islamic world.

The Sunni tribes of Iraq form the backbone of the "insurgency," about which not word one has been said of late. Saudi Arabia, home of Gee Dumbya's good friends, is Sunni. The Saudis follow the fundamentalist Wahhabiya flavour of Islam. Most of the hijackers who destroyed the twin towers were Saudi nationals.

Which of these players poses a greater threat to the U.S.?

We're fairly confident that, if asked, the Shi'a majority in Iraq would gladly embrace Iran as good friends and allies. It wasn't that long ago that Iranian President Ahmedi Nejad was greeted with flowers on an official visit to his good friend Nouri al-Maliki.

Don't let Gee Dumbya and his gang of thugs lie us into another war.

Crossposted over at Out of Iraq Bloggers' Caucus

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Iraq: How Many Times

Does Nouri al-Maliki need his ass kicked really hard before he learns his lesson?

This is a question that will undoubtedly be resolved sometime before he either absconds with all the billions we've been pouring into Iraq (no doubt largely funnelled directly into his, and his cronies', unnumbered Swiss bank accounts) or meets a hideous end when he proves to be too much of a liability to either the Dawa Party (his party) or the fragile coalition of Dawa/SCIRI (or Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, ISCI, as it's calling itself these days) and whatever else is coalitioning with these thugs.

We didn't post about al-Maliki's recent primate-like posturing and associated blunders because it was all so deeply depressing and predictable. Why bother? It was obvious from the conflation of Cheney's "visit" to the ME and the revelation that he did not really discuss oil prices with the House of Saud followed by the chest-beating and rump displaying of teh Maliki that Sadr was going to have to kick his baboonlike ass but good just to keep the dumb motherfucker from overreaching.

To recap, a chronology of events:

• March 17, three days before the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: Cheney flies into Iraq unannounced, meets with al-Maliki
  
  
• March 21, Cheney meets with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
  
  
• March 22, Cheney announces through a myrmidon that the only relief in terms of oil prices will come from drilling in America's remaining pristine wildernesses, in other words, thanks America for funding my junket on which I took my wife and daughter and we went fishing in Oman on March 19th, and fuck you very much on oil prices.
  
  
• March 26, Nouri al-Maliki issues his famous "ultimatum" to Iraqi "militias."
  
  Who are these Iraqi militias? Right now, Iraq is controlled by various hardline Islamic Shi'a factions, including al-Maliki's Dawa party, which has the Iraqi Army functioning as its own militia; SCIRI/Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) which has its own militia; and Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi.
  
  For the benefit of the apparently senile or terminally stupid John McCain, elderly and doddering presidential candidate, we would like to point out here that al-Qaeda in Iraq (aQI) is a Sunni Muslim organization, with no friendly ties at all with the warring Shi'a militias. Also that al-Maliki's Dawa party is very friendly with the rulers of Iran - so friendly that they greeted that nation's president, Ahmedi Najad, with flowers and parades and marching bands when he recently visited &mdash unlike our leaders, who, despite paying nearly one trillion fucking dollars of our money for the privilege, must sneak into Iraq under cover of darkness and cannot even travel to the fucking market without fully armed squads of bodyguards, full body armour, and air cover.
  
  Nouri al-Maliki was apparently targeting al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi with this crackdown. He called them "worse than al-Qaeda," the Sunni terrorist organization. Apparently, to al-Maliki, al-Sadr's challenge to his Prime Ministership is worse than the terrorist strikes around the world that have killed thousands of American, British, Spanish, Iraqi, Pakistani, and other peoples. Nice to know one's allies' priorities, Mr. Cheney. al-Maliki gave the JAM three days to lay down their arms and personally flew to Basra to supervise the extermination of JAM.
  
  
• March 28, three days later, when it was pretty obvious that JAM was beating the living shit out of the Iraqi army, with Iraqi police turning over arms and equipment to JAM in Baghdad and Basra, al-Maliki "extended" the deadline to ten days.
  
  Despite all the guns and uniforms and training we have given the Iraqi Army, you can't buy loyalty and you can't buy a will to fight. JAM fights because they want control of Iraq and they believe they will be rewarded with political power or houris in paradise regardless of whether they live or die. The Iraqi Army fights because it's a job in a country with staggering unemployment rates and few other ways of making money, and at least they can feed their families. Whose motivation do you think is greater?
  
  Despite the full strength of the U.S. Army as backup & despite 160,000 or so American and British fighters with top-flight military equipment, including air strike capability, al-Maliki was forced to put lipstick on the pig of his claim that he would fight the Shi'a militias to the end. He had to beg for the help of his Iranian masters to end the conflict.
  
  
• March 31, al-Sadr graciously extends the olive branch of peace &mdash along with a nine-point statement demanding the release of various of his supporters who have been arrested but not accused of any crime, and an end to attacks on his forces.
  
  
• April 1, Nouri al-Maliki announces that the military operation in Basra has been a success. Obviously, he's smoking the same thing as Bush.
  
  Five hundred Iraqis were killed in the fighting. al-Maliki is asking al-Sadr to "please return" the 50 armored vehicles and government cars that JAM took. Two Americans were also killed, and rocket and mortar attacks carried out on the "fortresslike, secure" Green Zone, where the American Embassy is located.
  
  
• April 03, we learn that Nouri al-Maliki is a masochist with a fetish for ass-kicking &mdash as long as he is the kickee. Nouri, my man, we had no idea you were such a BOTTOM!
  
  Even as Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for nationwide protests to mark the anniversary of the U.S. toppling Saddam (April 9), al-Maliki is planning to enter Sadr City and other JAM strongholds. Is he trying to get the nascent Iraqi Army wiped out? Or is this an attempt to force continuing American and British involvement in the war?

Already the drawdown of "surge" troops has been halted and the British have announced that they will not pull out the 4,000 remaining troops in Basra. Not that the British troops are very effective, since they're all hiding out at the airport, and who can blame them. They must be tired of being used for target practice.

As for American troops &mdash people, if you have friends and relatives over there who were supposed to come back anytime soon, you can just kiss that goodbye. They may never come back at all, except in a body bag, if George keeps letting al-Maliki play soldiers using our forces. Is that what your friends and relatives signed up for? To be the pawns of an idiot who persists in playing with other people's lives and doesn't have the first clue about military strategy?

Meanwhile, you will no doubt be thrilled to your very toenails to hear that Chimpy McAWOL, who managed to weasel out of serving in any capacity except possibly National Buffoon, is paying no attention whatsoever to the restarting of the meatgrinder. Nope, he's busy trying to create a "legacy" or something, at the taxpayers' expense, somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Clue: They're not laughing with you, George.

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Iraq: Interesting Juxtaposition

Seen this morning over at Huffpo:

First headline: Poll: Majority Of Americans Say War Not Worth It

Second headline: Bush: Iraq War Worth It

In other news, although why call it "news" when it's not new and should come as no surprise to anyone, Drunky McStaggers once again attempts to tie 9/11 and his old friend Osama bin Laden (hey, where is Osama, anyway?) to Iraq.

"The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror. For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaeda rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaeda out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his murderous network. The significance of this development cannot be overstated."

No, you pathetic dry drunk drug-addled brainless idiot. Iraq was the proverbial innocent bystander here. Your friends the Saudis who won't increase oil production no matter how much you beg and grovel and publicly fellate them sent 15 of their citizens in a well-funded plot directed by a mastermind your Daddy's hunchmen trained, to damage America. That mastermind, Osama bin Laden, is believed to be hiding out in Afghanistan, where we're losing yet another war, thanks to your failed concepts of military strategy. Or he might be in Pakistan, where your good buddy Musharraf is soon to join the ranks of ex-dictators of Pakistan (notorious mainly for being assassinated).

Remember that picture? Five years ago, this idiot told us the war was over. Since then, 4,000 American troops have died; over one million Iraqis have died, men, women, children, old people, sick people, blind, deaf, and otherwise disabled people; between 3 and 5 million Iraqis are refugees, either in neighbouring nations, or internally displaced, because Shrinky McBrainless hasn't done squat to have the U.S. take in those Iraqis who worked with us and are now targeted by death squads; over 30,000 U.S. servicemen are maimed, injured, and disabled; and who knows how many Iraqis we have left wounded.

For a little perspective on how much this war is costing us and a comparison of timelines, drop by Gordon and Fixer's. Take a bucket, you'll need to puke.

Drunky's liege lord, Senior Puppetmaster and professional impersonator of human life, Snarly McCrashcart, meanwhile, flew his wife and daughter on a junket to the middle-east, that tinderbox of explosive politics. What are they doing, you ask, you humble American taxpayer whose dollars are financing that junket, even as you work your ass off without an inflation-matching raise for a decade? Goin' fishing. No, no kidding. Even as the reptilian bastard snarls in public about the nonexistent links between al Qaeda and Iraq.

When informed that two-thirds of the American people don't support the illegal, immoral war of occupation in Iraq, Snarly gave the American public the rigid digit. See the video clip for yourself.

So, you the two-thirds of the American Public who are against this war? Better get off yer asses and do something about it. And no, electing John McInsane is not the answer, because he can't tell his al Qaeda from a hole in the ground, and wants to start another war &mdash in Iran &mdash so the economy can go even further into the hole than it is already.

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Politics: Official: Military Broken

Feel safer yet, people? Those of you responsible for electing Chimpy McDrunktard to power owe the rest of us - and the whole goddamned world - a fucking apology. Because you pathetic bedwetters were terrified out of your puny minds thanks to the tactics of Snarly McCrashcart and Pasty SlimeFingers, you failed to notice that this gang of crooks was using questionable tactics against yourselves, your fellow citizens, and the rest of the world.

You turned a blind eye as they ignored the true nature of the terror that brought this mighty nation to its knees and left it cowering under the covers for seven years. You ignored the fact that the majority of the terrorists who blew up the Twin Towers came from the same country that your Pretzeldunce flies to regularly, where he kisses the ruling family's royal arses. You believed the Idiot Boy when he told you to line up and throw your children, friends, neighbours, fellow citizens, or yourselves into a meatgrinder. You gave away your - and our - civil rights. You gave away everybody's human rights. You handed him your wallet, your ATM card and PIN number, and the keys to the house and car.

Well, Mr. Bring-It-On has one last arse-rogering for you. Better hope you've got lube, 'cause he sure as fuck won't be bringing any.


Raw Story tells us that the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves has issued a 400-page report essentially saying:

... that the nation "does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available" to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident, "an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk."

"Right now we don't have the forces we need, we don't have them trained, we don't have the equipment," commission Chairman Arnold Punaro said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more. ... There's a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in — you're either ready or you're not."

The report adds that nearly a year ago, 88 percent of units were not combat-ready, and today that number is lower still.

So what the fuck happened to all the troop-supportin' war-lovin' and taxpayer-money-redistributin' that was going on? Where the fuck is our money and why was it not used to ensure that our troops are ready to protect our lives and our nation? Seems like we had plenty of money to give to Dumbass McChimperson's friends and family. Seems like we bought defective pumps for New Orleans with some of that fine taxpayer money from Dumbass' brother Jeb; and bogoid worthless "learning materials" from another brother Neal. Seems like a little of that TWO TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS that we just threw down the bowlhole called Iraq might have been spent on military preparedness. You know, given 9/11 and all.

Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general, had sharp criticism for Northern Command, saying that commanders there have made little progress developing detailed response plans for attacks against the homeland.

"NorthCom has got to get religion in this area," said Punaro. He said the military needs to avoid "pickup game" type responses, such as the much-criticized federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina, and put in place the kind of detailed plans that exist for virtually any international crisis.

No shit, sir. You tell 'em. Jeebus, what a pathetic buncha stiffs.

We realized just what a huge boondoggle The Idiotard and his myrmidons and the Republican Party Enablers had pulled on us when Hurricane Katrina hit NOLA. We remember the images, and we were stunned. We knew then that a government that could not even muster a half-assed response to a known, predicted, and defined disaster would need help keeping their own goddamned family jewels safe, much less the nation.


And what, precisely, comprises Stupie McTardibus' response to the news that the military is fucking broken? This. That's right. The Idiot-in-Chief, instead of coming up with a plan to fix what's broken, is, like any chimp, hooting and hollering and jumping up and down in the hope that the sight of his flaccid ballsack and crimson behind will distract potential threateners.

What a fucking idiot. No, really. What a thumpingly unreclaimable hopeless, useless fool. He's afraid that withdrawing troops from Iraq will cause Iran to think the U.S. is a paper tiger. Holy quacking duckshit, you fool. Who cares what anyone thinks? Not only are Americans being killed and injured in Iraq, but, Mister "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," our capacity to fight them ANYfuckingwhere is pretty much gone. More than 88 per cent - in plain English, Mr. Stupidous Chimperiffer, that means MOST - of the army reserves and the national guard are incapable, in their present state, of repelling an attack over fucking here.

The pathetic lying, lazy, drunken fool went on to flap his gums:

"You know, a lot of folks say, well, what's next, Mister President?"

Bullshit. We don't believe any "folks" is saying that no more. Based on your tanking poll ratings, we believe a lot of folks are saying, "Please God, how many days before this pathetic fool is back in Crawford clearing brush or whatever the fuck the useless turd does on his vacations? Where's my goddamn Bush Countdown Clock?" That's what "a lot of folks" are saying.

Yep. The Fuckwit-in-Chief, in a pathetic attempt to create a legacy other than the one of stark, staring, dismal FAILURE that is hovering over him right now, decided the way to pull the thrashing stock market out of its feebly flailing funk is - to cut Medicare! Huge cuts, at that. He is going to disembowel Medicare and Medicaid, try to make his tax cuts for the super-wealthy permanent, and keep the military in Iraq, slowly bleeding and dying.

And, even as Doofus O'Disaster is wrecking everything around him, he's proposing to charge Congress $200 for each copy of his (traditionally free) budget. We don't think this move will make enough to constitute a tax rebate for a single citizen.

Meanwhile, back in the nation where Osama bin Laden has been hiding for the past seven fucking years, things are slipping out of control, says Auntie Beeb. A suicide bomber has killed the governor of Helmand province in Afghanistan. A woman politician points out that the Afghani government is doing nothing to protect women (or politicians, for that matter) from routine death threats (which, given the current state of the recently-departed governor of Helmand, ought to be taken seriously). Canada is threatening to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. And the Afghani Senate that we are paying for has sentenced to death a young man who "humiliated Islam" by printing out and circulating an article that was apparently written by other Muslims who questioned the Prophet Muhammad's respect for the rights of women. The Guardian, unlike our own media lapdogs, reveals that the arrest of the person in question is an attempt to silence his brother, also a journalist, who has exposed some of the slavery and sexual abuse common to powerful Afghani warlords.

Is it any surprise that the maelstrom of turd created by the Turdibus Chimperor is causing more U.S. military personnel to take their lives than every before? Suicide rates in the military are the highest that they have been for a quarter of a century. Isn't it bad enough that the Idiotard is killing them, now he's treating them so badly that they're killing themselves. In an aside, we should add that the military has generously agreed NOT to prosecute Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside for attempting to kill herself.

If we didn't think more could be attributed to human greed and frailty than to malice, we would suspect Mister Fucknuts of being an agent of Osama bin Laden. Or part of a plot by Arab sheikhs to destroy the United States. Because that's the only thing the pathetic little turd has had any success in doing to date.

A PDF of the report is available here.

A parting of the hair with the Golden Bat o'Clue for all the idiots and bozos who dragged us, screaming and kicking, into the massive malfeasance and impending collapse that we face today.

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2008 Elections: Buchanan: No to McCain

You all know Pat Buchanan, right? The frothing-at-the-mouth isolationist nutcase whose political stance is all the way to the right of Chingiz Khan? Yah. Dat guy.

So we here at Casa de Los Gatos have always taken political positions that are pretty much diametrically opposed to anything coming out of Pat Buchanan's mouth. Over the past seven years, scarily enough, a lot of what's coming out of Buchanan's mouth sounds so much like what's coming out of our own that we've actually started worrying. Is the guy, like, eavesdropping on our thoughts? Is the tinfoil in our hat thick enough? What gives?

Well, he just did it again. The guy is like totally listening in to the conversations we have with ourselves! How does he fucking do it?

At any rate. He's advising voters NOT to vote for John "Walnuts" because, as he put it on Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe" show today,

"That's one of the things that makes me very nervous about him," Buchanan went on. "There's no doubt John McCain is going to be a war president. ... His whole career is wrapped up in the military, national security. He's in Putin's face, he's threatening the Iranians, we're going to be in Iraq a hundred years."

He's right, yaknow.

So unless you're ready, willing, and able to sign up for military service, do NOT vote for this guy.

Or every single person who's lost a relative, friend, neighbour, colleague, acquaintance, body part, or even, sheesh, money to PretzelNitwit Drunky McDuncecap's past six (very)odd years of warmongering is gonna show up on your doorstep and beat you unconscious with banana peels. Or something.

Raw Story has the video.

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World: Iran and WWIII

Graphic from TheBushConnection.com

Cheney and his hunchmen (thanks, FZ!) keep trying to start World War III, because that's what an attack on Iran will do, you know. Propel the world into WWIII. Raw Story tells us today that the US is using an international criminal investigation into a 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina to keep the drums of war beating.

The 14-year-old probe claims Iranian agents planned the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

"One U.S. goal is to cause legal problems for some of Iran's political leaders," report Jay Solomon and Evan Perez. "Administration officials also hope to use the matter to highlight Iran's alleged role in financing and supporting terrorism around the world."

Dick and Bush aren't doing a thing about Darfur, or the instability in Pakistan, the renewal of the Taliban, galloping inflation here at home, and the general horrendous state of the U.S. economy. The latest news on the economy is so depressing, we don't even want to link to it. We'll post separately about it, though, when we feel a little better. Might take a couple of barrels of alcohol.

Meanwhile, Bush's Arab "allies" are seemingly remarkably lukewarm about his various yawps. Raw Story tells us:

While Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia has voiced concern over the rise of Shiite Iran, it is opposed to another war in the region after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that has strengthened the Islamic regime in Tehran.

What's more, he's all but begging them to lower the price of oil or produce more, and they're flipping him the metaphorical finger.

"Our interest is to keep oil supplies matching demand with minimum volatility in the oil market," Oil Minister Ali Naimi told reporters. "We will raise production when the market justifies it. This is our policy."

[...]

Earlier Tuesday in Riyadh, Bush warned that soaring oil prices could cause an economic slowdown in the United States.

Could cause. He means "has already caused," the dumbkopf. Tete-de-merde. Imbecile. Moron. Scheisskopf. Pendejo. Kundemaire. Jhatarbari. Lokhisara. Onibaba. Bakaru. We can't find enough words in enough languages to describe this miserable pathetic little excuse of a man. He reminds us of someone's mentally and emotionally defective relative, the one that nobody invites over because the last time they did and left him alone for a few minutes, he shit on the floor, smeared it all over the walls, broke all the crystal and china, pissed on the brand new carpet, wiped his shitty hands all over his new clothes and hair, and then accidentally set the house on fire.

And he thinks he's going to get Israel and Palestine to sign off on a peace treaty this year. No doubt Dick sent him off to keep him out of trouble while he plots and connives to start World War Three.

How to stop them? Well, the Wexler for Congress Campaign has posted a diary over at DailyKos, outlining the steps they are taking to impeach Dick, at least, if not The Idiot In Charge. They need your help. Please, if you value your children's and grandchildren's and friend's and relatives' and pets' lives, go read the diary and take the recommended action. These people are crazy enough to destroy every living thing merely to gratify their egos.

So please do your bit. Get the murderous warmonger Cheney out, and Idiot McChimpy might be easier to handle. And you and the ones you love might just live to see another day, month, year.

Stumble It!

Iraq: Bonus Update On Afghanistan

Because we're winning so winningly. In the winningest way. So winningly, in fact, that the poor exhausted soldiers - yes, those very troops whom we support by buying made-in-China yellow ribbon magnets for our SUVs while they lose their brains, bodies, minds, souls, and lives to keep those SUVs supplied with gasoline - are deserting! Those lousy cowards! How dare they refuse to sacrifice for us? How dare they force the Young Republicans on fine college campuses and golf courses everywhere to face the dreaded possibility of a (shudder) draft?

What's the matter with them? Have they stopped listening to Their Masters' Voice? Apparently. At least, Raw Story tells us that the number of soldiers deserting this year marks an 80 per cent increase over 2003. You think these guys might be tired or something? Too many deployments and stop-loss orders? Nah! They're children of the working class. They're used to working. Unlike the rich Republican youth, who've never had to soil their hands with work a day in their lives.

Besides, the Republikids are just following the excellent example of their duly appointed leaders. Didn't Shrubya's daddy get him a plum job in the TANG, so he'd never have to put his own butt on the line? Didn't Richard Bruce the Dork Lord have "more important priorities" than fighting a war meant for the "little people"? Didn't Mittens of Teh Sacred Underroos have God's work to do, instead of getting drafted?

The desertion rate is 42 per cent higher than it was last year.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.

Despite the continued increase in desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they get. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

Well, there you have it, boyz and girlz. That's one way to show your discontent. If enough of you desert or refuse to fight, you can stop the war. Instead of waiting for our political class, who don't have a single testicle or ovary among the lot of them. The Republicans will never cross Shrubya, who is holding on to the war with all four feet and teeth. And the Democrats don't have a veto-proof majority and are too fucking wimpy to rescue you from the quagmire.

If you want out of Iraq, lay down your arms and refuse to go. It's nothing short of horrifying that so many young people, American and Iraqi, are suffering unspeakably for the sake of cheap gasoline. Because, after all, as the AP points out, 2007 was the worst year in Iraq in terms of American casualties.

Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, things are going just swimmingly. Here, for example we show you 59 dead Afghani children, five of their teachers, six lawmakers and five of their bodyguards, the handiwork of some crazed suicide bomber. One hundred other children were wounded in the attack. The population will totally support a war effort that ends up killing them and their children in droves, yeah.

The article goes on to state:

The insurgency being waged by the Taliban and other extremist outfits has gained steam since it was launched in the months after the hardliners were driven from government in 2001 by a US-led force.

More than 5,500 people have been killed so far this year -- most of them rebels.

It does not define how one ascertains that the dead might be "rebels." Given the high number of civilian deaths, one wonders if anybody, the Afghan government included, has the first fucking clue.

Meanwhile, the WaPoo announces that Afghan's opium production last year was a record-breaker. Yay! More street drugs for the average American to get hooked on. [/end sarcasm and disgust.]

Proving once again that the WH has the capacity for humour, the article went on to say:

In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.

White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news "disappointing."

Well, of course they're producing record-busting quantities of opium. It's not like they have health care, education, peace, a working infrastructure, or jobs. Sheesh. The administration claims "a resurgent Taliban" is behind the increase in drug production. Given Shrubya's daddy's peeps' involvement in the drug trade in Nicaragua, one can't help but raise a questioning eyebrow.

Especially when one Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme allied commander for NATO, states that drug cartels with their own armies engage in regular combat with NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan,

"It would be wrong to say that this is just the Taliban. I think I need to set that record straight," he added.

In other news, MSNBC announced that 2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the invasion of that country in 2001.

Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster. More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Meanwhile, we're most decidedly winning in Turki, Reuters reports. The majority of Turks support an incursion into Kurdish territory in Iraq, and are dubious about joining the EU. They also view the U.S. as the chief threat to peace in the Middle-East.

And China just announced that they refuse to attend a meeting with the U.S. to discuss tougher sanctions on Iran. Given that we owe them the house, the car, and one and a half of the children, there's not much we can do about that, huh, Chimpidiot? Because you gave them the keys to the bank, fool, and now they just laugh when we bluster and howl.

Stumble It!

War: Veterans' Day

Fixer already said it, and so much better than I could have.

That is all.

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Politics: Dennis Kucinich Answers Nation's Prayers

This is IT, folks. This is the big one. Raw Story reports that Dennis Kucinich is moving to impeach Cheney! Next week. Put the pressure on your Congresscritters to support this. We must get rid of this madman before he takes the whole world into a war.

The article states, in part:

Kucinich said he plans to introduce a privileged resolution, which would have priority for a House floor vote, on Nov. 6. A vote on the measure would be required within two days.

Observers expect a motion to table Kucinich's resolution, which has 21 Democratic co-sponsors. It is almost certain that such a move to kill the resolution would be successful, but activists are urging members of Congress to support Kucinich's move.

Do your bit! You've got two days - Monday and Tuesday - to push hard for this.

If you need convincing that impeaching Cheney is the right thing to do, hie on over to Buzzflash to read a fine expose of the recent Minot-Barksdale nuclear missile flight by Dave Lindorff. This is the recent incident in which six nuclear warheads were mounted on Cruise missiles, improperly removed from a storage bunker, loaded aboard a B-52, and flown to another Air Force base.

Lindorff states that this is the first time in 50 years that missiles have been removed from storage without following proper procedure, and believes that a coverup is in progress to obfuscate the details of how this incident occurred and who might be involved in ordering it.

Flying armed nuclear missiles across the country is not something one does "by accident." This is no accident. When the government handles something so deadly, it has procedures that must be followed. Humongous books full of procedures and rules, in fact. Someone ordered this to be done. And now that all the other puppetmasters, neocons, and minions of the dark side have abandoned ship, it's pretty clear that it could only be Dick Cheney. Bush doesn't have the wherewithal to do something like this by himself. Christ, when 9/11 occurred, he was rushed off to Air Force One to fly around like some misbegotten gnat while Cheney appropriated the powers of the Presidency.

Imagine the, uh, fallout if that plane had crashed. Or a warhead detonated. Imagine how easy it would be for Cheney to reassume the reins while sending Georgie off to a secret underground bunker and permanently obliterating anything resembling civil liberties in this country.

The Madman Must Go. Call your rep - writing will take too long. Call or fax them today and every day until the vote is taken.

From Lindorff's article:

The problem with this explanation for the first reported case of nukes being removed from a weapons bunker without authorization in 50 years of nuclear weapons, is that those warheads, and all nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile, are supposedly protected against unauthorized transport or removal from bunkers by electronic antitheft systems -- automated alarms similar to those used by department stores to prevent theft, and even anti-motion sensors that go off if a weapon is touched or approached without authorization.

While the Air Force report doesn't mention any of this, this means if weapons in a storage bunker are protected against unauthorized removal, someone -- and actually at least two people, since it's long been a basic part of nuclear security that every action involving a nuclear weapon has to be done by two people working in tandem -- had to deliberately and consciously disable those alarms.

You know Dick doesn't give a damn about your children's lives, or your life. He's amply demonstrated that. Get him out of power while we're all still alive and whole and functional.

Thanks to Gordon and Fixer over at Alternate Brain for poking me awake on this one.

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World - No Weapons Crossing Iran-Iraq Border

Reuters reports that although trade between Iraq and Iran is booming, no weapons are crossing the border.

Could General Petraeus be lying to us? Horrors! Could the Assministration?

These people are the lyingest liars in the Universe. There just isn't anyone who comes close. They lie more naturally than they breathe.

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