Why do the troops hate America?

Remember how about five minutes ago anybody who was opposed to the invasion & occupation of Iraq was 'on the side of the terrorists'? Remember 'pre 9/11' & 'post 9/11' thinking? Remember a fat crook like Denny Hastert or a relatively skinny one like Tom Delay saying it? Or a dope addled dope like Rush Limbaugh? Or an egomaniacal sex criminal like Bill O'Reilly? Or a white house butt-boy like Hannity? Or...or...or...

What's changed?

Nothing.

It was all non-sense all along. Some of us knew it & said so. We're heroes. We defended your freedom. For the most part you're NOT welcome. The lives lost are never coming back. The treasure lost, while not 'lost', is in the bank accounts of the war profiteers.

So far the 21st century, the New American Century has sucked so bad there aren't even words for it, only screams.

(From Washington Monthly)
MILITARY TIMES POLL.... A couple of days ago, the AP reported on dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, which patrols the streets of eastern Baghdad, and learned that most of those seeing the conflict up close are discouraged, dejected, and ready to leave. As informative as the piece was, it was difficult to extrapolate from it and understand how most U.S. troops feel.

Fortunately, a poll for the Military Times newspapers, which questioned 6,000 randomly selected active-duty members, gives us a much better sense. In case the myth that military personnel still widely support the president's policy hadn't been debunked enough, these results should do the trick.

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all. [...]

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents think today's military is stretched too thin to be effective.

As for the escalation, only 38% of those surveyed believe more troops should be sent to Iraq, while 39% think there should be the same number or less than there are now. (The rest said they didn't know.)

On a related note, Greg Sargent mentioned that Defense Secretary Robert Gates "recently held a photo-op sit-down with some of the troops in Iraq. By sheer coincidence, all of the assembled troops said they support an increase in troops to Iraq."

Nevertheless, given the results, it's safe to say civilians aren't the only ones Bush is losing.

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Juan Cole: - "Saddam: The death of a dictator"

Dec. 30, 2006 | The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare...

...
Like everything else in Iraq since 2003, Saddam's trial became entangled in sectarian politics. Iraq is roughly 60 percent Shiite, 18 percent Sunni Arab and 18 percent Kurdish. Elements of the Sunni minority were favored under fellow Sunni Saddam, and during his long, brutal reign this community tended to have high rates of membership in the Baath Party. Although many members of Saddam's own ethnic group deeply disliked him, since the U.S. invasion he has gradually emerged as a symbol of the humiliation that the once-dominant Sunni minority has suffered under a new government dominated by Shiites and Kurds.

Saddam was a symbol of Sunni-Shiite rivalry long before the U.S. occupation. In 1991, while he was in power, he had ferociously suppressed the post-Gulf War Shiite uprising in the south, using helicopter gunships and tanks to kill an estimated 60,000. After the invasion, many Shiites wanted him to be captured, while many Sunnis helped him elude capture. When Saddam was finally caught by U.S. forces in late 2003, Shiites in the Baghdad district of Kadhimiya crossed the bridge over the Tigris to dance and gloat in the neighboring Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya, provoking some clashes. After his capture, students at Mosul University, in Iraq's second-largest and mostly Sunni Arab city, chanted, "Bush, Bush, hear our refrain: We all love Saddam Hussein!" and "We'll die, we'll die, but the nation will live! And America will fall!"

As Iraq spiraled down into a brutal civil war with massive killing and ethnic cleansing, many Iraqis began to yearn for the oppressive security of the Saddam period. After the destruction of the golden dome of the Shiite Askariya mosque in Samarra last February, Iraqis fell into an orgy of sectarian reprisal killings.

By the time of Saddam's trial, sectarian strife was widespread, and the trial simply made it worse. It was not just the inherent bias of a judicial system dominated by his political enemies. Even the crimes for which he was tried were a source of ethnic friction. Saddam Hussein had had many Sunni Arabs killed, and a trial on such a charge could have been politically savvy. Instead, he was accused of the execution of scores of Shiites in Dujail in 1982. This Shiite town had been a hotbed of activism by the Shiite fundamentalist Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, which was founded in the late 1950s and modeled on the Communist Party. In the wake of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran, Saddam conceived a profound fear of Dawa and similar parties, banning them and making membership a capital crime. Young Dawa leaders such as al-Maliki fled to Tehran, Iran, or Damascus, Syria...

...
Passions did not subside with time. When the death verdict was announced against Saddam in November, Sunni Arabs in Baquba, to the northeast of the capital, staged a big pro-Saddam demonstration. They were attacked by the Shiite police that dominate that mixed city, who killed 20 demonstrators and wounded a similar number. There were also pro-Saddam demonstrations in Fallujah and Mosul. Baghdad had to be put under curfew.

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Juan Cole: - For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body.

1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms).

4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup.

5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union.

6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement....

7) The US gave practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:

8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons.

9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising.


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Cheney faces troubled new year

from The Financial Times

(It couldn't happen to a bigger Dick)

Dick Cheney has forged a reputation as the most powerful but also least visible vice-president in recent history. In the next few weeks, however, he will be forced to fight some of his battles in the open – in the courtroom and on Capitol Hill.

The first test will come in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, charged with lying to a grand jury during an investigation into how a CIA agent’s name was leaked. The trial, due to begin in two weeks, is likely to set an ignominious precedent when Mr Cheney becomes the first vice-president to testify in a trial.

Mr Cheney’s legal team are also steeling themselves for the launch of legislative investigations by the new Democrat-controlled Congress.

In 2004 the vice-president felt confident enough to dismiss questions from Patrick Leahy, then a powerless Democrat, with a lewd invitation for him to do something sexually impossible. Now, he faces political revenge: Mr Leahy, the incoming chairman of the judiciary committee, has said he will issue subpoenas to secure documents that show whether the Bush administration authorised torture as part of its “war on terror”.

He also vowed to look into no-bid Iraq contracts, including those awarded to Halliburton, a company the vice-president once ran. He said: “At the risk of incurring another of Vice-President Cheney’s special season’s greetings, I ask: ‘Where did all the money go?’ ”... http://tinyurl.com/y9d5bt [Open in new window]

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Atrios: Dennis Kucinich Is a Very Silly Person

We all know this to be true. He's very very silly. His silliness has nothing to do with whether he's right or wrong. I don't know if he's really been right about everything, but he's certainly been right about more important stuff in recent years than most of the people on Tim Russert's rolodex. Still, he's a phenomenally silly person, so silly that when he's covered in the media there's tangible eye rolling by the reporters in the copy.

Since his silliness doesn't have much to do with his judgment on important things, it's worth exploring why he's so silly. As we know, you can be wrong about absolutely everything and still be a Very Serious Person Who Is Not Silly At All. Still, poor Dennis. He's very very silly.

He's silly because he talks outside the bounds of acceptable discourse which have been established by The Serious People. He doesn't try to work within these clear boundaries, but instead steps outside of them.

Howard Dean was also branded a very silly person by the Wise Old Men of Washington. He had the temerity to suggest crazy things which were not supposed to be said - the Iraq war was a bad idea, the capture of Saddam Hussein wouldn't make us safer, etc... etc... More
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From the Neil Cavuto Show on (where else) FAUX NEWS:

STUART VARNEY: Well, let me put out something positive about Iraq, if I may for a second. Look, we took the fight to the enemy. We divided the enemy. The enemy is now fighting itself. America’s interest is surely being well-preserved and well-protected. We are in a fact, in a way, winning and preserving our interests.
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Get it? It's worth all the dead & maimed. We created a civil war!
No wonder there's sooo much right wing media. It easy to do. You can say anything, doesn't matter how nonsensical it is.
Left wingers seem bound by the truth, facts, evidence & all that icky stuff. It's like in High School; the difference between passing a history exam or being a cheerleader.
Lies, damn lies & public relations vs what's real.
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Front page of FOX NEWS site. They love their death over there don't they? Ghouls & fools.
Make sure to click on image to enlarge & get the full effect of the bug eyes & skull.
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Robert Fisk:
A dictator created then destroyed by America
Published: 30 December 2006

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created... http://tinyurl.com/tvcfd [Open in new window]
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The Bush legacy: Pierce [Open in new window], Son of Neil[Open in new window].

Maybe this family of degenerate weasels should be disallowed from being part of the US. No matter how stupid the Republican voting base, I don't want to suffer the results. Let's give Texas to Mexico. We'll keep Austin, though. Kind of like Berlin in the middle of E. Germany.
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The leader of the free world? And his crack team?

Tell that to the proverbial man from Mars.

They look like petty criminals from an old episode of the Rockford Files.

Wow. I found a piece by someone else who remembers what Gerry Ford was really all about.

Gerald Ford, Unsentimentally

By Matthew Rothschild

December 27, 2006

Sorry, but I refuse to let my tear ducts open over the death of Gerald Ford.

There’s something profoundly undemocratic and vaguely medieval about the almost mandatory salutes that we, the people, are supposed to offer when a former President dies.

The niceties of custom all too often reinforce the habits of blind obedience to the unworthy wielders of power.

Say no ill of the dead, we are told.

Hogwash. Let’s look at Gerald Ford’s record.

The first thing he did was to pardon Richard Nixon, even though ten days previously he had said that the special prosecutor should proceed against “any and all individuals” and a year before, he averred that “I do not think the public would stand for it.”

The pardon short-circuited the necessary prosecution of Nixon, which would have served as a salutary check on future inhabitants of the Oval Office. Instead, the pardon set a precedent for such flagrant lawbreakers as we have in the White House today.

If impeachment of Bush and Cheney may be just a remote possibility, prosecution and incarceration remain inconceivable. And so Bush and Cheney, thanks to Ford, can float comfortably above the law.

On domestic policy, Ford was a standard issue Republican, vetoing social spending bills, cutting food stamps and housing and education programs, infamously denying aid to New York City while all the while boosting Pentagon spending. And, in a move Bush and Cheney would have applauded, he proposed the nation’s first official secrets act to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized disclosure of classified material.

On foreign policy, Ford was damnable.

He fronted for Pinochet in Chile, and kept aid flowing to that vicious strongman.

And on December 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger flew to Jakarta to meet with dictator Suharto and to give him a green light to invade East Timor.

According to a declassified State Department cable, here was part of their conversation.

Suharto to Ford and Kissinger: “We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.”

Ford: “We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.”

Kissinger: “We understand your problem and the need to move quickly, but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.”

Ford and Kissinger returned to the United States, and Suharto launched his invasion hours later.

Suharto’s invasion and occupation cost the lives of 200,000 Timorese.

But never mind. We’re not supposed to remember those things. Just that Gerry Ford was such a nice guy... http://tinyurl.com/yjxeke [Open in new window]

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Ford was dung. All the boo hoo I've been hearing about him is sickening. He never did a worthwhile thing in his life. Just another wad of fascist dung...
Squeeky fucked up big time.

The history of Indonesia and East Timor is not widely known here in the US. Indeed, the history of the US is not very well known and rarely reported by the Corpulent Media. Very briefly, the first President of Indonesia following their independence ruled for 20 years and in 1965 was overthrown in an "anti-communist" military coup in which a half million or so were killed. Suharto became a close friend to and dependent on US imperialism.

In 1975 Ford and Kissinger gave their approval for Suharto to invade and take over the neighboring country of East Timor, and assured him that the arms supply from the US would continue. Somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 were killed (the 100,000 figure is from a tally of recorded killings) -- a fifth to a third of the population. Independence was nominally restored 1n 1999, but East Timor remains destabilized. http://tinyurl.com/y6lkso [Open in new window]
...
Ford and Kissinger took great pains to assure Suharto that they would not oppose the invasion. Ford was unambiguous: “We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have.” Kissinger did indeed stress that “the use of US-made arms could create problems,” but then added that, “It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self defense or is a foreign operation.” Thus, Kissinger’s concern was not about whether U.S. arms would be used offensively—and hence illegally—but whether the act would actually be interpreted as such—a process he clearly intended to manipulate.(26) In any case, Kissinger added: “It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.”

Indeed, timing and damage control were very important to the Americans, as Kissinger told Suharto: “We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. . . If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home.” Kissinger also asked Suharto if he anticipated a “long guerrilla war,” apparently aware that a quick military success would be easier to spin than a long campaign. Suharto acknowledged that there "will probably be a small guerrilla war" but he was cagey enough not to predict its duration.
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Democrats will soon get a say on Iraq

Congress' new leaders aim to thwart Bush's call for a troop increase. Hearings are planned.

By Noam N. Levey, Times Staff Writer
December 27, 2006

WASHINGTON — After years of playing a marginal role in the Iraq war, congressional Democrats plan to move quickly next month to assert more control and undercut any White House effort to increase troop levels.

As President Bush prepares to outline his plan for Iraq in a major speech in the next few weeks, Democratic leaders will counter with weeks of oversight hearings, summoning military officers, administration officials and foreign policy experts to Capitol Hill.

The Democratic plans put Congress on a collision course with Bush over the direction of the nearly 4-year-old war. And they signal a new phase in a war that had been directed almost exclusively by the White House with little dissent from the GOP-controlled Capitol.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday that he intended to call key administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to testify at as many as a dozen hearings...http://tinyurl.com/y35rlb [Open in new window]
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A great rant. Impassioned & true...

Right Wing Americans are Getting What They Deserve

If there has ever been a case where people have lost the right to complain it is now. The blind faith and catatonic loyalty given to George W. Bush by what has to be the most uninformed political base in human history serves as justification for those of us in the “we told you so” crowd to tell them to shut up and take it like a man. As the average American drowns in the wake of the Bush tsunami I don’t want to hear so much as a peep from the millions who ridiculed the “intellectuals” who tried to warn them about this intellectually inert puppet and his fascist handlers.

As American soldiers and innocent Iraqis die by the hundreds each day, as the true costs of the Bush tax cuts and Medicare overhaul come destroy one family after another, as each child dies from asthma due to relaxed environmental laws, when an accident at a germ warfare facility wipes out a city, when our coastal cities end up under water because we ignored and exacerbated global warming, as new cancers and horrors arise because our food supply has been genetically modified without our permission and when we have to go to war with other nations because the global food chain broke and our seas no longer provide oxygen to breath and there is not enough food and air to support life on earth because our god damn president does not believe in science, every Fox News watching, Limbaugh listening, Hannitized, flag wearing, gay hating right wing Constitution bashing false patriot Bush supporter better shut up and take it because they made it happen! Bush supporters have nobody to blame but themselves and guess what, the rest of us should blame them too.

All I can say is that this is what you get for believing even for a moment what the US corporate media wants you to believe. The rest of us Bush haters are Bush haters for one reason and one reason only; we pay attention! So to my new former Bush supporting friends who seem to be suddenly surrounding me and telling me that I have been right all along: you can tell me I was right but after that shut the hell up because it is too late for forgiveness. From now on, just shut up and listen. Think about it!... http://tinyurl.com/txdec [Open in new window]
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(Attention: Satire alert in effect):

AL JAZEERA NAMES ITS ‘MAN OF THE YEAR’ … IT’S JEW!

In a stunning surprise, exceeding even Time Magazine’s 2006 selection, Al Jazeera has named its “Man of the Year,” and IT’S JEW!

The leading Arab language media conglomerate made clear that its choice was not an endorsement of the Jew, but merely an acknowledgement of the Jew’s evil influence in the world — similar to Time’s selection of Adolph Hitler in 1938. The announcement was made by Al Jazeera’s editors from the Gaza Strip, while running for cover from gunfire between warring Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas.

The cover of Al Jazeera magazine is extremely clever and state-of-the art. It features a mirror, surrounded by an orthodox hat, facial hair, and the long ring-type sideburns known as “payes,” so that anyone picking it up will see themselves as the Zionist devil.

In fact, the device worked so well it even fooled CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien into thinking she was a Hasidic Jew, despite her Latin/Irish heritage... http://tinyurl.com/yk2733 [Open in new window]
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The daily Iraq violence roundup is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers correspondents in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. It's posted without editing as transmitted to McClatchy’s Washington Bureau.

http://tinyurl.com/yeqfa2
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Washington Memo

War Critics See New Resistance by Bush

By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 — Immediately after the beating his party took in November, President Bush indicated that he had received the message that voters wanted change, and that he would serve some up fast. He ousted his defense secretary, announced a full-scale review of his war plan and contritely agreed with critics that progress in Iraq was not happening “well enough, fast enough.”

But in the last two weeks, the critics and even some allies say, they have seen a reversal. Mr. Bush has shrugged off suggestions by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that he enlist the help of Iran and Syria in the effort to stabilize Iraq. Countering suggestions that he begin thinking of bringing troops home, he has engaged in deliberations over whether to send more. And he has adjusted the voters’ message away from Iraq, saying on Wednesday, “I thought the election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation.”...

...

“Jan. 4 is a new day,” this Republican said of the official shift of power in Congress, “and they still think they can control the calendar and the timing. But that’s no longer at their discretion.”

In an interview last week, Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who will become chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he was planning three hearings on Iraq in January. Speaking of the president, Mr. Levin said, “He’s got to now come to Congress with a policy he’s got to adopt, and it’s controlled by people who are pressing for a change in direction in Iraq.”... http://tinyurl.com/y6bepb [Open in new window]

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End of the neo-con dream

By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent

The neo-conservative dream faded in 2006.

The ambitions proclaimed when the neo-cons' mission statement "The Project for the New American Century" was declared in 1997 have turned into disappointment and recriminations as the crisis in Iraq has grown.

"The Project for the New American Century" has been reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee has been left to wrap things up.

The idea of the "Project" was to project American power and influence around the world.

The 1997 statement (written during the administration of President Bill Clinton) said:

"We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities."

...

"Neo-conservatism has gone for a generation, if in fact it ever returns," says one of the movement's critics, David Rothkopf, currently at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, and a former official in the Clinton administration.

"Their signal enterprise was the invasion of Iraq and their failure to produce results is clear. Precisely the opposite has happened," he says.

"The US use of force has been seen as doing wrong and as inflaming a region that has been less than susceptible to democracy.

"Their plan has fallen on hard times. There were flaws in the conception and horrendously bad execution. The neo-cons have been undone by their own ideas and the incompetence of the Bush administration.

"George Bush is about the last neo-conservative standing, Cheney as well maybe. Bush is not an analytical person so he just adopted the neo-cons' philosophy.

"It fitted into his Manichean, his black and white view of the world. After all, he gave up his dissolute youth and was born again as a new man, so it appealed to his character."... http://tinyurl.com/ye6s8b [Open in new window]

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Gotta make sure there's no chance there's a hot coal left. Stamp them out completely, pee on them...

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Probes of Bush policies in works

Mass. lawmakers to launch hearings

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts lawmakers are set to launch a blizzard of investigations in the new Congress, probing issues such as wartime contracting, post-Katrina housing assistance, and the Bush administration's relationship with Cuba and other countries in Latin America...

...

Armed with the power to force sworn testimony for the first time after 12 years in the minority in Congress, members of the state's all-Democratic congressional delegation are positioned to play major roles in investigating policies and actions that cut across the federal government and the business community.

"We could be the Bush administration's worst nightmare come to pass, in terms of the questions we'll be able to ask from positions of power," said Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, the dean of the Massachusetts delegation. "There are a lot of secrets that have been hidden from the American people in terms of the way business has been done for the past six years."

Democrats in general say that when they become the majority party in Congress, they intend to shine a spotlight on administration policies and management, where the Republican power structure has done little to check the authority of the president. With the GOP powerless to stop them, Democrats say, they hope their oversight will protect taxpayer dollars and shape the political agenda going into the 2008 presidential election.

The hearings and investigations planned by Massachusetts' members of Congress will complement and, in some cases, compete with a dizzying array of other investigations Democrats are expected to launch early next year, and Senate committees are expected to be just as active as those in the House... http://tinyurl.com/y8hd5o [Open in new window]

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Yep. That's how it started for 'Tricky' Dick Nixon. Probes, investigations. Not talk of impeachment. Just following the evidence & what happens, happens.

I like the way this sounds. Let's get the bastards...

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Old FBI memo: "It's a Wonderful Life" is commie propaganda

FBI documents from 1947 show that government officials once believed the Christmas movie classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was Communist propaganda. About the FBI memo titled "COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY," Blogger Will Chen writes,

I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.

In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda (read original FBI memo).

According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man... http://tinyurl.com/yf9mf6 [Open in new window]

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"Hi, it's me, George. You're in Iraq & I'm not. Snurk snurk snurk. Hard work. Good heart. Stay the course. Victory. Snurk snurk snurk."

On the first day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
A Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the second day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the third day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the fourth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the fifth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the sixth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the seventh day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the eighth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Eight Hannukah candles
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the ninth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Nine gays a layin’
Eight Hannukah candles
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the tenth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Ten stem cell researchers
Nine gays a layin’
Eight Hannukah candles
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the eleventh day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Eleven Darwin books from Amazon
Ten stem cell researchers
Nine gays a layin’
Eight Hannukah candles
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran

On the twelfth day of the War on Christmas
My multi-cultural enemies gave to me . . .
Twelve Keith Olbermann commentaries
Eleven Darwin books from Amazon
Ten stem cell researchers
Nine gays a layin’
Eight Hannukah candles
Seven illegals swarmin’
Six months of abortion
Five “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”
Four Kwanzaa kinaras
Three French Kerrys
Two lesbian moms
And a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Koran!

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More pics & credits:

http://tinyurl.com/y5t7py [Open in new window]

Wolfowitz owes us an explanation

By Sonni Efron
Sonni Efron is an editor on the opinion pages of The Times.

December 24, 2006

ACCOUNTABILITY is one of those ideals, like justice or the triumph of right over might, that are wonderful in principle but usually disappointing in practice.

This is nowhere more true than in Washington, where one of the most powerful men in President Bush's inner circle, a man who helped conceive, plan and execute the Iraq war, has managed to escape scrutiny for steering his country into one of the greatest strategic catastrophes of his generation.

I am referring, although nobody else does, to Paul Wolfowitz. Remember Wolfowitz, best known to readers of this and other newspapers as the "chief architect of the Iraq war"? Before the war, he was hailed by many as one of the great foreign policy intellectuals of our time. He was a leading defense strategist, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia and the former dean of the School of Advanced Studies at Johns Hopkins University, a man whose views on democracy and the Middle East were taken seriously by both his admirers and his critics. In 2001, Wolfowitz, then 58, was named deputy secretary of Defense, serving as top aide to Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld... http://tinyurl.com/yd58va [Open in new window]

I love a good reprise of the facts:

A brief history of the PNAC: a refresher

Once upon a time in an office rented to them by the American Heritage Foundation, a group of powerful men directly connected to the halls of the capital and the defense and energy industry formed a fringe rightwing organization based loosely on the teachings of Leo Strauss. They called themselves the Project for the New American Century. The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project (both chaired by William Kristol) and as such is largely funded through it. Direct funding for PNAC comes from, but isn’t limited to, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($700,000), the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation ($50,000), and the John M. Olin Foundation ($70,000).

Unsurprisingly these three exceedingly conservative foundations have strong ties to weapons manufacturing and several members of the Project are former CEOs and board members of defense contractors and energy companies. (Halliburton, Trireme, Bechtel, etc.)

These guys drew up a plan for using our role as last remaining super power to expand their respective global markets through force. Specifically, their published documents call for the violent overthrow of regimes around the world that weren’t friendly to their business interests. The plan, as it was drawn out, called for the toppling of Saddam Hussein and seizing control of the Iraqi oil fields. Also, the regime of Afghanistan had to be deposed in order to construct a pipeline to secure access to the natural gas reserves of Central Asia. Once the energy resources were secured, the next step in the plan was to create an archepelago of military bases throught the Middle East and Central Asia as a staging point for further operations including the toppling of Iran and Syria.

On page 52 of a document published by them called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (.pdf), they stated that this plan for global corporate domination hinged upon "a catalyzing catastrophic event, similar to a new Pearl Harbor".

Of course, they also had to be returned to the halls of power in the U.S. government first…

Enter George W. Bush. Upon his selection to the Presidency, George promptly appointed the heirarchy of this organization to the top levels of the whitehouse, the pentagon, and the state department. Once these men were placed into their respective positions, two very interesting things happened.

First, the cabinet level position created by fmr President Bill Clinton of "terrorism Czar" was disbanded and it’s members were reassigned to different duties. This position had previously been meeting at least weekly, specifically on the threat and whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network. The incoming National Security Advisor refused to meet with The fmr "terrorism Czar", Richard Clarke, causing him to send several urgent messages to Nat’l Security Advisor Rice demanding "an immediate meeting regarding the threat of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden". These requests for meetings went unanswered. Dick Cheney himself has been quoted as saying "Richard Clarke was kept "out of the loop". Shortly after 9-11, Rice penned an editorial in the Washington post where she calimed the outgoing Clinton administration made no effort to express the threat posed by Al Qaeda. This claim has since been disproved by the public release of several memos penned by Clarke calling for an immediate meeting on that very subject.

Second, the Bush administration invited the Taliban to the United States to discuss a Unocal natural gas pipeline deal that had been stalled. The Taliban wasn’t invited to Washington, but rather to Sugarland Texas, home of Tom Delay’s district and Unocal headquarters. No deal was reached and the Taliban went home.

The new Pearl Harbor.

With the security apparatus that had been monitoring Al Qaeda effectively disbanded, the network was able to orchestrate and carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. Testifying under oath before the 9-11 commission (which the whitehouse tried to prevent) the Nat’l Security advisor, Condi Rice (Who the Whitehouse also tried to prevent from testifying and then later tried to prevent he from having to testify under oath) testified under oath that the Bush administration had no idea that domestic flights could be highjacked and flown into domestic tagets in a coordinated terrorist attack. Not only did the the famous August 6th PDB seem to refute this in general terms, but also it has come to light that the FAA and the FTA had sent 52 memos to the White House specifically mentioning the impending threat of domestic flights being highjacked and flown into domestic tagets in a coordinated terrorist attack.

Shortly after 9-11, the Taliban regime is toppled, and Hamid Karzai is placed as the President. Karzai is a former Unocal Advisor and CIA asset. Zalmay Khalizad, another Unocal advisor, is placed as the United States envoy to Afghanistan. Shortly after, the natural gas pipeline is finished and Osama Bin Laden is allowed to escape.

http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/Maps%…n_pipelines.jpg

For the next two years, President Bush fails to mention the name Osama Bin Laden in public and instead embarks upon a national media campaign to connect the regime of Saddam Hussein with the threat of terrorism and the terrorist attacks of 9-11. It’s effective enough to persuade a compliant Congress to allow the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Mission Accomplished

The regime of Saddam Hussein is deposed and a puppet regime is installed. Paul Bremer, working as head of the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) issuse a series of orders regarding the rewriting of the Iraqi Constitution in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Orders 39 (.pdf) and 81 give a good deal of insight unto the capitalist utopia that was installed for the benfit of the corporations that fund and support the leadership of the occupying countries. Some examples: Iraqi farmers are no longer allowed to save their own seeds from one harvest to the next. Doing so is now a jailable offense. Some of theses strains of seeds have been cultivated by the Iraqis for thousands of years. Now they must be purchased from Monsanto with every planting season.

Another example is the monopolization of entire sectors of industry by the occupying countries. Telecommunications, insurance, banking, all have wriiten into the Iraqi constitution the 100% foreign ownership by foreign entities and must allow for the 100% expatriation of profits. Call it the Walmartization of Mesopatamia. Similar to the way Wal~Mart comes to town and bankrupts main street and ships all of it’s profits back to Bentonville, AR. American and British companies are now doing the same.

Furthermore, labor unions were outlawed and reconstruction jobs that would normally help to rebuild the economy and employ Iraqis are handed without bidding to well connected American and British corporations. Thus after a year of relative calm, the insurgency erupts and the United States and it’s allies are caught in a quagmire that serves as a catalyst for terrorist recruitment world-wide, a rise in support of violent extremeism and puts us at risk of more terrorist attacks.

U.S. at risk of more terrorist attacks.

Thus justifying the toppling of more regimes and setting the scene for perpetual war.

Who are these men?

Dick Cheney Vice President
Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense
I. Lewis Libby Vice President Cheney’s former Chief of Staff and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs.
Aaron Friedberg Vice President Cheney’s deputy National Security advisor
Robert Zoelick US Deputy Secretary of State
Paula Dobriansky Undersecretary of State
Elliott Abrams Deputy National Security Adviser
Frank Gaffney Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board
Fred C. Ikle Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board
Eliot A. Cohen Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board
Henry S. Rowen Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board
William J. Bennett Presidential speech writer
Jeb Bush Governor of Florida
Paul Wolfowitz World Bank President
John Bolton Frmr Ambassador to the U.N.
Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad Former Envoy to Afghanistan, Current Ambassador to Iraq

http://tinyurl.com/yyhn5l
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It's top list season: Here's a goody from Media Matters of right wing nutjob comments in the media ( because Virginia, there may be a Santa Claus but there's not a 'librul' bias in media, there's a right wing nutjob bias in media):

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: "Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face." [2/9/06]

Fox News host John Gibson: "Do your duty. Make more babies. That's a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days. First, a story yesterday that half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call 'gabachos' -- white people -- are having fewer." [5/11/06]

Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on The New York Times' decision to report on the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program and a Treasury Department financial transaction tracking program: The Times had done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get [Julius and Ethel] Rosenberg[] executed." [7/12/06]

Coulter responding to Hardball host Chris Matthews' question, "How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton's gay?": "I don't know if he's gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore -- total fag." [7/27/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage: "That's why the department store dummy named Wolf Blitzer, a Jew who was born in Israel, will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King, who takes a close runner-up by the hair of a nose. The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." [8/7/06]

Coulter on Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), an African-American: "Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat. Waters also considers Joe 'soft' on the issue of the CIA inventing crack cocaine and AIDS to kill all the black people in America." [8/9/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, blaming America's "obesity crisis" on "the left," "liberal government," and "food stamps": "Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in -- is in government." [8/29/06]

Coulter on Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI): "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln." [8/30/06]

Conservative pundit and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan: "Look, [Rep. Jim] Kolbe [R-AZ] is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. [Rep. Mark] Foley [R-FL] was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages [Jeff Trandahl] was gay. Foley's administrative assistant, Mr. [Kirk] Fordham, The New York Times tell us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What's going on here, Joe [Scarborough, MSNBC host], is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party." [10/9/06]

CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN): "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " [11/14/06]

Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian ... is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?" [12/18/06]

Honorable mentions (also in chronological order):

Beck: "Cindy Sheehan. That's a pretty big prostitute there, you know what I mean?" [1/10/06]

Republican strategist Mary Matalin: "I mean, you know, I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists. And they're keeping constituency, they're keeping their neighborhoods and their African-American brothers enslaved, if you will, by continuing to let them think that they're -- or forced to think that they're victims, that the whole system is against them." [2/8/06]

Pat Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club: "But it does seem that with the current makeup of the court, they still don't have as many judges as would be needed to overturn Roe [v. Wade]. They need one more, and I dare say before the end of this year there will be another vacancy on the court." [3/7/06]

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program: "Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power." [3/17/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz on Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) hairstyle: "She looks like a ghetto slut. ... It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. ... She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. ... She looks like a shih tzu!" [3/31/06]

Boortz on McKinney's hairstyle (again): "I saw Cynthia McKinney's hairdo yesterday -- saw it on TV. I don't blame that cop for stopping her. It looked like a welfare drag queen was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building. That hairdo is ghetto trash. I don't blame them for stopping her." [3/31/06]

Limbaugh discussing a videotape released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq: "[I]t sounds just like the DNC [Democratic National Committee] is writing his scripts now." (4/26/06)

Beck: "Blowing up Iran. I say we nuke the bastards. In fact, it doesn't have to be Iran, it can be everywhere, anyplace that disagrees with me." [5/11/06]

Jonathan Hoenig, managing member of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC, on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto: "I think when it comes to Iran, the problem is we haven't been forceful enough. I mean if you -- frankly, if you want to see the Dow go up, let's get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat." [6/5/06]

Fox host Geraldo Rivera: "I've known [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA] for over 35 years. Unlike me, he is a combat veteran, so he gets some props. But in the last 35 years, I've seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry. And for a smart man like that in a political ploy to set a date certain only aids and abets the enemy, and the Democrats are at their own self-destructive behavior once again." [6/22/06]

Savage: "I don't know why we don't use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out with everyone in there." [7/21/06]

Boortz: "I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage." [8/3/06]

Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas on businessman Ned Lamont's victory in Connecticut's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate: "It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing. ... [T]hey have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to 'kill' one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe." [8/10/06]

Fox News host Sean Hannity, two months before the November midterm elections: "This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] doesn't become the [House] speaker." [8/29/06]

Beck: "The Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians. That's what I thought at 5 o'clock this morning, and I thought, 'Oh, geez, what -- what is this?' If they take over -- the barbarians storm the gate and take over the Middle East (this is what I'm thinking at 5 o'clock in the morning) -- we're going to have to nuke the whole place." [9/12/06]

Savage: "My fear is that if the Democrats win [in the November midterm elections], and I'm afraid that they might, you're going to see America melt down faster that you could ever imagine. It will happen overnight, and it could lead to the breakup of the United States of America, the way the Soviet Union broke up." [10/13/06]

Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Nancy Pelosi's appearance: "I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, 'You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go.' " [10/31/06]

Limbaugh on the Middle East: "Fine, just blow the place up." [11/27/06]

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (on his radio show): "Do I care if the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq? No. I don't care. Let's get our people out of there. Let them kill each other. Maybe they'll all kill each other, and then we can have a decent country in Iraq." [12/5/06]

New York Post columnist Ralph Peters on Iraq Study Group co-chairman James Baker: "The difference is that [Pontius] Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops." [12/7/06]

Conservative syndicated radio host Michael Medved on the animated movie Happy Feet: The film contains "a whole subtext, as there so often is, about homosexuality." [12/11/06]

Fox captions

Additionally, although these are not examples of specific conservative commentators making outrageous comments, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Fox News made a regular practice of attacking Democrats or repeating Republican talking points in on-screen text during its coverage of political issues. Some examples:

"All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" [2/23/06]

"Attacking Capitalism: Have Dems Declared War on America?" [2/18/06]

"Dems Helping the Enemy?" [5/22/06]

"A Lamont Win, Bad News for Democracy in Mideast?"

"Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?"

"Is the Democratic Party Soft on Terror?" [8/8/06]

"The #1 President on Mideast Matters: George W Bush?" [8/14/06]

"Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?" [8/16/06]

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http://tinyurl.com/ymhb98 [Open in new window]

Quote of the Day

"Liberals are like people with stale breath talking into your face at a party. You try backing away from them or offering them gum, but then they just start whimpering. They've been using the exact same talking points about how we're losing in Iraq since before we invaded.

"It seems they've finally succeeded in exhausting Americans and, thereby, handing a victory to al-Qaida." -- Ann Coulter, whose argument on the war now essentially seems to be damning liberals -- she refers to them as "al-Qaida in America" -- for being, well, so damn right about the war.

Also, we know we probably shouldn't indulge her, but we couldn't resist pointing out this part of her column:

"[I]f my plans had been implemented, the anti-war crowd would be weeping about Iraqi civilian deaths so much they wouldn't have time to pretend they gave a damn about the loss of American lives."

She doesn't say exactly which plan she's referring to, but we can guess. It's probably this one: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians."...
http://tinyurl.com/3uj5p [Open in new window]

Source says 'outsider' Gates prepped for confirmation by Cheney's office
by Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Friday December 22, 2006

Newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates may not be as independent from the Bush administration when it comes to matters of defense as some have suggested, considering that one well-placed source tells RAW STORY Gates was briefed for his Senate confirmation hearings by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

...according to a former high ranking CIA official close to the key players, Gates was prepped for his Senate confirmation hearings by high level Cheney staffers, including David Addington, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, and David Wurmser, Cheney's Middle East advisor.

...

News reports Tuesday confirming the deployment plans for a second gulf carrier make more clear than ever that the US buildup in the Gulf is in direct response to perceived threats from Iran.

Trita Parsi, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins University who studied under former Neo-conservative philosopher and economist Francis Fukuyama, says that he finds these developments very "concerning." Parsi says that he is particularly concerned by the placement of ships in the region as a deterrent, coupled with the already increased activity from the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries.

"It is coinciding with increased arms sales to the GCC states, as well as efforts by some of these GCC states to get the US to take sides in the Iraqi civil war," Parsi told RAW STORY. "If Washington chooses to do so, the risk for a regional war will be considerable. The Bush Administration's allergy towards talking to Iran is increasing tensions in the region by the minute at a time when things already are too explosive."

Another CIA official reiterates what has been already reported here and in and other publications for the past year, that "Cheney has promised that Iran will be taken care of by spring [of 2007]."... http://tinyurl.com/ydz9rx [Open in new window]

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When the Press Dropped the Ball on Haditha

Haditha is back on the front pages with news that eight marines now face serous charges for the alleged massacre in Iraq. But the press showed remarkably modest interest in the subject after it was first reported last March.



By Greg Mitchell


(December 22, 2006) -- Haditha is back on the front pages, with the announcement on Thursday that four marines were being charge with murder in the alleged 2005 massacre of 24 villagers in Iraq, with four officers hit with serious dereliction of duty charges. Since this case has been simmering for many months now, with repeated press references (as other possible atrocities surfaced), it may seem as if the media has bird-dogged this episode from the start.


In fact, the media dropped the ball at the start - helped by a military cover-up -- and it stayed off the radar for quite some time... http://tinyurl.com/y5udf4 [Open in new window]
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Synopsis of Haditha charges: http://tinyurl.com/yxrktn [Open in new window]
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THE 'PUNK' pRESIDENT:

Whenever I hear President Bush tell another lie (or read that he has told another lie) I'm reminded of the Liar-in-Chief's former professor at the Harvard Business School, Yoshi Tsurumi, and his spot-on recollection of this president's punk past. According to Professor Tsurumi, Bush "showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases.

He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him." [Mary Jacoby, "The Dunce," Salon.com, 16 September 2004]

Tsurumi concluded: "Behind his smile and his smirk...he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy." "He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion." [Ibid] In conservative Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where I grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, such people were called "punks."

Perhaps, it's fair to say that the world would be a much better and safer place if America's mainstream news media had challenged Bush as much as Professor Tsurumi and his classmates did. Alas, it let the punk candidate slide during his first run for president, notwithstanding such smug and asinine assertions as: "I may not know where Kosovo is, but I know what I believe." Thus, alas, many Americans voted for an admitted alcoholic (and, allegedly, a former drug using) twit, who would come to believe that God spoke directly to him and wanted him to be president... http://tinyurl.com/y5oszo [Open in new window]

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Behind Bush's "new way forward"

A battered group of neocons delivered the president his latest war plan, letting him reject the grave warnings of the Iraq Study Group and deny that we're losing the war.

By Sidney Blumenthal - Salon

Dec. 20, 2006 | ""We're going to win," President Bush told a guest at a White House Christmas party. Another guest, ingratiating himself with his host, urged him to ignore the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former secretary of state and his father's close associate, which described the crisis in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating," and offered 79 recommendations for diplomacy, transferring responsibility to the Iraqi government and withdrawing nearly all U.S. troops by 2008. "The president chuckled," according to an account in the neoconservative Weekly Standard, "and said he'd made his position clear when he appeared with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The report had never mentioned the possibility of American victory. Bush's goal in Iraq, he said at the photo op with Blair, is 'victory.'" Bush reasserted his belief that "victory in Iraq is achievable" at his Wednesday press conference.

Two members of the ISG were responsible for George W. Bush's becoming president. Baker had maneuvered through the thicket of the 2000 Florida contest, finally bringing Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court, where Sandra Day O'Connor was the deciding vote. (Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker reported that she had complained before hearing the case that she wanted to retire but did not want a Democrat to appoint her replacement.) Through the Iraq Study Group Baker and O'Connor were attempting to salvage what they had made possible in Bush v. Gore. Upon Bush's receipt of the report, a White House spokesman told the press, "Jim Baker can go back to his day job."

The day after the report was submitted, on Dec. 8, Tony Blair appeared at the White House. He had testified before the Baker Commission, and supported its main proposals, but now stood beside Bush as the president tossed them aside, talking instead of "victory." "The president isn't standing alone," explained White House press secretary Tony Snow. Blair left to pursue a vain mission for Middle East peace, emphasizing by his presence the U.S. absence. His predetermined failure outlined the dimensions of the vacuum that only the U.S. could fill. On Dec. 18, Chatham House, the former Royal Institute of International Affairs, issued a report on Blair's foreign policy: "The root failure of Tony Blair's foreign policy has been its inability to influence the Bush administration in any significant way despite the sacrifice -- military, political and financial -- that the United Kingdom has made."

The day before the Chatham House report was released former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on CBS News' "Face the Nation" to announce his support for the rejected Iraq Study Group and declare, "We are not winning, we are losing." He made plain his opposition to any new "surge" of troops in Baghdad, a tactic he said had already been tried and failed. Powell added that Bush had not explained "the mission" and that "we are a little less safe."... http://tinyurl.com/ylq6gu [Open in new window]
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Who knew?
Who knew GWB used to be a James Brolin imitater?

Devil horns? Halo? Or just the presidential seal? You decide & then get back to me. I'll wait here.

Podhoretz on Bush: even the Neo-Con scum are starting to hate him.

DUBYA IN THE DUMPS

By JOHN PODHORETZ

December 21, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, at a press conference that was unquestionably the most dispirited performance of his presidency, President Bush implicitly answered a question many close Bush watchers had asked after the thumpin' the Republican Party took in November.

The question was this: How would Bush, who himself had only suffered electoral success since seeking higher office in 1994, handle defeat? The answer: Not well.

"I encourage you all to go shopping more," he said - expressing a strange anxiety about the economy's retail sales after he had just trumpeted how strong those sales had been and how strong the economy has been in general.

Asked about the pregnancy of Mary Cheney, his vice president's lesbian daughter, Bush offered a response that contradicted itself three times in the course of three sentences: "On the - on Mary Cheney, this is a personal matter for the vice president and his family. I strongly support their privacy on the issue, although there's nothing private when you happen to be the president or the vice president. I recognize that."

And on Iraq, he said things were tough, and were going to continue to be tough; that he had said we were winning earlier in the fall but now recognized we weren't winning - and asked for patience as he consulted with his advisers and Democrats about a new way forward there.

So in a few months, the president has gone from taking the position that the public needed to hear him speak optimistically about Iraq to speaking in quite dour terms about Iraq without offering anything but a hope that in a few weeks, he'll come up with a new strategy.

It really would have been better had he not come forward to face the press at all - because he did nothing except underline and echo a powerful sense of uncertainty throughout his own government about how to achieve victory.

As usual, the president took pains to warn the enemy in Iraq that "they can't intimidate America." But, by offering no real sense that he knows what "the way forward in Iraq" is, he seemed unsteady - and unsteadiness is exactly the quality that should and will gladden the hearts of the enemy in Iraq.

If you combine the effect of yesterday's press conference with his remarkably depressing interview with The Washington Post the day before - when he said that victory was "achievable" in Iraq, a defeatist word that must have had Winston Churchill rolling in his grave - you can't help but feel that Bush has had the stuffing knocked out of him by the twin blows of the November election results and the bloody chaos in Baghdad.

Yet this is not a moment when we or the troops in Iraq can afford to have a winded and stunned president.

Bush is in an extraordinarily tight spot - but his failure to take the lead and win the day in Iraq will not be his failure alone. It will be a blow to America from which we will require a decade or more to recover.

And, Mr. President, in the absence of a terrorist attack that threatens worldwide commerce, the shopping habits of Americans are really and truly none of your business... http://tinyurl.com/vehbr [Open in new window]

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The Retreat from Empiricism and Ron Suskind's Intellectual Scoop
by Jay Rosen
at Huffington Post
December 20th 2006


Even realism has an obligation to be realistic. --George Packer.

The only piece of political journalism ever to make me cry was Ron Suskind's article, Without a Doubt, published in the New York Times Magazine shortly before the 2004 election. It was in that article that the famous passage appeared quoting a senior administration official on the myopia of the "reality-based community" when it came to understanding the government of George W. Bush.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about that article because the "realist" school in foreign policy is thought to be back in charge. The release of the Iraq Study Group's report on December 6th and the re-emergence of James Baker, famous for being pragmatist, a realist, and a fixer, were the triggers for this observation. The Guardian's report was typical: "This is a return to the realist policy of Mr. Bush's father."

Dan Froomkin said the report and reactions to it "marked a restoration of reality in Washington."

Realist, a classic term in foreign policy debates, and reality-based, which is not a classic term but more of an instant classic, are quite different ideas. We shouldn't fuzz them up. The press is capable of doing that--fuzzing things up--because it never came to terms with what Suskind reported in 2004. Of course, neither did the political system. Or the Republican party, or its sensible wing-- the elders, the responsible people... http://tinyurl.com/tj5ye [Open in new window]

We're not winning but we're not losing either so let's send more troops and not win or lose some more...or something.

Tomorrow's TIMES today. It's all as clear as mud: (but maybe the professional military man knows better than the trust-fund bozo.)

President Wants to Increase Size of Armed Forces

By THOM SHANKER and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — President Bush said Tuesday that the United States should expand the size of its armed forces, acknowledging that the military had been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would need to grow to cope with what he suggested would be a long battle against Islamic extremism.

“I’m inclined to believe it’s important and necessary to do,” Mr. Bush said. He said this was an “accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while, and that we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and help us achieve peace.”

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General Opposes Adding to U.S. Forces in Iraq, Emphasizing International Solutions for Region

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — As the new secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, takes stock of the war in Iraq this week, he will find Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior commander in the Middle East, resistant to increasing the American fighting force there.

General Abizaid acknowledges that additional American forces, favored by some of President Bush’s top advisers, might provide a short-term boost in security. But he argues that foreign troops are a toxin bound to be rejected by Iraqis, and that expanding the number of American troops merely puts off the day when Iraqis are forced to take responsibility for their own security.

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