Can't We All

Just do like these guys and GET THE FUCK ALONG?

I mean ... how cute is this?

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Memorial Day 2010

It's that time of year again. And while Americans all over the land rush to the beaches and parks to "celebrate" by eating barbecue and potato salad, others wait anxiously for news of those deployed; visit graveyards, lay wreaths; weep for those who never came home; or wonder why they lost their home, spouse, job, sometimes every anchor that holds them in place in society.

I never understood the "celebrate" aspect of Memorial Day. There is nothing to celebrate in the deaths of men and women, mostly young, of any race, nationality, ethnicity, skin colour, or religion. Rather, it is my sincere hope that all of you enjoying yourselves today will pause for a minute and contemplate this. Or simply bow your heads and think of the young boys and girls we have sent to so many places to be hurt and killed to make our oligarchic owners a little richer.

Today we at this blog bow our heads and think of Louis Rochat (Rocket, to members of the 1/9 Cav), who fought his last fight on Saturday. Rocket risked his life to save his fellow troopers. He lost part of a leg, the vision in one eye, and two fingers for them.

There's plenty of stories among troopers of the 9th Cav, that elite group of helicopter pilots who flew missions in VietNam. Most of them portray Rocket, fairly accurately, as an ornery SOB with courage and class, and a willingness to lay down his life for his fellow troopers. He was just a lad when he arrived in VN, and a wreck when he left, leaving behind pieces of himself. In his own words:

I was twenty years old and just married when I left for Vietnam, and I couldn’t wait to get there. I didn’t even think about the feelings of my folks or my new wife. . . . She watched a twenty-year-old, six-foot, 175-pound Army warrant officer gunship pilot, full of piss and vinegar and a will to live life to its fullest, leave for a place she had heard nothing but bad things about. She got back a 102-pound, dark hollow-eyed, morphine and Demerol dependent, shrapnel and nine times gunshot-wounded, nine-month and two-day Vietnam veteran, who barely knew where he was, much less that he was facing two years in the hospital and thirteen surgeries.

Despite his injuries and the horrors he had seen, Lou pulled himself together and went on to make a long and happy life with his doubtless-horrified young wife. And he took his time to say all his goodbyes when, wrecked by the horrors of that war, his body failed him. He found a new vocation and a voice as a writer, with passion reverberating in his stories. Here is his wonderful description of the sacrifice one of his fellow Troopers made for him.

Louis Rochat, you were a class act. You made the world a better place and showed how to live and how to die. Rest in peace, trooper, you've earned it.

So stop for a moment today and think about how you can make your fellow citizens' lives better. Send a letter to someone deployed out there, telling them you care. Put together a package for a trooper on the front lines. Volunteer for a couple of hours a week or a month with any organization that works with vets, especially the VietNam vets who didn't have the many opportunities we provide for troopers today.



As for all those people who wear flag shirts and "support the troops" with tacky crap made in China? Go read this. And then get off your fucking ass and do something. Other than flapping your gums, that is.

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Obama: You Can Only Steal from the People For So Long ...

Like many people, I am so very disappointed in President Obama. He’s just not listening to the Peacemaker inside of him (shouting to come out!) -- but who is he listening to? Definitely not former President Eisenhower.

“I hate war,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

He also said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

-- Using that quote from Pres. Eisenhower is how Bob Herbert started his column called “A Tragic Mistake” in today’s New York Times. It’s a very good essay. I recommend it to you.

Then there is Michael Moore’s letter to Obama. I recommend that you read that one too, dear Reader.

Mr. President, I’m just so disappointed -- even while I also held the thought that you were a centrist politician, nowhere near a progressive, really. Disappointed that you don't have the courage of your convictions. Or ... maybe you're just too tired for another fight. It’s been said recently that you are looking very very tired.

Plus, I guess you’re worrying about your re-election. In that sense, you are like every other politician. I guess that’s why I’m so disappointed. Because, even though you are not progressive, I thought you were different than other politicians.

War. It steals from us, the people. It has been bringing us down for a long time. Have we paid off the Vietnam War yet?

How can we pay for yet another war? And I mean in every sense of the word “pay.”

To many of us, we believe that this country is going the way of the Roman Empire ... the British Empire. Maybe that’s as it should be. We’ve had more than our fair share for a long time.

And, you, my president (for I did vote for you) ... you are going the way of all those other presidents who don’t know what regular folks’ lives are like. We are terrified. We are terrified for our children and our grandchildren. WAR STEALS FROM THE PEOPLE. It was that radical person, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would have said that. You can only steal from the people for so long.

Plus, Mr. President, I think it was really weasly of you to give your address at West Point. Why didn’t you come to Oakland, California, where I live, and give it here? Weasly. Can’t take the heat, eh? Come and look into the faces of regular folks, and the homeless and unemployed, and tell them that we will be making more bombs and armaments -- that’s how we’ll be spending our limited amount of money. Not on our beloved children who deserve the best education -- they too -- all of them -- deserve an “elite” education. (See this great article about all children deserving an elite education.)

A tragic mistake for all of us. You can only steal from the people for so long. It's always us regular folks who suffer, though, from the tragic mistakes of our arrogant leaders.

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World: No Regrets?

No, it's not the Billie Holliday song. It's what's happening in the trials of the Khmer Rouge criminals right now.

Prisoner at Tuol Sleng, Pol Pot's notorious S-21 prison

No, my knowledge of Kampuchean history is not great. I know something about the early history of the Khmer and other peoples of that part of Southeast Asia, the Funanese empire, the Dong Son bronzes, but almost nothing about their modern history, except that my parents greatly respected and admired Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

I am about to begin my historical explorations of that deeply wretched nation.

However, today's report from Reuters does not bode well for my virtual travels thereto. According to Reuters, one Mam Nay, aka Chan, who served for a time as an interrogator under Pol Pot's head jailor, Duch (real name Kaing Guek Eav) testified in court today that he has no regrets for

what happened at the Tuol Sleng prison, where more than 14,000 men, women and children were killed, [...].

Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, is the infamous prison referred to in "The Killing Fields."

No regrets for this, Mr. Chan? Or Mam Nay, if you prefer?

Tortured Prisoner, one of 6,000 photographs left behind when Khmer Rouge jailors evicted Tuol Sleng prison in advance of invading VietNamese troops

Mam Nay, who is appearing as a witness for the prosecution in the joint Kampuchean-UN war crimes trials, has denied any part in torture or killings of prisoners and blamed the United States and Vietnam for undermining his country.

"My only regret was our country was invaded," he told the joint Cambodian-U.N. tribunal. "Frankly speaking, the Americans invaded us then Vietnam invaded us. That is my regret."

[...]

"I did not use torture in my interrogation. I believed I would not get a true confession."

Asked about the deaths of innocent people, Nay, 76, said: "None of them was innocent -- those people committed offences, either minor or serious.

"This was the reason for their arrest. How serious or how minor, I don't know."

Note: This guy was a schoolteacher. Maybe he was a brainwashed cadre turned schoolteacher. But how do you become a schoolteacher if you cannot empathize with frightened children? And some of the 14-20,000 imprisoned at Tuol Sleng were children. Ony six people survived that prison. The remaining 13,994 — or 19,994, no one really knows — died as a result of torture.

There is no denying that the US bombing of Kampuchea and various associated military actions led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. But who thought they would be so inhumane as to kill between 1 and 3 million of their own people? Between the U.S. bombing and the NVA attempts to escape U.S. military actions by slipping over the border into Kampuchean territory, evicting Kampucheans, and training members of the Khmer Rouge, Kampuchea's attempts at neutrality and Sihanouk's heroic efforts in that direction were virtually worthless. Here is a brief background on these aspects of Kampuchean history.

Mam Nay, or Mr. Chan, or whatever you call yourself, should a "minor" offense warrant waterboarding? Or, as Americans and other Westerners used to refer to it, "Chinese" or "Japanese" water torture?

Picture taken by Jonah Blank in 2005 at the Tuol Sleng Museum. Published on the Web by David Corn.*

Oh, well. I guess now that it's come to light that we waterboarded mentally ill or innocent or possibly innocent people ourselves, repeatedly, I guess we're in no position to quibble about anyone else's crimes.

Ain't torture egalitarian?

*See here for copyright/licensing information on this picture.

Incidentally, the still-adored ex-partner made a trip to those parts some years ago, and opined that "the whole place seemed haunted. It was like going to a ghost town. Even the people's faces look haunted." The ex is a tough businessperson who has had plenty of occasion to mock and deride my own claims of sensitivity and queasiness and unexplained oojie-woojies, so to hear those words from such a person, well. Virtual trips to Kampuchea is all I'm up to for now.

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Politics: War Crimes

When do these war criminals go to trial?
As we've mentioned before, a Class A war criminal is anyone who participated in "the planning, preparation, initiation, or waging" of aggressive war, or violated the laws and customs of war. Like, for example, the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Which Convention would certainly apply to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and possibly also David Addington, Condoleeza Rice, George Dumbya Bush, and a score of their immediate underlings, highly placed officials all.

Today, I'm reading a fine book on the Kempeitai and their crimes in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, by Raymond Lamont-Brown. Mr. Lamont-Brown's father was a PoW, captured by the Japanese in Shanghai, China, and subjected to the tender ministries of the Kempeitai, who, as brutal torturers go, might rank higher than any other similar body heretofore known.



Here, a little excerpt for your — I can't say entertainment, it certainly isn't entertaining — perusal:

You are a man of education, of intelligence, even in a sense of culture. Yours is the cunning brain under whose direction your instruments of torture performed their evil task. You were well aware of all the moral implications of your policy. In these last six weary years many men have willingly suffered and died in the hope and belief that out of their sacrifice would arise a higher morality in dealings of one nation with another, an international morality soaring above the narrow bonds of patriotism and blind obedience. If, as I believe, some of your victims, Sumida, were amongst those who made their sacrifice in that hope and belief, let this be their epitaph, that they died for an undying cause. To those of us who survive falls the supreme and difficult task of establishing and maintaining that higher morality between nations, of supplanting the rule of force and fear by the rule of law, of ensuring that they did not make their sacrifice in vain.

You, Sumida, have shown by all that you did, ordered, and willingly allowed, that to you there is nothing of higher consequence than domination by brute force and fear.

You were prepared, for the glorification, as you thought, of your country, to reduce men and women below the level of beasts and to send them without pity or compunction to an agonizing death. You did not realize that your actions have not glorified, they have degraded, your country. As in the past, so in the future, you would always be the implacable enemy of that great cause for which so many made their sacrifice. You and men like you cannot be allowed to hinder the fulfilment of that cause. Accordingly it is in no spirit of vengeance upon a fallen foe, no desire to have an eye for an eye, a life for a life, that this Court has solemnly decided that you must die. Nor is it merely to rid the world — and your country now preparing for its moral rebirth — of one man who is a danger to all moral progress. Rather it is a stern example to all who would willingly support the powers of evil and brute force against the rule of law, justice, and humanity.

— Lt.-Col S.C. Silkin, R.A., barrister, at War Crimes Trial of Chusa Haruzo Sumida, Supreme Court Building, Singapore, 18 March 1946

It is my sincere and heartfelt hope to hear words of similar import being spoken one day soon at the trial of those who "planned, prepared, initiated, or waged" the war of aggression against Iraq which is only now winding down.

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TROUBLEMAKERS

Since no one really knows anything about God,

those who think they do are just
troublemakers.

-- Rabia from Basra

This is from a collection called Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, edited and translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

An excerpt from the book ... about Rabia:

Rabia of Basra (c. 717 - 801) is without a doubt the most popular and influential of female Islamic saints and a central figure in the Sufi tradition. She was born nearly five hundred years before Rumi, and although it is rarely said, she, perhaps more than any other poet, influenced his writings.

Rabia grew up in a part of ancient Mesopotamia that is now Iraq. She was the fourth daughter of impoverished parents, and the story connected with her birth tells of the Prophet Muhammad appearing to her father in a dream to tell him that his daughter would be revered as a great saint.

Peace to all. Even to the troublemakers.

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Politics: Old Fat Naked Women

For Peace wants you warmongering shmucks to KNOCK IT OFF! Or they'll come over and take their clothes off.

They don't think even Dick "Satan" Cheney wants to see his grammy's titties swaying in the breeze.

My Gram didn't have any (or if she did they were tiny leathery flaps and practically invisible, but I can tell you now, that's an image I NEVER want to see. Rest in peace, Grammy. Fully clothed peace.

Anyway. La Casa de Los Gatos says Checkidout!

With special thanks to Jo!

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2008 Elections: Oui, On Peut

For Ms. Manitoba and all our French-speaking friends in Africa, Canada, La Belle France, and Louisiana, a rockin' Obama Zydeco from that fine Cajun land:



Si, se puede!
Si, possiamo!
Yes, we CAN!

It's getting down to the wire, folks. Vote early. Volunteer. Do everything you can to ensure that when we all wake up on the fifth of November, it will be to a President Obama.

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Entertainment

Hey, it's Friday, and we're sick to death of the rancid tone of the Mc Lame campaign of late. So, here for your entertainment, we present:

The Barack Obama Bear

The Joe Biden Bear

From the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, makers of fine handcrafted bears. They run a little over a hundred dollars each, so you might want to wait till President Obama and VicePresident Biden actually win the landslide victory we're all hoping for, in less than a month.

They also have a McCain and a Palin bear, but geezus fookin' Christ, we're not linking to or posting THOSE ugly things. Associating any kind of bear with that venomous wretch Palin is unthinkable. That bitch would be happy to shoot each and every bear right between the eyes and get them ALL off the planet.

La Casa de Los Gatos believes wholeheartedly in loving and caring for the other forms of life with which we share the planet. Thus we are unable to be neutral on the candidacy of Sarah Palin. We're not Deists or Theists, but of all the saints and wise men, our favourite has always been Francis of Assisi, who loved the beasts and the birds of the air. Saint Francis would not have liked Mrs. Palin much.


And all these things I give to you
To keep and to protect
From the greatest of the big sperm whale
To the tiniest insect
To rule with love and kindness
The weak, the wild, the strong
And treat my creatures gently
Only you know right from wrong

The Barleycorn, The Keeper

Note: Unlike Mrs. Palin's and Mr. McCain't's supporters, we do NOT advocate violence or hatred of any sort towards these people. We admit to not liking either the candidates or their supporters very much at all. That said, we do not wish any of these people harm or evil. Their own dispositions will bring them every unpleasant thing that they wish on others.

Incidentally, they have a little poll going on at the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, in which you can vote for your preferred candidate bear. The Barack Obama bear is currently ahead of the McCain't bear by about 700 votes. Surprised?

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Big bonuses a help in military recruiting

Another misuse of *our* tax dollars. There's a short item in today's SF Chronicle:

The Army and Marine Corps doled out nearly $640 million in the past year in bonuses to entice recruits to join the military...

... The money has proved to be a strong recruiting tool. As a result, the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force all met their recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ended Tuesday.

Reminds me of that bumper sticker:

IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN OUR SCHOOLS GET ALL THE MONEY THEY NEED AND THE AIR FORCE HAS TO HOLD A BAKE SALE TO BUY A BOMBER

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2008 Elections: Inspiration

Just watch:



These are not Likudnik hawks or AIPAC bots. These are real genuine living breathing Israelis and Jews from different parts of the world who see that Obama represents a genuine hope for peace in the Middle-East. Something all sane people desire. They know that a vote for McCain is a vote for more war, horror, dissension, turmoil, death. They know that Barack (Baruch, in Hebrew, which means Blessed) has the calm demeanor, the rational, cool, collected temperament, the ability to see the goal and work towards it in logical, reasoned, incremental steps.

Remember that when you go into the booth to cast your vote. The fate of your nation, and many other nations, rests in your hands.

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World: Russia, Georgia, and South Ossetia

Vladimir Putin doesn't fuck around:



The chronology of the conflict. Dick "the dick" has his ugly greasy pawprints all over this one. And McCain wasted no time climbing on the bandwagon.

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2008 Elections: Wake Up Call

The Mighty Munchkin of Justice, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, issues America's wake-up call:



Y'all better pop yer peepers open and listen to the man. It's time for the tide to turn. Jobs, prosperity, health care, retirement benefits, peace, what's not to like?

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World: What Really Happened In South Ossetia? Part II

We closed the first part of this lengthy post on the situation in South Ossetia with the denunciation of Mikheil Saakashvili. We didn't give a list of reasons why we thought Saakashvili was worthy of such denunciation. We will do so right after including this comment from allencharles, who said, in response to Part I:

Some history of the area needs to be presented to if my comment is to be understood.

The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was established in 1922 by the U.S.S.R. and remained a part of the U.S.S.R. inside Georgia until it (presumably the USSR) failed. The new Georgian government declared their (the South Ossetian) government as illegal and took away the freedoms the Ossetians had lived under since 1922. They Ossetians refused to accept the loss of their local government and have been in rebellion until the present. Over 90 percent of the Ossetians are duel citizens of both Georgia and Russia. One way of understanding their local government would be to compare an American Indian Nation and the US Government.

When the army of Georgia decided to attack and kill every Ossetian the Russian’s moved in to stop it. THEY HAD ALREADY KILLED 1,400 Ossetians. This has been confirmed by multiple news sources. We refer you to Teh Google.

This is where we find the situation today. When the Serbs attempted to wipe out the Arimeans in Kosvo, America did exactly the same thing to stop them and we bombed Serbia.

You can think for yourselves as to whether or not Bush is in order with his comments to Russia.

The people of Kosvo were not American citizens yet we felt a moral duty to protect them. If 1,400 American Citizens had been murdered just south of our boarder what to you think we would have done?

Well, I think we showed exactly what we would have done when Reagan sent the army to the tiny nation of Grenada simply because there were students with American nationality in that nation when they had their revolution. Of course, it was an excuse to wipe out the progressive movement there, even though no Americans were actually harmed. We notice that Bush isn't rattling quite so many sabers at China despite the recent murder of an American citizen there. Our guess is, it's easier to conduct "regime change" on small, poorly armed countries than on some people who outnumber you four times AND to whom you owe a ton of money for financing your last war.

But, to continue. Essentially, South Ossetia has been autonomous since the 1920s. When Georgia attempted to take over, the South Ossetians resisted and have continued resisting to the present. In the 1990s, South Ossetia expelled the Georgian army from its territory, but Saakashvili and the Georgian government have refused to recognize South Ossetia's claims to autonomy and continue to treat the region as part of Georgia, despite the South Ossetians' lengthy history as a separate ethnic and linguistic group. Dr. Gerard Toal, professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech's Washington, D.C., campus offers a nuanced look at the situation in an article at The Irish Times.

In 2002, U.S. military advisors were seconded to Georgia, where they have purportedly been training the Georgian military in the "war against terror," which is starting to look markedly like an excuse for global hegemony. One which, it hardly need be pointed out, is untenably expensive for American taxpayers and the U.S. military, which is currently fighting a "war" on two fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan. All pretense of finding Usama bin Laden or the perpetrators of the 2001 attack on U.S. soil has long since been abandoned.

Wikipedia tells us that in 2006, a second referendum on the autonomy of South Ossetia was held, the first (in 1992) having been deemed invalid by other nations.

According to the Tskhinvali election authorities, the referendum turned out a majority for independence from Georgia where 99% of South Ossetian voters supported independence and the turnout for the vote was 95% and the referendum was monitored by a team of 34 international observers from Germany, Austria, Poland, Sweden and other countries at 78 polling stations. However, it was not recognized internationally by the UN, European Union, OSCE, NATO and the Russian Federation, given the lack of ethnic Georgian participation and the legality of such referendum without recognition from the central government in Tbilisi.

Once again, the South Ossetians were not recognized as having a right to autonomy and sovereignty, even though the inhabitants of the tiny enclave of Kosovo within Serbia were granted such autonomy. This is sheer hypocrisy.

The following year (2007), the Georgian government appeared to lend greater credence to South Ossetia's claims of autonomy. Essentially, the region of South Ossetia had, by this time, been behaving as an autonomous state for over 15 years (since the referendum of 1992 and the Dagomys ceasefire agreement of that year) if not longer (since the 1920s).

In the intervening years, Saakashvili, an American-educated Georgian, had been cultivating American neocons and was getting particularly cosy with that spectacular human failure, George "Dumbya" Bush, who hailed him as a "liberator" — sort of like the Iraqis did with us — in this particularly ironic speech, delivered in Tsibili:

Georgia is "building a democratic society where the rights of minorities are respected; where a free press flourishes; where a vigorous opposition is welcomed and where unity is achieved through peace," he said.

Saakashvili, whom honest taxpaying Americans might term "a kiss-ass," showed his gratitude with this particular lickspittlery:

Saakashvili praised Bush as a "decisive and visionary leader," [...]

Oh, indeedy. The only way you could refer to Jor Jee as visionary is if you were describing what he sees in his drunken or drugged stupors. But we digress.

In the meantime, the blessed recipients of the freedom and liberty promised by Saakashvili had found that they were enjoying precious little of either. As is the wont of free and liberated citizens of democratic societies, they took to the streets in peaceful protest — much like the Rose Revolution that brought Saakashvili to power. Imagine their surprise when the democratic liberator of Georgia, instead of welcoming their "vigorous opposition," proceeded to turn riot police with rubber bullets, hoses, tear gas, and water cannons on them. He added insult to injury by imposing a 15-day state of emergency in which Interior Ministry troops armed with truncheons patrolled the streets. He suspended news services and banned all demonstrations.

Remarkably democratic, ain't it? Some 500 were injured, approximately 100 of them seriously enough to require hospitalization, and many were jailed and tortured.

Saakashvili's popularity was on the wane. In response to pressure from opposition forces, he held snap elections in January of this year (2008) and won with a mere 52 per cent of the vote — a significant come-down from his first election, which he won with nearly 96 per cent. Meanwhile, Saakashvili is doing his best to get Georgia into the EU and NATO. The Europeans have been relatively cool to the idea, but American neocons, who have tricked American citizens into foolish and costly wars repeatedly, have no such compunctions.

Saakashvili's machinations behind the scenes aside, the little dictator is in a dangerous position. He is trying to draw the U.S. and Europe into a war with Russia — a war which no one will win. Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB man and nobody's fool. And unfortunately, the U.S. is currently in the hands of the biggest fool to ever walk the planet. Now we come to the events of this week.

Saakashvili concluded a ceasefire agreement, that included Russian-mediated negotiations, with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity on Thursday, August 7th 2008.

At 2200 hours (South Ossetian time) on that same day, as the rest of the world was preparing to watch the Olympic games, Georgia invaded South Ossetia in a surprise attack. These allegations are made by South Ossetians and have been confirmed by no less an authority than Aunty Beeb. Georgian tanks were soon rolling into South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali. For the next day and night, the Georgian military attacked South Ossetia, bombing, shelling, destroying houses, targeting hospitals, and indiscriminately killing civilians. The current estimate is that between 1,400 and 2,000 civilians were killed. The Mail reports that 30,000 fled the city of Tskhinvali, looking for refuge in Russian North Ossetia. Georgian authorities were making statements such as this:

The Georgian Minister for Integration, Temur Yakobashvili, said Georgia's aim was not to take over the territory but to finish "a criminal regime".

[...]

In a televised address, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili earlier called for the bloodshed to end, but also warned the Russian-backed separatists not to try Tbilisi's patience.

This can only be deemed provocative. A criminal regime? To be finished? Is he referring to Kokoity, who his fellow South Ossetians consider their leader? Tiny Georgia warning the Russian bear not to try their patience?

On Friday, 8th August 2008, Russia requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. It offered an immediate halt to violence in South Ossetia on the condition that both parties renounce the use of armed force. Mark Ames, writing in The Nation, says that Saakashvili refused to renounce armed force. Al Jazeera confirms this. Meanwhile, Georgian military forces continued to bomb civilian targets and reduce buildings to rubble. All the while, Saakashvili, in a display of hubris heretofore unequaled, continued to rail at the Russians and the South Ossetians. Russian response was swift and merciless.


Later that same day, Russian planes and tanks entered South Ossetia, sweeping the terrified Georgian army before them and halting the indiscriminate attempts at genocide by Georgian forces. The Georgian military abandoned the town of Gori, birthplace of Georgia's most famous son Josef Stalin, without firing a single shot.

By Sunday, August 10th, Russian troops having cleared South Ossetia of the Georgian military presence then proceeded to cut roads and bomb a military airfield in Georgian territory, although the Georgians claim they also hit the airport in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. Russian warships had also deployed to the coast of the Black Sea, where the Georgians claimed they were blockading food and fuel supplies. The Russians replied that they were not interested in a blockade but had a right to search all ships in the region.

Saakashvili then proclaimed a unilateral ceasefire and urged the Russians to respect this. Meanwhile, Georgian military forces continued to attack civilian populations in South Ossetia. Russia pointed this fact out in refusing to accept the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Georgian troops were advancing on Abkhazia. Russia warned Georgia to pull back and when Georgia failed to do so, advanced deep into Georgian territory from the Abkhazian side of the border after first evicting any remaining Georgian military from Abkhazia (which has its own long-running dispute with Georgia about autonomy; many Abkhazians hold Russian citizenship).

European diplomats have met with Saakashvili in Tbilisi — which does sort of put the lie to Saakashvili's claims that the Russians are bombing Tbilisi, doesn't it? — to persuade him to sign a ceasefire agreement.

Presently, the situation stands like this. Nicolas Sarkozy of France has met with Dmitry Medvedev of Russia to discuss the ceasefire. Medvedev has announced the end of Russian operations in the region. Georgia has yet to respond. A final settlement discussion is expected to occur soon.

There are rumours that Russian peacekeepers were killed by Israeli troops operating on Georgian soil. However, Ha'aretz is reporting that all Israeli security personnel who were training Georgian troops left before the war took place.

A retired senior Israeli officer who recently trained troops in Georgia said yesterday he was surprised that the Georgians faced off against Russia, since they have a much smaller army.

"They got into an adventure that I wouldn't have chosen to get into, based on the level of professionalism I saw in my visits to the Georgian army," the officer said. "Who knows where this will end."

Wherever it ends, it will NOT be good for Georgia and that idiot Saakashvili, may camels urinate on his parents' graves. Perhaps now the Georgian public will finally succeed in ridding itself of this nationalistic, tyrannical, expansionist loon.

As our regular visitors and friends know, we are anti-war. However, in this world, war is the nature of the beast we call human. We also believe in calling a thug a thug. Saakashvili is a thug. This does not make Putin or Medvedev saints in comparison. Only thugs get to power because only thugs want it badly enough to engage in thuggery for it. Poets, visionaries, and humanitarians rarely hold on to power long, even when it is thrust upon them — or else they too, turn into thugs.

Ultimately, we believe in pragmatism. Tiny little countries living on the edge of big nasty countries need to be very careful not to provoke their big nasty neighbours. Because it is not the thugs who suffer. It is the poor civilians, the women, the children, the aged, infirm, and disabled. They have no way to protect themselves, much less the strength to do so. It is immoral and wrong for thugs to win power at the expense of the suffering masses. It is cruel and depraved to force these most helpless of people to bear the cost of the thugs' desire for power.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Russia responded with force to Saakashvili's provocative acts. Georgia is a desperately poor nation, although Saakashvili is making Western investors happy by permitting a pipeline carrying oil out of BP's leased fields for European consumption, and instituting economic measures that penalize the poor and needy in favour of the rich and greedy.

The United Nations is distributing food to the victims of this engineered humanitarian crisis; Russia is setting aside funds for South Ossetia; and World Vision is working to help refugees in Tbilisi.

Part III of this lengthy post will analyze the possible reasons for this war.

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World: What's Happening In South Ossetia?

Whatever it is, La Casa de Los Gatos does not believe word one of what American media is shoveling. They've lied to us for decades about everything. We refuse to believe they had a sudden "come to Jesus" moment and decided to start telling the truth for a change.

The same media that writes obsessively about Britney Spears' underroos or lack thereof is not going to have a well-researched thoughtful observation on the situation in Russia/Georgia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia. Not if their entire collective lives were on the line.

Update: More information now available here and here.

This Russian man made a video for YouTube with his view of the situation:



We know this much so far: South Ossetia is home to an ethnic population that differs from that of Georgia and Russia; Saakashvili is hardly the champion of Democracy with a capital D that he purports to be; The US has trained the Georgian military and supplied it with arms, an extremely provocative act given its position on the Russian border (imagine how we would feel if Russia trained and armed Mexico — goodness knows our underroos are still bunched over Cuba); Saakashvili wants into NATO — once again, imagine if Mexico wanted an alliance with the Russian or Chinese military; and, most important to America and Europe, oil and natural gas pass through a pipeline laid on Georgian soil to reach the ports of the Black Sea. Would it surprise anyone to learn that the neocons in American politics have left their dirty little fingermarks all over this?

More research in progress. Where's your anxiety-relieving anti-depressant meds when you need them?

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World: Bombings in India

A group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen" is claiming responsibility for the 17 bomb blasts that rocked Ahmedabad, the former capital of the Indian state of Gujarat, today. The IM, believed to be a loose coalition of three other groups &mdash SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India), Pakistan-based Lashkar e-Taiba and the Jammu-Kashmir-based Harkat ul-Jihad e-Islami.

The group emailed a 14-page manifesto to the media ahead of the bombings, claiming responsibility and declaring the purpose of the bombings &mdash to "avenge" communal violence against Muslims in 2002 in the state of Gujarat.

According to reports, some 30 people were killed and approximately 100 were injured. Twenty-four hours before the attack on Ahmedabat, the Indian IT centre of Bangalore was rocked by nine, smaller blasts. The IM is believed to be using bombs strapped to bicycles. The explosions were planned to cause maximum disruption, but some also believe that they were targeting Congress Party ministers and the home districts of political leaders who belong to the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), known for its fiery Hindu nationalism.

News sources from India are claiming that the bombs used in the attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad bear similar signatures &mdash rather than military ordinance, they appear to be made with ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer, and utilize quartz timer devices and microprocessors.

Intelligence sources believe that the attacks are being coordinated by Pakistan. They attribute the attacks to Pakistan's desire to distract attention from its own internal problems and the terrorist presence there, now that (thanks to Barack Obama) global attention has shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan and the Taliban. Even the U.S. is finally talking about links between Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani national security and intelligence agency) and the Taliban.

Thanks to George W.'s lame duck status, the truth about the situation in Pakistan &mdash a failed state by every definition of the term &mdash and its role in international terrorism is finally beginning to emerge. Muslims who do not support terrorism really need to speak out, as the IM is actively seeking to recruit "jihadis" for its covert operations in India. Despite the occasional shameful bouts of communal violence, many and varied religions have coexisted in peace for milennia in India. Don't let the death throes of the failed Pakistani state destroy India which has given shelter to so many different groups for so long.

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Politics: A Government That Works

We often wonder why government in this country is so inefficient. All over the world, other, poorer, smaller countries manage to do much more and much better with much less. The health care systems in France, Sweden, and Singapore are to be envied. The barefoot doctors of China and Bangladesh take medicine into rural villages without clean water or electricity.

Yet here we sit, so wealthy we can throw away up to half the food we grow, or give it away in aid to the less fortunate. But we can't give rural children vaccinations. And we let people die from lack of basic care. We can afford fancy pacemakers and heart surgery for worthless evil scum like Dick "I Shoot My Friends In The Face" Cheney. Basic dental care that could prevent a child from dying &mdash that, we can't afford.

We can't afford to monitor our food for poisons that will kill our elderly and our children.

We wonder about these things so much, we rushed out and bought Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas shortly after it was published and read it avidly. It left us feeling bitterly disappointed.

Today, we found a discussion on DailyKos (to which we never link because it would be like a fly trying to ride on an elephant fer cryin' out) about America and government and we think everybody in this country ought to read it, although DK has a much wider readership than we do and linking to this diary on our teeny-tiny blog will maybe just annoy some of our readers and amuse the rest. Nevertheless. Kos nails it. This is about why Republicans during the Clinton administration did everything in their power to kill Hillary Clinton's efforts towards health care for the masses.

[2008 Republican defeats] would probably also mean a national health-insurance program that would irrevocably expand government involvement in the economy and American life, and itself make voters less likely to turn toward conservatism in the future.

Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry, as cited at DailyKos.

Because these lousy scumballs would rather see you and your children, parents, friends, and neighbours die in your ones or tens or thousands if necessary, as long as they get another four, or eight, or umpteen years in power.

Republicans, riddle me this: Can you look in the eyes of this little girl's parents


and tell them it was OK for their daughter to die to ensure KKKarl Rove's "permanent Republican majority"? Can you?

Can you look at the face of this child

and tell his mother it was OK that he died because you don't want "government interference" in issues like health care?

Because if you can, you are fucking scum and should immediately kill yourselves rather than waste the oxygen, air, and other resources that you are consuming while condemning the poor, the helpless, the defenseless to death.

As for you "religious right" hypocrites: For what shall it profit you to gain a fetus or a hundred and lose the lives of these children? If you're serious about the "sanctity of life," start by ending war, hunger, starvation, disease, and the power of a system that deems fetii sacred but does nothing to provide for sick and hungry children except to institute harsh penalties including loss of life if they become so twisted from want as to steal or rob. Start by imprisoning those who steal from millions, who condemn others to penury so that they may live in luxury.

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Politics: Don't Go Away Mad

Just go away.



McClatchy poses the question today of whether Dumbfuck McBlotto, our (decidedly un)esteemed Escutcheon-blot in chief, is "going out with 'a whimper'." Frankly, McClatchy, who gives a fuck? We just want him to go, preferably to a narrow, cramped, poorly-lit prison cell where he can rub the heads of all the baldies he can get his hands on. The sooner the better.

While academics opine on Dim Son's astounding lack of popularity, the common people are watching basic food prices soar out of reach even as the value of their homes, the stability of their corporate employers and their financial institutions, and the value of their currency sink lower than a worm's arsehole.

So, as Maru over at WTF Is It Now? likes to say,

The popular war preznit has regained his footing... oh, I'm sorry, Mr Broder, make that [insert real-life stumblebum's latest stumble]

Considering that the pathetic, wretched little asshole can barely behave in public, it's hardly surprising that that fact seems to be registering with record numbers of his fellow-citizens.

Meanwhile, it's heartening to realize that there are some Republicans with ethics. Stephen Spoonamore, founder and CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an IT policy and security firm, has stepped forward to help an anonymous whistleblower prove that professional slime mold impersonators and cybervote machine manufacturers Diebold improperly interfered in Georgia's 2002 elections.

So we now know we have fucking Diebold to thank for that ambulatory turd, Saxby Chambliss. In case you didn't know, Chambliss prides himself on holding up monies to combat AIDS in Africa, as Cernig points out over on newshoggers. He also doesn't care much for SCHIP, The Endangered Species Act, the fight against global warming, women, life (except for "unborn children," i.e., fetii), environmentalism, science, civil rights, taxes for the rich, bankruptcy for the poor, education (except for school prayer), or pretty much anything except prisons and the death penalty.

In heartening news today, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki announced his support for Barack Obama's plan for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In even more heartening news, Chimpy McDumbfuck's pathetic minions sent the news about Maliki's support to the press &mdash by mistake. In even more heartening news, Jowly McGrumpypants (thanks, Maru!) camp issued a succinct evaluation of this news: We're fucked, they said, which makes us really happy, since Gramps McSnarly is the last person to help this poor nation get back on her feet. Shoot, he's having trouble keeping his own. And, he's definitely showing signs of dementia or otherwise eroding mental function, not that his mental function was much to brag about in the first place.

It's also nice to know that McCain is exhibiting a level of fiscal stupidity that reinforces our suspicions about his dysfunction. And to no one's surprise, McCain's elderly, probably racist and certainly ill-informed supporters are displaying a lack of enthusiasm usually reserved for Matlock reruns. Really? It must rub salt in the wound to hear that art collectors believe McGrumpypants artwork is worth nothing, while Obama artwork is selling for tens of thousands of dollars, eh, McJowly? Of course, you'd have to be more than slightly off to find portraits of CottageCheesyJowls McSnarlfester remotely exciting, but hey.

McAncient's inability to keep his festering gob shut may have caused security problems for Obama: Blabberjowls McScarface apparently announced to the press that Obama is expected to be in Iraq this weekend. Hopefully, he'll be greeted with flowers by an adoring population, since he's the only candidate to espouse a definite timeline for the withdrawal of our troops. Of course, when someone else blabbed about a person being in Iraq, McCain was simply furious. But then, the subject of the blabment was his son, not his political rival.

The good news is coming thick and fast today: Multimillionaire whiner Phil Gramm, who just last week told us (before Starbucks announced it was closing a bunch of stores and laying off staff) that we were whiners suffering from a "mental recession," has stepped down from McAncient's campaign. Good. Goodbye, and good riddance, Phil. And quit whining.

Meanwhile, the Mighty Munchkin of Justice has decided to investigate Felon McChimperson and Snarly McCrashcart's minions' surveillance of harmless peace activists and expending much-needed taxpayer money on police officers to do so, instead of fighting crime. But then again, why bother to fight crime when you can turn prisons into a high-paying privatized industry, with the citizen taxpayers doing all the paying.

This is what happens when we elect Democrats, people. Sure, it's going slowly, slower than many of us would like. But let's not forget that the past eight years has been nothing but incompetence, fraud, lies, cheating, hypocrisy, deceit, and the tearing down of this great country. It's gonna take a while to fix the mess, and if we're going to try to hold anyone accountable, it must be done in a way that they cannot overturn. And that takes a little time.

For those who don't want to click the above link, it's to a Washington Post story about the current, Democratic governor of Maryland, who has reversed his Republican predecessor's policy of having the State Police conduct surveillance of peace activists and anti-death penalty protestors. What a waste of taxpayer money!

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The Draft Stopped the Vietnam War

Over at Salon, there's an article by Cintra Wilson about how effective Code Pink really is. Back in February I wrote a post criticizing Code Pink's protesting at the Marine Center. I still feel critical about those protests ... AND I feel empathy with Code Pink members. It's frustrating when you're working so hard to change things. It's grindingly hard. So, what would change our country's focus on war to solve problems? Here's a letter I wrote to Salon in response to the article:

Most people don't want to talk about this (for good reasons -- they think about the young men and women in their families) but I think what increased protests in the 60's and early 70's and created large noticeable groups of people marching in the streets in practically every area of the U.S. and eventually stopped the Vietnam War was: THE DRAFT.

That and body bags coming back to all communities. That was hard to ignore and go on living as usual ... shopping as usual.

I invite you (as always) to comment.

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2008 Elections: Telling The Truth

Was it just yesterday? Or the day before? That senile warmonger John McInsane had the big brass balls to tell Barack Obama he was going to instruct Obama about how peaceful Iraq was and how things are going so fucking well in Iraq? Let's see, here's a few pertinent spittle-fleckings:

[...] McCain added, he [Obama, Ed.] will change his position on the war because of the success the U.S. is having there. “Sen. Obama was driven to his conclusion by ideology, not by the facts on the ground,” McCain said. “Success in Iraq is undeniable.”

The Seattle Times responds with an editorial that basically informs McInsane of what everyone else with a working brain cell already knows: the aged, cranky, nasty old Republican nominee is fuller of shit than a constipated cow. A pertinent snippet:

McCain is having a jolly time pretending he is the only candidate with enough cachet and experience to lead the U.S. on military matters, even offering to squire Obama around Iraq.

McCain's posturing would be silly one-upmanship if the costs of the war in Iraq and at home were not so enormous and never-ending. McCain has the wrong position. He supports continued military involvement in Iraq. Obama, more credibly, vows to end the war and bring troops home.

Kudos to the editorial writer! More than two-thirds of the American electorate is utterly sick and tired of this bogus war. Bombing the helpless populace of a small country that has done nothing to us is nothing less than a war crime. A war crime that has, incidentally, destroyed our economy and is threatening the combined economy of the rest of the world.

Does anybody remember the last time McInsane went to Iraq? March of this year. Protected by about 100 Marines, in full body armour, with helicopter gunships overhead, McInsane was photographed (at taxpayers' expense, of course) strolling about in Baghdad, proclaiming it safe. The old geezer conveniently forgot to mention to anyone during his recent spittle-flecked rant that his army escort would not let him go to the Shorja market where he had his picture taken last year, because it was "too unsafe."

Of course, someone who can't tell Sunni from Shi'a and doesn't even know how many troops we have in Iraq is hardly the authority on the war. If only fate wasn't tempted to give the old man the smackdown every time he opens his mouth and switches feet. Pertinent snippet:

McCain's comments about Mosul being "quiet" have also been criticized. On the day he made them, 30 Iraqis were killed by suicide bombings in the Mosul area.

Meanwhile, the town of Hit, near Baghdad, didn't want to be left out of the rush to smear a little egg on the erstwhile candidate's face. A suicide bomber in that town, no doubt having read or heard McLame's comments, rushed off to glory, taking ten people with him and wounding 12 others.

McLame displayed his usual tin ear on the issue:

McCain, speaking to reporters in Milwaukee, refused to acknowledge a mistake, saying that "I said we have drawn down. And we have drawn down."

Gee, where have we heard that refusal to admit making a mistake before? Oh, yeah, the previous two terms of Gee Dumbya Pumpkinhead.

In an attempt to defend the senile warmonger, his advisers said the flap amounted to nothing more than "nitpicking" about "verb tenses."

"It is the essence of semantics," said a frustrated Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, on a conference call organized by the campaign. "We're having this call about a verb tense."

Wow, they sure have learned their lessons well. They're borrowing from the arsenal of Karl Rove and Bill Clinton. Next they're going to tell us what the definition of "is" is. Good work, kids! No, let's rephrase that: Heckuva Job, Johnny!

In other convincing evidence of the peacefulness of Iraq, thousands of Iraqis turned out to protest the U.S. presence. Intelligence (a quality Mr. McInsane seems dreadfully short on) officials announced today that our progress in Iraq basically sucks wet monkey ass. The scheduled elections are already getting the Sunni mad at each other. Progress! Peace! Missing Limbs! Awakening Councils!

Is there anyone in Iraq that we haven't pissed off yet? Well, maybe McInsane's definition of "progress," "success," "drawdown," and so forth are not exactly the same as Merriam-Webster's or Oxford's OED, or, let's be honest, any fucking body else's.

Tell the truth, Mr. McCain. If you remember how that's defined any more, that is. And don't forget to tell all those American servicemen being blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan why you refuse to sign Jim Webb's GI Bill that would give them better benefits than the pile of steaming crap the Bush misadministration's been trying to feed them for the past X years.

Crossposted over at Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus

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