Lancaster County in Mourning. The Amish are the most amazing people. If only the whole world were like this, we'd have peace on earth. "I was thinking... of how these people who do absolutely nothing to bring attention to themselves are now a candle on the hill for the whole world to see. It's an impressive thing to witness." - comment from the Daily Herald of Utah.
Blessed are the peacemakers. This is exactly the reaction that Christ would have had in this situation. What happened here is a lesson for all of us. In light of the recent tragedies in the one-room schoolhouse, with ten little girls shot and five murdered by an outsider, the fact that members of victims' families actually went to comfort the murderer's father and wife — is astonishing. They forgave the family of the murderer. This is a supreme example of Christ's power of forgiveness.
I believe this incident is an example for us to follow; it's as if God had no other way of getting our attention: this is the way we are to treat our enemies, this is how we must behave in the wake of "terrorist attacks." When will we ever get it? (And me included?) Hatred, retaliation and revenge only cause more of the same, as we are learning in Iraq. True forgiveness of one's enemies, heals all.
"This isn't surprising. It is common for the Amish to invite car drivers who have killed one of their community members to the funeral. Such a compassionate response reveals a belief that each individual is responsible to counter violence by expressing comfort - a sort of prayer in action. After Monday's killings, the grandfather of one of the slain girls went to the home of Roberts's father, consoling and hugging him, pouring forth a love and innocence of the kind remembered of the girls in the school. "He extended the hope of forgiveness that we all need these days," said a Roberts family spokesman, the Rev. Dwight Lefever of Living Faith Church of God. "'God met us in that kitchen." - The Christian Science Monitor
"The Amish are exhibiting what all the Giant religions that surround them talk about but for some reason have been unable to magnify... I pray for myself that I can magnify forgiveness in my life to the degree that the Amish have made part of their daily existence." - comment from Daily Herald.
And this comment: "Some of us outside of the Amish community have had horrific things happen in our families and chosen to take the high road because of the desire to live our religious beliefs-- we've chosen forgiveness instead of lawsuits and revenge." And although I will be the first to admit my flawed character, I've had the opportunity to forgive placed before me by something huge happening in my life, and I like to think I passed the test. Please give some credit to at least a portion of those people who belong to the "giant religions" out there. They aren't all hypocrites. Are they?"
Now if only America could pass that test. Imagine the beautiful repercussions. We as Christians should be modeling this behavior in our everyday lives. I know that I personally need to be better at this myself. I know that my first reaction is to get mad when somebody does something to me that I do not like. Instead of getting mad, I need to follow Christ’s example and forgive. [...]
And then there's MOBY, pop music superstar who has sold more than 15 million records, unapologetically follows the true Christ. Moby’s willingness to also walk the walk – evident in his ongoing commitment to simple living and so-called “Robin Hood-style philanthropy” – are indeed a unique representation of seeking, while in the spotlight, to follow Jesus – whom Moby sees as “essentially a homeless anarchist.”
"Everything is Complicated" Listen to Part I of the Moby Audio Interview at MOBY SOJOURNERS INTERVIEW
From Sojourners: "Although Moby had his 1999 smash Play listed as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” and generally found worldwide success, he has never quite fit into the typical boxes of celebrity. For this former punk-rocker turned underground electronic music phenomenon, being up front about his ideals isn’t a problem – even when they're diametrically opposed to those typically seen from the rich and famous.
Moby’s album liner notes (which cover everything from the Religious Right to veganism to global warming), and his outspokenness in venues ranging from the Grammys, MTV, and panel discussions on faith and politics, are a handful of examples of his willingness to “talk the challenging talk.” Given his success (Go: The Very Best of Moby is set to release later this month on Mute Records)....
On a windy September afternoon in New York City, Moby talked with Sojourners about the ways in which his faith and ideology affect his lifestyle, art, and activism. Sitting on the roof of his Little Italy apartment, he grappled with being a “clueless Christian,” how his thoughts and work have changed throughout his career, and seeking God’s will – even while being scared of it. What follows is the first in a series of exclusive SojoMail podcasts featuring Moby on various topics, the first of which centers around his faith journey. - John Potter is executive scheduler at Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
From the PADutch website, "In a clash of two completely different cultures, an armed man entered a local Lancaster County school on Monday, October 2nd, tied up 10 innocent children, and killed five of them before taking his own life.
Loss of any innocent life is devastating. Unjustified. Inexcusable. But the contrast in this particular shooting is striking because this was an Amish school and the Amish are about as non-violent a people as there are.They have even earned the nickname "the Gentle People".
All of Lancaster County mourns the loss of these young girls and terrible affect this has had on so many lives. We request your prayers for the families of the children who died, as well as those children and adults who have lived through this terrible ordeal. We also ask your prayers for the wife and three young children of the man who committed this senseless act. They, too, will have to live with this for the rest of their lives.
For SPIRITUAL SOLUTIONS to the world crises, along with some amazing prayer miracles in the next few weeks, please check out RADICAL PRAYER at my other blog THE PEACEMAKERS* LIGHT OF TRUTH
You can reach my Home page at: LYDIA CORNELL
And we uncover the truth about Ann Coulter like no one has ever done before at: COULTER KAMPF where you can also find breaking news about hate-speak, extremism, propaganda and smear tactics.
"We all have built into us the capacities for kindness and creativity and beauty. It's a matter of perspective. As Einstein said, "The single most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not to believe that the universe is friendly." It's our choice.
LYDIA CORNELL: AFI Best Actress Nominee, People's Choice Award winner; Actor, Writer, Director, Producer; woman and children advocate; teen mentor, comedienne, talk show host, inspirational pubic speaker best known for her starring role on ABC's "Too Close for Comfort" as TV legend Ted Knight's daughter 'Sara'; HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and over 250 shows, episodes and movies worldwide. Turns tragedy into comedy, life-saving issues for women and equal pay for equal work...
Here. This is a letter from a US Marine serving his second tour in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteThis letter is creating quite a stir, as it paints an extremely different picture than what the Bush administration is painting.
Perhaps Ann Coulter should sit down and read this letter, cause it says she's full of shit too.
The Letter
All: I haven't written very much from Iraq. There's really not much to write about. More exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it.
The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it's a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that's worth reading. Worse, this place just consumes you.
I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It's like this every day.
Before I know it, I can't see straight, because it's 0400 and I've been at work for 20 hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven't written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It's not really like Ground Hog Day, it's more like a level from Dante's Inferno.
In this letter, the Marine offers up some "Most of" points.
ReplyDeleteHere are a few interesting ones.
Most Profound Man in Iraq —
an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."
Here. This excerpt is for the thing calling itself Rusty, who continually dismisses Clifs years of service in the Military and often refers to Clif as a coward, simply because he disagrees with him.
ReplyDeleteBravest Guy in al-Anbar Province — Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech).
How'd you like a job that required you to defuse bombs in a hole in the middle of the road that very likely are booby-trapped or connected by wire to a bad guy who's just waiting for you to get close to the bomb before he clicks the detonator?
Every day. Sanitation workers in New York City get paid more than these guys.
Talk about courage and commitment.
Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province — Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech).
ReplyDeleteGuess that about says it all huh?
Here. This ones a keeper. Picture Condoleecher Rice.
ReplyDeleteBiggest Hassle — High-ranking visitors.
More disruptive to work than a rocket attack.
VIPs demand briefs and "battlefield" tours (we take them to quiet sections of Fallujah, which is plenty scary for them).
Our briefs and commentary seem to have no effect on their preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq.
Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here.
Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here.
ReplyDeleteWow.
That says a mouthful.
Well, I'm sure Ann Coulter will straigten out this COMBAT Marine.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure she will illuminate his cowardice, and have him branded a traitor. Then Rusty can go show what a man he is and beat him up.
And this ones a keeper.
ReplyDeleteBiggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted.
Biggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly.
Pentagon to probe Gitmo beatings claim
ReplyDeleteBy THOMAS WATKINS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.
The Pentagon said Friday that it will investigate a Marine's sworn statement that guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as a common practice.
The Marine, a paralegal who was at the U.S. Navy station in Cuba last month, alleges that several guards she talked to at the base club said they routinely hit detainees.
"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees."
Lydia, can you go 10 minutes without saying the words Christ. Reading your blogs is like watching the courtroom scenes from Inherit the Wind. You are too Chritian to be white woman in Beverly Hills. Usually to hear someone invoke Christs name as often as you, you have to go to the black churches in the deep south where the women end every sentence with "Thank you, Jesus"
ReplyDeleteWow! Nine in a row! Welcome to the All Worfeus All The Time Blog. It's easy to understand why Worf was kicked out of all the other lib blogs for spamming.
ReplyDeleteCliffy boy is gonna hafta git busy if he expects to out-nerd worf with tedious, non-stop, mind-numbing left-wing tripe.
Well somebody has to backfill for you poor puggies.
ReplyDeleteWith you guys off lickin your wounds, I might as well take advantate of the open board.
Besides, I couldn't help notice you still have NOTHING to say.
Other than to bitch about me posting stuff.
Why don't you try "reading" what I posted?
Oh yea, you guys don't do truth.
A United States Marine serving in the hottest areas of Iraq writes a letter like that, and what do the righty whiteys do?
ReplyDeleteCome in and bitch like little girls.
Cause thats all they got.
And the FOOLE who came in here to give it to the "liberals" is reduced to the Dusty Pimpleton role of snide remarks.
ReplyDeleteFitting as your debating skills are slightly lacking unless your really a high school repug in training....son.
More like Jr High.
ReplyDeleteYou know, the liberals have been on the receiving end like never before, for 6 years. And that didn't stop us from fighting for our point.
ReplyDeleteThe republicans on the other hand can't handle the failure. They're off licking their wounds, and when they come in, they can't defend anything, so they just try juvinile insults.
No argument. No point. Just a silly little girls taunt.
Whooopdeeeedoo.
The republicans have held an unprecedented magority rule of all three branches of Government for the last 6 years, and what did they accomplish?
ReplyDelete6 years of unprecedented control, and they made nothing but one big mess. One big giant clusterfuk.
Worfeus I found the program they must be using;
ReplyDeleteThe Five Stages of (GOP) Death
The Five Stages of (GOP) Death
By Nancy Greggs
DENIAL:
There was no vote tampering, voter suppression, or vote machine manipulation in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Bush won fair and square.
No one could possibly have anticipated using commercial airlines as missiles. No one could possibly have anticipated that the levees would be breached. No one could possibly have anticipated that there would be a strong insurgency.
There was no cherry-picking of intelligence. We all honestly believed that Iraq had WMDs.
We never implied that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.
We never implied that we knew where the WMDs were.
ANGER:
If you disagree with the Administration’s policies you are not a patriot!!!
If you don’t get behind the president, you are aiding and abetting the enemy!!!
The anti-war crowd is jubilant every time a US soldier is killed in Iraq, because they want the terrorists to win!!!
BARGAINING:
Just give up a few of your freedoms, and we’ll protect you in exchange. Trust us.
Tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations will trickle down to the middle class, so it’s a win-win situation. Trust us.
Outsourcing American jobs will actually mean more high-paying jobs here at home. Trust us.
Let us put the country into debt – it will actually strengthen the economy. Trust us.
Spying on American citizens is unlawful, but don’t you want to give the president the tools he needs to keep America safe? Trust us.
Torture is a terrible thing; but isn’t it worth it, if it saves American lives? Trust us.
DEPRESSION:
N.I.E. Report: “US War in Iraq Fuels Terrorism”
Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial” hits bookstores
Abramoff emails show ties to White House stronger and more far-reaching than previously reported
Foley resigns amidst sex scandal involving under-age boys; higher-ups implicated in cover-up
Vital information withheld from 9-11 Commission starts surfacing
Polls show steadily increasing gains for Democrats within weeks of mid-terms
ACCEPTANCE:
November 7, 2006
RIP, GOP.
Looks like you might have a few customers soon, like Nov 8th
Hey clippy, I found an excellent article from Ann Coulter about the Foley outrage. Normally I would be considerate and just post a link for those who would like to read it. But I know how you luv voluminous cut-and-pastes:
ReplyDeleteWHO KNEW CONGRESSMAN FOLEY WAS A CLOSETED DEMOCRAT?
At least liberals are finally exhibiting a moral compass about something. I am sure that they'd be equally outraged if Rep. Mark Foley were a Democrat.
The object lesson of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to male pages is that when a Republican congressman is caught in a sex scandal, he immediately resigns and crawls off into a hole in abject embarrassment. Democrats get snippy.
Foley didn't claim he was the victim of a "witch-hunt." He didn't whine that he was a put-upon "gay American." He didn't stay in Congress and haughtily rebuke his critics. He didn't run for re-election. He certainly didn't claim he was "saving the Constitution." (Although his recent discovery that he has a drinking problem has a certain Democratic ring to it.)
In 1983, Democratic congressman Gerry Studds was found to have sexually propositioned House pages and actually buggered a 17-year-old male page whom he took on a trip to Portugal. The 46-year-old Studds indignantly attacked those who criticized him for what he called a "mutually voluntary, private relationship between adults."
When the House censured Studds for his sex romp with a male page, Studds — not one to be shy about presenting his backside to a large group of men — defiantly turned his back on the House during the vote. He ran for re-election and was happily returned to office five more times by liberal Democratic voters in his Martha's Vineyard district. (They really liked his campaign slogan: "It's the outfit, stupid.")
Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy referred to Studds' affair with a teenage page as "a brief consenting homosexual relationship" and denounced Studds' detractors for engaging in a "witch-hunt" against gays: "New England witch trials belong to the past, or so it is thought. This summer on Cape Cod, the reputation of Rep. Gerry Studds was burned at the stake by a large number of his constituents determined to torch the congressman for his private life."
Meanwhile, Foley is hiding in a hole someplace.
No one demanded to know why the Democratic speaker of the House, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, took one full decade to figure out that Studds was propositioning male pages.
But now, the same Democrats who are incensed that Bush's National Security Agency was listening in on al-Qaida phone calls are incensed that Republicans were not reading a gay congressman's instant messages.
Let's run this past the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: The suspect sent an inappropriately friendly e-mail to a teenager — oh also, we think he's gay. Can we spy on his instant messages? On a scale of 1 to 10, what are the odds that any court in the nation would have said: YOU BET! Put a tail on that guy — and a credit check, too!
When Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee found unprotected e-mails from the Democrats about their plan to oppose Miguel Estrada's judicial nomination because he was Hispanic, Democrats erupted in rage that their e-mails were being read. The Republican staffer responsible was forced to resign.
But Democrats are on their high horses because Republicans in the House did not immediately wiretap Foley's phones when they found out he was engaging in e-mail chitchat with a former page about what the kid wanted for his birthday.
The Democrats say the Republicans should have done all the things Democrats won't let us do to al-Qaida — solely because Foley was rumored to be gay. Maybe we could get Democrats to support the NSA wiretapping program if we tell them the terrorists are gay.
On Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes" Monday night, Democrat Bob Beckel said a gay man should be kept away from male pages the same way Willie Sutton should have been kept away from banks. "If Willie Sutton is around some place where a bank is robbed," Beckel said, "then you're probably going to say, 'Willie, stay away from the robbery.'"
Hmmmm, let's search the memory bank. In July 2000, the New York Times "ethicist" Randy Cohen advised a reader that pulling her son out of the Cub Scouts because they exclude gay scoutmasters was "the ethical thing to do." The "ethicist" explained: "Just as one is honor bound to quit an organization that excludes African-Americans, so you should withdraw from scouting as long as it rejects homosexuals."
We need to get a rulebook from the Democrats:
— Boy Scouts: As gay as you want to be.
— Priests: No gays!
— Democratic politicians: Proud gay Americans.
— Republican politicians: Presumed guilty.
— White House press corps: No gays, unless they hate Bush.
— Active-duty U.S. military: As gay as possible.
— Men who date Liza Minelli: Do I have to draw you a picture, Miss Thing?
This is the very definition of political opportunism. If Republicans had decided to spy on Foley for sending overly friendly e-mails to pages, Democrats would have been screaming about a Republican witch-hunt against gays. But if they don't, they're enabling a sexual predator.
Talk to us Monday. Either we'll be furious that Republicans violated the man's civil rights, or we'll be furious that they didn't.
-Ann Coulter
Yuk, the smell of liberal hypocrisy and old gym shoes...
Things they Share
ReplyDeleteBill Frist disclosed that he went to animal shelters and pretended to adopt the cats, telling shelter personnel he intended to keep them as pets. Instead he used them to sharpen his surgical skills, killing them in the process.
James Dobson: When I returned I held up the belt and again told my angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground, so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end and he tried to bite the belt. The tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast… I eventually got him to bed, but only because I outwieighed him 200 to 12.
Albert DeSalvo (the Boston Strangler) In his youth he trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes.
Jeffrey Dahmer staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs.
Henry Lee Lucas As a child, he killed every cat on his parent’s farm.
David Berkowitz killed his neighbour’s Labrador retriever
Try again Foole, Fox tried THAT lie days ago......
ReplyDeleteOut Of The Woodwork
ReplyDeleteby digby
I know this will come as a great shock to everyone, but it appears that Hastert may have lied about what he knew and when he knew it.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.
The staff member said Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley's behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.
Hastert and his chief of staff Palmer are very close; they are roomates during the week in Washington. It just doesn't seem to be to be too likely to me that Palmer never mentioned all the warnings he received about Foley. I know the Speaker is a busy fellow and all, but somebody preying on the pages just seems like something that would come up, if only as gossip. Which is probably how it did come up because they didn't seem inclined to do a damned thing about it.
And then there's this:
The divergent accounts have highlighted the holes in the public's understanding of Foley's undoing. And they are sure to ratchet up the pressure on Trandahl to come forward with his knowledge of events. As House clerk between January 1999 and November 2005, Trandahl had direct control over the page program.
Pages apparently saw Trandahl as a strict disciplinarian. In one instant-message exchange obtained by The Post, a former page, on his way to his first annual reunion in Washington, told Foley in January 2003 that "everyone is going to be pretty wasted a lot of the time in dc."
He then added, "well we dont have the [expletive] clerk to fire us anymore. . . . we didnt like trandahl that much . . . he isnt a nice guy . . . and he gets really scarey when he is mad."
Trandahl's departure came within days of his confrontation with Foley over e-mails that the congressman had sent a former page. House aides say the circumstances of Trandahl's exit were oddly quiet. The departure of a staff member of long standing, especially one as important as the House clerk, is usually marked with considerable fanfare, said Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Debate is suspended in mid-afternoon to accommodate a stream of testimonials from lawmakers.
Trandahl's departure was marked by a one-minute salute from Shimkus and a brief insert into the Congressional Record.
"My one-hour Special Order changed to a five-minute Special Order, now to a one-minute," Shimkus said. "I just want to say thank you for the work you have done."
Lilly said: "He seemed to suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke."
.
What's up with that, do you suppose?
Update: I hear on the grapevine that the next hilariously lame GOP excuse is that --- you guessed it --- the emails are forgeries. I'm not kidding.
And BTW Foole Anny Tranny is not what IT seems to be, but just somebody who plays a dumb bigot for the money, too bad you do it for free.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that you would at least get money for acting so stupid, unless it is not an act.
ReplyDeleteBut you can take solace in the fact you tried to seem intelligent, until you started typing then the jig was up.
ReplyDeleteMan FF.
ReplyDeleteYou really are pathetic.
That peice of shit from that queen bitch whose ass you suck was posted twice already in here dumbass.
I realize you're too stupid to think of anything to say yourself, but if you're gonna post nazi talking points, at least come up with some new ones.
And preferbly something from a human being, not that walking shitstain you call master.
Don't get mad foole, it's not your fault. Your just the smartest they had at the time....so it is not your fault you can't hang here with us, but have to resort to posting a fake, who is playing as a dumb shrill bigot for the money......because you can not come up with them but just recycle what you found on the net BY others.
ReplyDeletePoor trolls.
ReplyDeleteThey're like Cylons.
Got nothing to say. They're all losing it trying to coordinate with the head Cylon.
When they're in trouble, they waltz out that queen bitch, which is exactly what the right wing did this week, putting that reincarnated Eva Braun on display on any B channel show that would have her carcass stink up their studio.
ReplyDeleteYou know what the ultimate irony of the Foley affair in coingress is gonna be, worfeus. He resigned before the congress began investigating this. THEY can not touch him, just members, officers and employees, NOT former members. So if they find anything wrong it is because they did not try to get him while he was in congress.
ReplyDeleteKARMA is a bitch ain't she, and repugs have not treated her real well this year.
The second part of the irony is the fact that threr is NO target of this investigation...it could go anywhere..and claim anybody as a target.
ReplyDeleteSo the repugs are really wondering what slime it will uncover. And who will fall to it's open ended scope.
New Yorker has a new article coming out BY Stephen Colbert, about the wingnut brain, and it has some about Anny Tranny by him. Why he would never ask IT to appear on his show, he only wants ONE actor on stage at a time....HIM... and HE of all people should know if it is an act.
ReplyDeleteBAD news FOOLE, the American people see through idiots like YOU.
ReplyDeleteLatest Newsweek poll: For the first time since 2001, more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror.
-- TPM Reader DK
A majority of the American people think the repug mantra of family values is a fraud, which means they realise it has always been a fraud.
And they also think YOU A$$CLOWNS are weaker on the war on terra.....ain't it grand?
BTW foole it is commin down to whether Hastert or his chief of staff is a liar:
ReplyDeleteA current Congressional staffer backs up Kirk Fordham's claims that Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was notified about Foley concerns in '03:
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.
On Wednesday night, Palmer was described as highly emotional while aides sifted through e-mails and files to determine whether he had ever spoken to Fordham. Several people who spoke with Palmer said the chief of staff was emphatic in denying that he knew anything about Foley's questionable contacts with young male pages.
Trandahl's departure came within days of his confrontation with Foley over e-mails that the congressman had sent a former page. House aides say the circumstances of Trandahl's exit were oddly quiet. The departure of a staff member of long standing, especially one as important as the House clerk, is usually marked with considerable fanfare, said Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Debate is suspended in mid-afternoon to accommodate a stream of testimonials from lawmakers.
So does Denny throw HIM under the BUS, or DOES he know TOO MUCH?
Only Way to the Truth---Torture Hastert
ReplyDeleteIs there anything worse, in the minds of most Americans than being a sexual predator to underage kids? Why it's right up there with rape and murder. Finding out who in Congress knew about Foley, when did they know it, and why didn't they do anything about it is as important to the nation as finding out who was behind 9/11.
Are our children worth less?
There's only one way to get this information. Send Foley, Hastert, Boehner, and the rest of them to Guantanamo and torture the information out of them.
I mean, that's this administration's policy, isn't it? Why restrict it to Muslims? Why not just expand it to all involved in anti-social activities, especially one as serious as this.
That we'd have to build a double-wide waterboard for Hastert is beside the point.
Habeas Corpus? Pfaff! If President Bush can waive it for Muslims, he can waive it for those who prey on our children, right?
It's the policy of the administration that Bush has the power to choose whom to torture. It's only logical thing to do, and the only way to get the truth out of these Republican Congressional leaders.
Living by the sword makes for tough payback.
I would add Limpman, O'Liely and Anny Tranny just to see if they REALLy believe their brain feces they spew.
Better than Anny Tranny, and much more ON POINT;
ReplyDeleteSame song, different scandal
THROUGHOUT THE Bush era, voters have not always connected the dots. The Foley scandal now enveloping the House Republican leadership offers a belated opportunity for voters to make some connections. Yes, the scandal is about the disgrace of a congressman sending disgusting messages to teenage pages, and the failure of leaders to act on escalating warnings. But it is so much more.
Mark Foley was chairman of a House caucus on missing and exploited children. This was a party that literally put a pedophile in charge of pedophilia.
Does that have a vaguely familiar ring? It should. It’s the same party that put the oil companies in charge of energy policy, and invited the drug and insurance industries to write the Medicare prescription bill for their own maximum profit. As investigations have revealed, it put lobbyists for polluting industries in charge of environmental protection. So there is a consistent theme here of the fox guarding the chicken coop.
And more. If the account of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert ignoring bad news about Foley also sounds familiar, it should, too. It is of a piece with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld burying intelligence accounts that did not square with the Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda story he was peddling, and the White House blowing off intelligence warnings about an impending Al Qaeda operation in summer 2001. As Bob Woodward recently revealed, these warnings went as high as CIA Director George Tenet paying an urgent call on then White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning of an imminent attack, only to be rebuffed.
It’s not surprising that Hastert did not lead. He was handpicked by then majority leader Tom DeLay to be a reassuring and largely powerless figurehead speaker. When DeLay fell, the cardboard Hastert was not up to the job.
This pattern should also ring a bell. It was Dick Cheney, selected in 2000 by party leaders to find a running mate for novice candidate George W. Bush, who conducted a national search and then selected himself. Cheney, like DeLay, has been the power behind the throne. And when the time comes for hard decisions, Bush, like Hastert, is AWOL.
In the Foley case, the Republicans are especially vulnerable, because they have made a fetish of traditional values — one of which is hiding homosexuality in the closet and bashing it publicly while protecting closeted Republican gays. But their base of social conservatives, who excuse wrongheaded policies on national security and on the economy, will not give a pass to the Foley lapse.
The Cheney-Bush-Karl Rove governing coalition has always been an uneasy alliance between Wall Street elites, who benefit from the financial foxes lusting after the economic chickens, and social conservatives who have a genuine concern for families and traditional morality. There are just not enough votes of multimillionaires and K-Street lobbyists to keep the coalition in power, so the party depends heavily on its social base.
Social conservatives do not take kindly to child molesters, or their enablers. Republican candidates will suffer from a genuine wave of public revulsion, not just at what Foley did, but at how the leadership protected him. As always, the coverup is politically more damaging than the original event.
As various House Republicans point fingers and try to protect their behinds, this scandal will messily dominate the news between now and Election Day. Bit by agonizing bit, the facts of who knew what when, and did nothing, will agonizingly dribble out over the next several weeks.
If history is any guide, Hastert will resign. Others have resigned over less damaging lapses. Democratic Speaker Jim Wright was hounded from office in 1989 for having invited lobbyists to purchase copies of a memoir he had published. (Wright’s nemesis, Newt Gingrich, was later forced out for abusing a tax-exempt political front group.) But investigations will continue, and even a Hastert resignation will not stem the damage.
The Greeks had a piece of wisdom that applies: Character is Fate. The Foley affair, and all it reveals, was an accident waiting to happen. It was a logical product of the cynicism, opportunism, and hypocrisy that pervade the Bush era.
There is an old saw in American politics that when your opponent is destroying himself, just get out of the way. Like much conventional wisdom, it is mostly wrong. This scandal, of its own accord, will certainly damage Republican congressional candidates. But if the Democrats are shrewd, they will help voters connect these dots.
Voltaire said...
ReplyDeleteActually Worf, I googled that letter and read (the ENTIRE thing, not just the snippets YOU posted) on leatherneck.com.
ooooohhhhh Voltaire googled the article,,,,ooooohh..
Look jackass, I didn't "cherry pick" anything. Is simply posted ENTIRE SECTIONS that I found interesting.
But I couldn't help you didn't post ANY OF THEM.
So here, since you have to accuse me of "cherry picking" because I didn't post the ENTIRE LETTER, here.
Heres the ENTIRE LETTER.
We'll let the people see for themselves.
All: I haven't written very much from Iraq. There's really not much to write about. More exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it. The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it's a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that's worth reading.
ReplyDeleteWorse, this place just consumes you. I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It's like this every day. Before I know it, I can't see straight, because it's 0400 and I've been at work for 20 hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven't written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It's not really like Ground Hog Day, it's more like a level from Dante's Inferno.
Rather than attempting to sum up the last seven months, I figured I'd just hit the record-setting highlights of 2006 in Iraq. These are among the events and experiences I'll remember best.
Worst Case of Déjà Vu — I thought I was familiar with the feeling of déjà vu until I arrived back here in Fallujah in February. The moment I stepped off of the helicopter, just as dawn broke, and saw the camp just as I had left it ten months before — that was déjà vu. Kind of unnerving. It was as if I had never left. Same work area, same busted desk, same chair, same computer, same room, same creaky rack, same... everything. Same everything for the next year. It was like entering a parallel universe. Home wasn't 10,000 miles away, it was a different lifetime.
Most Surreal Moment — Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. We had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.
Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."
Worst City in al-Anbar Province — Ramadi, hands down. The provincial capital of 400,000 people. Lots and lots of insurgents killed in there since we arrived in February. Every day is a nasty gun battle. They blast us with giant bombs in the road, snipers, mortars and small arms. We blast them with tanks, attack helicopters, artillery, our snipers (much better than theirs), and every weapon that an infantryman can carry. Every day. Incredibly, I rarely see Ramadi in the news. We have as many attacks out here in the west as Baghdad. Yet, Baghdad has 7 million people, we have just 1.2 million. Per capita, al-Anbar province is the most violent place in Iraq by several orders of magnitude. I suppose it was no accident that the Marines were assigned this area in 2003.
Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province — Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech). How'd you like a job that required you to defuse bombs in a hole in the middle of the road that very likely are booby-trapped or connected by wire to a bad guy who's just waiting for you to get close to the bomb before he clicks the detonator? Every day. Sanitation workers in New York City get paid more than these guys. Talk about courage and commitment.
Second Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province — It's a 20,000-way tie among all these Marines and Soldiers who venture out on the highways and through the towns of al-Anbar every day, not knowing if it will be their last — and for a couple of them, it will be.
Worst E-Mail Message — "The Walking Blood Bank is Activated. We need blood type A+ stat." I always head down to the surgical unit as soon as I get these messages, but I never give blood — there's always about 80 Marines in line, night or day.
Biggest Surprise — Iraqi Police. All local guys. I never figured that we'd get a police force established in the cities in al-Anbar. I estimated that insurgents would kill the first few, scaring off the rest. Well, insurgents did kill the first few, but the cops kept on coming. The insurgents continue to target the police, killing them in their homes and on the streets, but the cops won't give up. Absolutely incredible tenacity. The insurgents know that the police are far better at finding them than we are — and they are finding them. Now, if we could just get them out of the habit of beating prisoners to a pulp...
Greatest Vindication — Stocking up on outrageous quantities of Diet Coke from the chow hall in spite of the derision from my men on such hoarding, then having a 122mm rocket blast apart the giant shipping container that held all of the soda for the chow hall. Yep, you can't buy experience.
ReplyDeleteBiggest Mystery — How some people can gain weight out here. I'm down to 165 lbs. Who has time to eat?
Second Biggest Mystery — if there's no atheists in foxholes, then why aren't there more people at Mass every Sunday?
Favorite Iraqi TV Show — Oprah. I have no idea. They all have satellite TV.
Coolest Insurgent Act — Stealing almost $7 million from the main bank in Ramadi in broad daylight, then, upon exiting, waving to the Marines in the combat outpost right next to the bank, who had no clue of what was going on. The Marines waved back. Too cool.
Most Memorable Scene — In the middle of the night, on a dusty airfield, watching the better part of a battalion of Marines packed up and ready to go home after over six months in al-Anbar, the relief etched in their young faces even in the moonlight. Then watching these same Marines exchange glances with a similar number of grunts loaded down with gear file past — their replacements. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said.
Highest Unit Re-enlistment Rate — Any outfit that has been in Iraq recently. All the danger, all the hardship, all the time away from home, all the horror, all the frustrations with the fight here — all are outweighed by the desire for young men to be part of a band of brothers who will die for one another. They found what they were looking for when they enlisted out of high school. Man for man, they now have more combat experience than any Marines in the history of our Corps.
Most Surprising Thing I Don't Miss — Beer. Perhaps being half-stunned by lack of sleep makes up for it.
Worst Smell — Porta-johns in 120-degree heat — and that's 120 degrees outside of the porta-john.
Highest Temperature — I don't know exactly, but it was in the porta-johns. Needed to re-hydrate after each trip to the loo.
Biggest Hassle — High-ranking visitors. More disruptive to work than a rocket attack. VIPs demand briefs and "battlefield" tours (we take them to quiet sections of Fallujah, which is plenty scary for them). Our briefs and commentary seem to have no effect on their preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq. Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here.
Biggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly.
ReplyDeleteBest Intel Work — Finding Jill Carroll's kidnappers — all of them. I was mighty proud of my guys that day. I figured we'd all get the Christian Science Monitor for free after this, but none have showed up yet.
Saddest Moment — Having an infantry battalion commander hand me the dog tags of one of my Marines who had just been killed while on a mission with his unit. Hit by a 60mm mortar. He was a great Marine. I felt crushed for a long time afterward. His picture now hangs at the entrance to our section area. We'll carry it home with us when we leave in February.
Best Chuck Norris Moment — 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in a small town to kidnap the mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the Bad Guys put down his machine gun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machine gun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall.
Worst Sound — That crack-boom off in the distance that means an IED or mine just went off. You just wonder who got it, hoping that it was a near miss rather than a direct hit. Hear it practically every day.
Second Worst Sound — Our artillery firing without warning. The howitzers are pretty close to where I work. Believe me, outgoing sounds a lot like incoming when our guns are firing right over our heads. They'd about knock the fillings out of your teeth.
Only Thing Better in Iraq Than in the U.S. — Sunsets. Spectacular. It's from all the dust in the air.
Proudest Moment — It's a tie every day, watching our Marines produce phenomenal intelligence products that go pretty far in teasing apart Bad Guy operations in al-Anbar. Every night Marines and Soldiers are kicking in doors and grabbing Bad Guys based on intelligence developed by our guys. We rarely lose a Marine during these raids, they are so well-informed of the objective. A bunch of kids right out of high school shouldn't be able to work so well, but they do.
Happiest Moment — Well, it wasn't in Iraq. There are no truly happy moments here. It was back in California when I was able to hold my family again while home on leave during July.
Most Common Thought — Home. Always thinking of home, of my great wife and the kids. Wondering how everyone else is getting along. Regretting that I don't write more. Yep, always thinking of home.
I hope you all are doing well. If you want to do something for me, kiss a cop, flush a toilet, and drink a beer. I'll try to write again before too long — I promise.
See jackass, Cherry Picking, as you hypocritically accuse me of, is what your President did, that is, taking peices of the information and leaving out significant QUALIFYING STATMENTS.
ReplyDeleteLike publishing Iraq is meeting with with Al Qaida in Niger and LEAVING OUT the next paragraph which explains that the meeting never took place.
NOT selecting "excerpts" from a letter IN THEIR ENTIRITY.
Next time you accuse someone jackass, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about.
Happiest Moment — Well, it wasn't in Iraq. There are no truly happy moments here. It was back in California when I was able to hold my family again while home on leave during July.
ReplyDeleteBiggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted.
ReplyDeleteBiggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly.
Worfeus as a combat vet I can affirm we all are always PROUD of serving our country even if the MORONS at the top are screwimg up worse than the keystone cops on crack could ever do.
ReplyDeleteand a hell of a lot of troops see Bush and dumsfeld as incompetent boobs whop do not listen and are sticking to a failed strategy because they have nothing to loose anymore.
Voltaire said;
ReplyDeleteBut like I said, he also seems proud of the job he and his buddies are doing.
So fucking what?
I mean really, so fucking what?
I mean get a grip fella. When you're done worshipping your GI JOEs put down the SOF and get a clue. He's telling you its BULLSHIT.
He's also telling you the right wing dogma is BULLSHIT.
Why do you think he labled Bill Oreilly.
Get a clue dimwit. A soldier in th field can't openly criticize his commander in cheif. He can be labled with treason if he's not careful. You can't just "speak out" once you've taken the oath.
Thought you said you were in the army guard or something.
Get a clue.
Great quote;
ReplyDeleteNotably, a frustrated GOP strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity essentially agreed, saying his party's mishandling of Foley "speaks to our inability to govern and do the right thing. It says everything about who we are as a party."
I understand he's proud, and I'm sick of dickheads like you Volt trying to explain it to me to me.
ReplyDeleteYou just see what you want to see don't you pinhead. He's not telling you its a tough job.
He's telling you its BULLSHIT.
And he's telling you that its going nowhere.
Read dumbass, and learn.
ReplyDeleteMore exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it.
Voltaire said...
ReplyDeleteGotta run
Of that I'm sure.
Ok Opie. You keep drinking the koolaid, and if you ever come down, remember, the numbers there if you need it.
Scary statistic, there were 776 troops wounded in Iraq in Sept 2006 and 300 wounded in the FIRST WEEK of Oct.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply
Growing American Role in Staving Off Civil War Leads to Most Wounded Since 2004
The number of U.S troops wounded in Iraq has surged to its highest monthly level in nearly two years as American GIs fight block-by-block in Baghdad to try to check a spiral of sectarian violence that U.S. commanders warn could lead to civil war.
Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The sharp increase in American wounded -- with nearly 300 more in the first week of October -- is a grim measure of the degree to which the U.S. military has been thrust into the lead of the effort to stave off full-scale civil war in Iraq, military officials and experts say. Beyond Baghdad, Marines battling Sunni insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar last month also suffered their highest number of wounded in action since late 2004.
More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty. While much media reporting has focused on the more than 2,700 killed, military experts say the number of wounded is a more accurate gauge of the fierceness of fighting because advances in armor and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam.
From the SAME article;
ReplyDelete"September was horrific" in terms of the toll of wounded, and if the early October trend continues, this month could be "the worst month of the war," said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based Web site that tracks defense issues.
The worsening violence in Baghdad has led some Pentagon officials to criticize decisions by the U.S. military since early 2005 to transfer responsibility for security in large swaths of Baghdad to Iraqi forces while cutting back on American patrols.
"We made decisions to take an indirect approach, which is great if you want low U.S. casualty rates," said the Pentagon official. However, he said: "Passing responsibility to Iraqis does not equal defeating terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency. Period."
Sorry folks, didn't mean to get so bad there but damn, sometimes its amazing the level of deception these guys will go to, to deceive themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis guy just publically labled Bill Oreilly as the biggest bullshit offender on the news, and Volt thinks its nothing.
They guy was being polite voltaire, unlike me.
The rough average is 545 wounded per month, and October one week old has over half that many.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ignoramus Dolt wants GOOD news, get real A$$CLOWN, or sign up and create your own good news in Iraq, TAKE somebody who does not want to be there place.
Ok, now YOUR'RE cherry picking, by taking his sentences out of order, and not in the context in which they were both said.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, thats fine, cause I really don't see what, if any point you're trying to make.
He condemed Bill Oreilly. He pointed out that the news is depressing, THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE PRESIDENT AND OREILLY IS SAYING, so whatever you point is, you failed to make it.
To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war.
ReplyDeleteHave you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?
Mark Twain
I'll tell you one thing Volt, as far as you guys are concerned, Twain was a freakin Prophet, wasn't he?
ReplyDeleteStatesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them.
And thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Mark Twain
Chronicle of Young Satan
You know what is kind of funny, the repugs are crying that the voters will not ignore Foleygate because they did, and the voters are mad because they ignored it.
ReplyDeleteHe saw you clowns coming.
ReplyDeleteThats right Clif. And Foleygate did something more.
ReplyDeleteIt removed that air of "moral superiority", that "more chaste than thou" aura that these knuckleheads claimed to hold.
Their base, the middle America Christians, remember Jesus's warnings of "wolves in sheeps clothing" coming in the last days to deceive them.
Wolves who "pretend" to be of Christ, but really are full of murder and deceit.
And Jesus saw you coming too, didn't he?
ReplyDeletefor ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones
Nice blue suits on the outside, with White Starched collars and gold cufflinks.
ReplyDeleteBut inside?
Inside, full of dead mens bones.
At the same time the repugs tried to cover up a child predator to keep HIS seat, and has a repug congressman who had to apologise for an extra-marital affair, and who was accused by his ex-girlfriend of assault, they have a repug in Minnesota who was accused by his EX-WIFE of abuse.
ReplyDeleteMinneapolis congressional candidate Fine had record expunged
Minneapolis congressional candidate Alan Fine was charged with domestic violence in 1995 and nine years later had his record expunged, in a case in which he and his first ex-wife give different versions of the events that led to him ending up in the Hennepin County jail.
You clowns claim family values...but to paraphrase Putin...I hope the country does not get YOU family values you clowns practice.
No wonder the american people no longer believe you A$$CLOWNS are really about values at all.
Now I feel bad Clif.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I was a little hard on him. He sure took off quick.
I have to remember these guys are "sensitive" right now, and we therefore need to be nicer then normal. We don't want them doing anything drastic.
Who knows, some of them might go ballistic.
And Worfeus after all the LIES and wasted LIVES, it has come to James Baker pulling the idiots ass out of the FIRE once again.
ReplyDeleteAmerica ponders cutting Iraq in three
AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.
The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, is preparing to report after next month’s congressional elections amid signs that sectarian violence and attacks on coalition forces are spiralling out of control. The conflict is claiming the lives of 100 civilians a day and bombings have reached record levels.
The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running” or “staying the course”.
“The Kurds already effectively have their own area,” said a source close to the group. “The federalisation of Iraq is going to take place one way or another. The challenge for the Iraqis is how to work that through.”
The commission is considered to represent a last chance for fresh thinking on Iraq, where mass kidnappings are increasing and even the police are suspected of being responsible for a growing number of atrocities.
Baker, 76, an old Bush family friend who was secretary of state during the first Gulf war in 1991, said last week that he met the president frequently to discuss “policy and personnel”.
His group will not advise “partition”, but is believed to favour a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.
The Iraqi government will be encouraged to hold a constitutional conference paving the way for greater devolution. Iran and Syria will be urged to back a regional settlement that could be brokered at an international conference.
Baker, a leading exponent of shuttle diplomacy, has already met representatives of the Syrian government and is planning to see the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in New York. “My view is you don’t just talk to your friends,” he said last week. “You need to talk to your enemies in order to move forward diplomatically towards peace.”
His group has yet to reach a final conclusion, but there is a growing consensus that America can neither pour more soldiers into Iraq nor suffer mounting casualties without any sign of progress. It is thought to support embedding more high-quality American military advisers in the Iraqi security forces rather than maintaining high troop levels in the country indefinitely.
Frustrated by the failure of a recent so-called “battle of Baghdad” to stem violence in the capital, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said last week that the unity government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, had only two months left to get a grip. Rumours abound that the much-admired ambassador could depart by Christmas.
Khalilzad’s warning was reinforced by John Warner, Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, on his return from a visit to Baghdad. “In two to three months’ time, if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and this government (is not) able to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our government internally to determine: is there a change of course we should take?” Warner said.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, have resisted the break-up of Iraq on the grounds that it could lead to more violence, but are thought to be reconsidering. “They have finally noticed that the country is being partitioned by civil war and ethnic cleansing is already a daily event,” said Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Gelb is the co-author with Senator Joseph Biden, a leading Democrat, of a plan to divide Iraq. “There was almost no support for our idea until very recently, when all the other ideas being advocated failed,” Gelb said.
In Baghdad last week Rice indicated that time was running out for the Iraqi government to resolve the division of oil wealth and changes to the constitution.
Many Kurds are already hoping for their own national state, while the Shi’ite Islamist leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is pressing for regional autonomy. The Sunnis are opposed to a carve-up of Iraq, which would further deprive them of the national power they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein and could leave them with a barren tranche of the country bereft of oil revenue.
Many Middle East experts are horrified by the difficulty of dividing the nation. “Fifty-three per cent of the population of Iraq live in four cities and three of them are mixed,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who fears a bloody outcome.
Baghdad is a particular jumble, although ethnic cleansing is already dividing the population along the Tigris River, with Shi’ites to the east and Sunnis to the west of the city.
America may have passed the point where it can determine Iraq’s future, according to Cordesman: “The internal politics of Iraq have taken on a momentum of their own.”
Gelb is under no illusions about the prospects of success. “Everything is a long shot at this point,” he said.
*********************************************
If this ends up as the result,
George W Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, George Tenet, Richard Cambone, Richard Pearl, Richard Armitage, Condi Rice, Stephan Hayward,
Douglas Feith, Willian Kristol, Henry Kissinger, among others should sit in a docket in the Hague, and take their chances with the worlsd judgement, which is still a better deal than the 2739 dead, 21,000 wounded soldiers and up to 250,000 dead Iraqi's got.
Worfeus this is a good example of the repugs, the image on the left is what they want to be seen as, the one on the right is what they really are...
ReplyDeleteThe repugs revealed
And Lydia's right about the Amish and their amazing level of forgiveness for something that I haven't forgiven yet, and I didn't know either party.
ReplyDeleteIts amazing to see a people who have based their entire lives on a religion that teaches pure peace, just like Jesus did.
Now I don't buy the horse and buggy thingy. Its cool and all, but I think we're meant to use technology, as God took the time to give us big fat brains and opposing thumbs, so we could do more than plow a field.
Nothing wrong with plowing a field, and their lifestyle is nice. Kinda like that movie, the "The Village", where they live back in the 1800's but its really modern times.
But their adherence to the essential Jesus, the Gelassenheit , that they demonstrate, it's really amazing.
I've met the Amish, and talked with them. Not the Mennonites like you see on TV, but real Amish.
Real Old order Amish that follow the Ordnung don't talk to us "english". But some of them, the younger ones usually, will, if no elders are within earshot or eyesight. The girls are pretty ugly, all that "cousinry" going on, and the giggle a lot, but they're cool.
You can spot older order Amish by their wooden toggles instead of buttons. Buttons they feel are too proud, too "Hochmut", so they use wooden toggles with lasps. Old order Amish won't drive cars, or use phones. In an emergency, they'll usually go to a mennonite neighbors and have them use a their phone. Mennonites are like the Amish, but they are more accepting of technology, and things like color for example. Amish wear no color, just straigh black and white. Mennonites will wear blue shirts, and women will wear pink and yellows and other colors. Some mennonites even have mini vans.
Pretty freaky stuff really if you think about it. What people do because other people told them this was what God was about.
Worfeus you know how the repugs wanted to start armageddon, well they just got a KARMAgeddon instead, not what they asked for, but as the stones say,
ReplyDeleteYou do not always get what you want, just what YOU NEED, and the repugs really needed a KARMAgeddon.
Karmageddon.
ReplyDeleteI like that.
Deborah Van Valkenburgh has been starring in the funniest play for several months here at Noah Wylie's theater. It's a play written by Dave Sedaris and his sister Amy -- two of the funniest people on the planet. It's about an Amish community's cheese balls. I have to find the title...
ReplyDeleteNext time you see Deb tell her she was great in Warriors. She really played that role well.
ReplyDeleteShe hung with the "Orphans", remember? Lol.
The Orphans, yea, they're a real heavy outfit.
That was a great movie.
CAN YOU DIG IT!!!
Best line from the Warriors?
ReplyDeleteThats easy.
Because its ALLLLLLL OUR TURF!
it was the Warriors.
ReplyDeleteThe Warriors shot Cyrus. It was the WARRRRRIORSSS...
All,
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I doing OK, taking the extension of our Brigade in stride. Still doing the same old stuff everyday is groundhog's day. You dont eat because the food tastes good, you simple eat to subsist. An extra month and a half isnt that bad but that is 75 more chances for me become a casualty if it doesnt happen before then. You will see casualties over here rise over the next month and especially the next two weeks as the Sunnis in the Anbar province celebrate Ramadan and we come into the Nights of Power and Destiny. Attacks, should, and hopefully will, drop off at the end of because we will be into the rainy season and I just dont think they are motivated enough to slog through knee high mud to set up a roadside bomb or IED.
It doesnt seem that our presence is helping to do anything but get more American's killed or injured and for what noone knows. I know an officer who confesses to be a stalwhart NeoCon, but he asked me the other day, "What the fuck are we doing here? I just dont get it." When they've lost those people I think they have lost just about everyone. My soldiers ask me what we're doing here, and I cant tell them because I cant lie to them and I cant make disparging or "disdainful remarks" (Art. 88 UCMJ) about the P the VP or their Cabinet members. Alot of people are really questioning it now that we have been extended.
We know why we have to stay a little longer, but it doesnt make it any better or any safer.
Military leaders are people who like to take jobs and make progress, and it seems when we past the torch in Feb after our 14 month tour in Iraq (9 months of that in Ramadi) we will pass it off no better than we received, and that is frustrating. At least if we were making headway it would count for something. But that begs the question what are we supposed to be making headway towards? Noone seems to know. So, I just do my job and keep my men and myself safe another 5 months and then I get to come home.
V/R
Marcus
Marcus, thank you for serving in Iraq, and give our love to your wife. We really need to impeach Bush so somehow we can put an end to this hell.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are home for the holidays.
xoxo
Hey everyone - write to Marcus and his troops in Iraq and send him a care package.
ReplyDeleteI'll post the addresss again. You can also check out his blog at tompaine.
Here Voltaire.
ReplyDeleteRead and learn junior.
When they've lost those people I think they have lost just about everyone. My soldiers ask me what we're doing here, and I cant tell them because I cant lie to them and I cant make disparging or "disdainful remarks" (Art. 88 UCMJ)
Are we learning yet?
I just watched the opening of the Talladega 500 Nascar Race and there was a priest saying most of all we ask Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior to show us guidance. Do you know what an uproar the Christians would be in if instead of a priest there was a muslim cleric, a rabbi, or buddist invoking the name of their God instead of Christ. All prayers in the name of the public should be non-denominational
ReplyDeleteMarcus,
ReplyDeleteStay safe, and keep your head down,
From one old vet from the sand to the next generation of the same ..Thank you for your service,
I am sorry as an American citizen and as a vet, your skills and those of your soldiers are being WASTED. But we both know that decision is being made many pay grades above either of ours. (I was an EOD unit commander when I was in Desert Storm.) Keep those troops as safe as you can, and bring them all home to their loved ones. If you can do that YOU have accomplished the most important mission that really counts.
We all know you all do not have not much power to really affect the situation on the ground, because the Iraqi's have divided into their own camps and are fighting each other an you guys for control of their country. Bush ET AL ignore this reality so they pretend that you can make a difference, but You being there seems to have realised the fallacy of their argument.
Nov 7th is coming, and the neo-cons are ON THE RUN. This situation is not going to be allowed to stagnate much longer....and the cancer on the American social fabric which is seeking to destroy it, is going to begin to be removed.
Be safe brother, and come home to the good ole USA in one piece....Clif
This was posted on tha BLOG Anger Management, by Marcus, an army Officer currently serving in Iraq. IT SHOULD explain a lot of what is wrong with IRAQ, to the trolls. There are a lot of people like this, dusty, dolt, Tiny and FOOLE, this is why YOU fooles are not going to win in November, and might have to go back to the drawing board, to find a new way to lie and spin, because if people like this wake up, YOU clowns ,have LOST!
ReplyDeleteFebruary 2003
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was another cold and brisk, but sunny February day in Muncie, Indiana in 2003. At the time I was attending college, an institution of enlightenment, I was in my second to last year. I was a telecommunications major with emphasis in television, radio, and film production, with a minor in military science. I remember leaving to go pick my future wife up from class right as Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped up to the microphone at the United Nations Assembly. I listened to the local NPR station as they carried the broadcast live. I yelled and screamed, to my wife, or anyone that would listen, “There it is, the proof, he’s laying it all out for you. How can we not go to war now? We must defend America from this grave and serious threat. How can the nations of old, most proximal to this threat, allow it to exist past today with this mountain of proof?” And it was not as if I had no skin in the game because I had been enlisted in the Army Reserve since 1999, and knew how much they relied on the Reserve in the support function in the last war in this same desert. Two life-changing events happened within the next month. On March 8th 2003 I married a woman who would also become an officer, and March 17th the US invaded Iraq.
The most important fact was that my wife and I were both going to be officers. Shortly thereafter I signed my Senior ROTC contract committing me to 8 more years, 3 of those on active duty, to an Army at war. At the time we were being told that the war would be over in no time. I remember seeing pictures of Chalabi, and stories on the Iraqi National Congress. I thought if there is someone willing to take over, let them. Take out the dangerous dictator; put Chalabi, who at the time I did not know was an international felon, in the charge of this country. I signed the line based on the promise of the civilian leadership of the military, and this country that we would be in and out quickly, and the Iraqis would quickly take the reigns of their own country. I was so naïve that I even remember lamenting, with my fellow cadets, that I would be in the Army from 1999 until 2012 and I would miss the chance to go to war. Yet, here it is 2006 and I have been deployed almost a whole year.
I can’t really recall what happened but I woke up. I can’t recall the exact incident or time, but I realized everything that I had been told was bullshit. I know it was later in the year of 2003 when I came to realize I had been duped. It could have been the information that I was gradually getting off the internet since none of the major news networks carried it. Maybe it was because we had been in country almost 9 months, by that time, and there was no sign of WMD’s that were supposedly parked in everyone’s garage, and under every floor mat. Maybe it was because NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING the administration had said had come to be true. Maybe it was because I saw my Commander-In-Chief stand on the deck of a ship and declare “Mission Accomplished,” but my brothers and sisters in arms were still fighting and dying in Iraq, and casualties were mounting in greater numbers than they did during the invasion.
I was not the type of person to question my government, or my commanders but by the end of 2003 a cynic was born, and I realized the grave mistake I had made. My wife and I had both signed the line to fight a war that we were told would be over long before we hit the force. It was a war that I had rooted for. I had gone so far as to counter-protest with my signs stating the facts given to me by Colin Powell. I wasn’t trying to avoid going to war, but if my leadership got so many things, perhaps everything, so wrong about this war how could I trust them for the rest of my tenure as an officer.
If the reasons they had stated to go to war in the first place were all false then why did we go to war in Iraq? If I can no longer trust the intentions of my leaders then how can I continue in this profession? Of course, I had already signed the line; I had and still have no choice but to continue until the end of my obligation. What I once thought was a noble profession, being a leader in the military, has been muddied inside of me by the same inalienable values and convictions that make this profession great, and those who do it great leaders. My conviction to moral principles and dedication to my subordinates and my country are at odds with my duty to obey orders of the Commander-In-Chief, and my superiors. With all the evidence against them, how can I trust what they say is true? How can I know that the orders I get are lawful and legal when the character of their producers is at the very least suspect, if not in violation of my own and the military’s moral code of principles and ethics? I’m sure if I thought about it, in my view, I would find violations of all of the Army’s 7 Core Values by the Commander-In-Chief; Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. What are they to them but words that keep me loyal, and to me convictions that keep me bound to service in a conflict where their anithesis is their creator.
And he is where you clowns are too chicken shit to go.
So Dusty go ahead .. SLIME HIM. After all, he is still in the desert, while he disagrees with the policies that he is being told to carry out, because HE KEEPS HIS WORD, unlike the sycophants and A$$CLOWNS who formulate failed strategies like IRAQ.
So sliming him should be easy son. After all he is doing something he no longer sees as being productive just because he gave his word and is keeping it.
He is NOT grabbing all the money he can and screwing over everyone just to get a little more, so it should be easy for an A$$CLOWN like you boy, hell why wait till he returns.
A good series of questios that never get asked...
ReplyDeleteTOP TEN QUESTIONS POLLSTERS REALLY SHOULD ASK
By Don Davis
Is there anything more maddening than those senseless and superficial poll questions, that are guaranteed to elicit responses that are not only misleading, but skewed to the right? Well, here’s a suggested Top Ten list of poll questions that would really tell it like it is:
10. If your own son was drafted to serve in Iraq, would you favor “cut and run,” or “sprint like Willie Horton being chased by the Klan?”
9. If Bush required you to pay more taxes to finance the Iraqi war, which timetable for withdrawal would you support: 3 to 5 years, or the 6:44 out of Fallujah?
8. Would you back Bush’s warrantless spying on international communications, if he was monitoring your phone-sex calls to Hot Nymphs in the Netherlands?
7. How would you feel about prayer in the schools — if Muslims just obtained a majority on your local school board?
6. Should the schools also teach the theory of Intelligent Design, even though it’s likely that, as with most designers, this one was also gay?
5. Would you vote to ban abortion, if you just found out your teenage daughter got knocked up by the Mexican gardener?
4. Would you still favor public posting of The Ten Commandments, even if it’s interpreted to ban the worship of American Idol?
3. If your job and benefits get outsourced to Bangalore, would you still consider national health insurance a communist plot?
2. Would you still be anti-union, after your supervisor at Wal-Mart limits you to one bathroom trip per day, and you have to pay for your own toilet paper?
1. Would habeas corpus seem a bit more important to you after you fall asleep in the tanning bed, and get mistaken for one of Osama’s five dozen “No. 2’s.”
clif,
ReplyDeleteYou dont know how many times EOD guys have saved my bacon out here. I do convoy security because I am a field artilleryman it only makes sense. right? so pretty high risk, low rewards kind of job.
One for instance: One night we were trucking along and we came upon an EOD convoy (we know it's EOD because they are the only people on this route that use white lights) they stop our convoy and tell us they've found an IED and we're going to have to wait. So, we're waiting and they come back and tell us they're taking SAF from the Mosque (Ammunition Supply Point as me and my men call them because they are always conveniently located next to IED hotspots) and they've found another IED. Hungry? Why wait? We know we're in for another long one. Their big bomb clearing vehicle gets hit by the 3rd IED, no cas, minimal damage because those damned things survive anything short of a tactical nuke. They come back once again to us about 30 minutes later and tell us they've found in total 5 IEDs and an antitank mine. Doing the math in my head I realize they are not going to clear all that crap before daylight, and to give us enough time to get to the camp drop off supplies and get back to our FOB before dawn breaks because Ad/Log convoys are restricted on this route during daylight. Too dangerous as I learned the first time I "Ran the Gauntlet" during the day. So needless to say we got turned around. But if we would have gone through there the convoy would have been chewed up. Using the antitank mine as a trigger point to detonate the 5 IEDs knowing the front vehicle would hit that and the rest would be behind it. Needless to say, I was impressed, and constantly am, by the insurgent's tactical ingenuity. People, sometimes, seem to forget we're not fighting automotons, we're fighting people who sit around all day long and think of ways to kill us just as we pay people to sit around all day and think of ways to FIND and kill them.
I make CPT this July and I like to Joke with my Battalion Cdr and CSM types that I watched Operation Desert storm kickoff from a television in my 4th grade classroom.:}
Take Care
M
James Baker didnt come up with that plan. That was the plan Biden's been touting for months.
ReplyDeleteWoodward: Cheney Cursed At Me About ‘State of Denial,’ Then Hung Up The Phone
ReplyDeleteToday on Meet the Press, Bob Woodward described how Vice President Dick Cheney called him 10 days ago about Woodward’s new book State of Denial. Woodward says Cheney cursed at him (”he said what I was saying was bull-something”) and then hung up the phone.
Woodward called Cheney’s behavior a “metaphor for what’s going on. Hang up when somebody has a different point of view or information you don’t want to deal with.”
Marcus, that was a great post that Clif repposted here, I ride and play cards with alot of military guys, and I always find it extremely interesting to here their perspective on what is going on in the Middle East, as well as their opinions of our leadership and their so called foreign policy.......you speak for a lot of us civilians as well and echo our feelings.STAY SAFE!
ReplyDeleteBTW, did you get the care package I sent yet????
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteClif I saw that on Meet The Press this morning, BTW did you happen to see the lady that wrote a book called Jacked which talks about how the repugs screwed the middle class and poor by not allowing them to file bankruptcy, allowing people who are elderly or sick to lose their homes in a bankruptcy, nickel and diming Americans with ornerous secret credit card and ATM fees that jack the interest rates up to loan shark levels for the most vulnerable poor and middle class, as well as outsorcing good paying jobs and excessice inflation in health care and college education that make them both only accessible to the wealthy elite instead of the entire country.
ReplyDeleteMarcus all I can say about using An Artillery Unit to provide convoy security is very telling about how badly broken the Army must be. As a Cadet, I SMP'd with a MP unit. They are trained to do convoy and MSR security, not artillery gunners.
ReplyDeleteWhy Dumsfeld has not allowed the Army to create enough of the proper units to do the jobs they are trained for is mindboggling, until I think about the fact that he was warned by the Army war college in Feb 2003 what would happen if he failed to plan for phase 4, and HE refused to plan for it. He is the worst Sec Of Def since WW2, and that is comparing him to McNamara.
Keep safe there and hopefully this November we Americans can start to restore Sane Adult oversight to Cabal of the PNAC neo-con clown posee, and their sycophant minions who are to chicken shit to walk in YOUR shoes.
“Soldiers Know What's Going On Over There, And They Are Not Happy About It”
ReplyDeleteSeptember 27th, 2006 Democracy Now [Excerpts]
Army reservist Sergeant Marshall Thompson spent a year in Iraq working as a military journalist. He reported from across Iraq, interviewing thousands of US soldiers. Now back home in his native Utah, he is planning a 500-mile walk across the state to protest the war and call for a withdrawal of US troops.
AMY GOODMAN: I spoke with Sgt. Marshall Thompson on Monday in Salt Lake City in his first national broadcast interview. He began by talking about why he plans the walk.
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Well, I got back from Iraq about two months ago, and I knew I’d have to do something to make things right. And so I decided, my wife and I, that it would be a good idea to do a walk through Utah. Utah is my home state, and I love it.
It's also the reddest state in the nation. It's kind of a symbol of the last bastion of support for the war. So I thought that if I could walk through Utah in a peaceful manner and show that there's support in Utah for peace, then that just might be what turns the tide.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you do in Iraq?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: I was a military journalist. It was a great job. I got to travel all around Iraq and interview thousands of soldiers. So I really got a good idea of what's going on over there.
AMY GOODMAN: Marshall, why did you join the military?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: I love my country. And I really wanted to serve it.
AMY GOODMAN: When did you join?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: I joined in 1999.
AMY GOODMAN: Before the 2001 attacks.
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Yes. I was deployed to Kosovo during the 2001 attacks.
And I’ve been very proud of my service. And it's just been a hard time in Iraq, because this war is unjust. And no amount of patriotism that I have can change that.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you come to the conclusion that it's unjust?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Well, it happened before the war started. I was on the fence. And when Colin Powell addressed the UN, I believed him, like most people did, I think.
But then there was something in me that kept bothering me, and it was that the decision to go to war with Iraq was based on fear, fear of something that hadn't happened yet. And those are never good decisions. We can't make fear-based decisions.
So I decided that even if they had weapons of mass destruction, that I was going to be opposed to the war.
Then, years later when I went to Iraq, spent a year there, saw what happened, it was only reinforced.
And I knew that I was going to have to come home and do something to make it right for my participation in it and just because I feel more responsible for what goes on over there, having been there for one year.
AMY GOODMAN: You interviewed hundreds of soldiers?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Thousands.
AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of soldiers in Iraq. What is their attitude to the war?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Most soldiers want to withdraw. That is proven. There was a Zogby poll. 72% of recently turned Iraqi vets want to be out of Iraq by 2006.
AMY GOODMAN: 2006?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: By 2006.
That means this year.
And my experience backs that up absolutely.
There is a lot of pressure for soldiers not to speak out. There’s fear of court-martials. There’s fear of their commanders getting mad at them. There's a lot of reasons why soldiers don't speak out.
But nobody should be fooled.
Soldiers know what's going on over there, and they are not happy about it.
AMY GOODMAN: What was the response when the soldier asked Rumsfeld about why they weren't being protected?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: That was -- we loved it. We thought that, you know, score one for the little guys.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you see any kind of challenging of the supervisory officers by the lower level soldiers?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Absolutely.
Constant challenging, especially on the issue of censorship.
Also, like I said, a lot of people, I think, underestimate soldiers.
We know what's going on. We're smart. We read the newspapers.
And there's a lot of orders that may be unlawful that are challenged.
You don't hear about those, because those are the good examples.
And then sometimes there are unlawful orders and they're followed. And that's the biggest problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you able to follow up on atrocities like Haditha, like Mahmoudiya, that story of Steven Green and the other Army soldiers who went into the home of this 14-year-old girl, Abeer, and killed her and her mother, father and sister?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: We were not able to follow up on atrocities such as those. I was able to post a blog. It kept me sane for the year, because I could print anything I wanted to on my blog.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you do that in the military?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: I just did it.
AMY GOODMAN: What was your blog?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: It was called chokeholdiniraq. That's my nickname in the military. It's a long story.
AMY GOODMAN: Chokehold?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Chokehold, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: What's the story?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: I was in basic training. And they picked me, because I was soft-spoken, and they picked the biggest guy in the unit. And they were going to have us wrestle. And everyone thought I was going to die. And I put him in a chokehold. And everyone thought that was really funny that I won, so they called me “Chokehold” for the rest of the time.
AMY GOODMAN: So your blog is called chokeholdiniraq.
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Yes. And I was able to print a lot of things that I couldn't do in the newspaper. And it was very satisfying for me.
Near the end of my tour, they said, “Hey, you've got to register your blog, and we're going to have to start reviewing your articles.” And that's when I stopped doing it.
AMY GOODMAN: Other soldiers were doing this?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Yes. Soldiers love to blog.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re going to walk across Utah. How are you going to do this?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: One step at a time.
It's going to be 500 miles. I’ll walk about 20 miles a day. Originally I planned to walk one day for every 100 soldiers who have died, so it would be 26 days. However, since we've planned this, the number has increased to over 2,700 U.S. casualties in Iraq, and so I’m going to have to add a day at the end, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: And who will walk with you?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Well, we've got a lot of support. Anyone is invited to walk with me. We want this to be an inclusive event. So that maybe you're a conservative and maybe you like the war, but you just think that we need a plan to get out, I want those people to come walk with me, because at this point it doesn't matter why we got into the war or what the partisan politics were about. What matters is that two soldiers die every day on average.
And any way that we can end this war one day sooner is two lives saved. And I would walk 500 miles for that. I would walk 1,000 miles for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Other soldiers, will they walk with you?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Yes. There will be other soldiers walking with me.
I’ve received an enormous amount of support from fellow soldiers.
I got an email yesterday from a soldier in Iraq who said, “I know what you're saying. I can't publicly support you, because I’m afraid of what might happen to me, but thank you for what you're doing. And I’ll be walking with you in spirit.”
AMY GOODMAN: Are you worried about walking here in Utah?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: You know, some people are worried.
I’m not worried. I spent a year in Iraq. And I cannot be afraid of anything in Utah. It just doesn't make any sense at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: If people want to get more information, where do they go?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: They can go to asoldierspeace.com.
BTW Marcus, My older daughter spent from Nov 2004 until Nov 2005 in FOB Speicher, repairing apache Heilos.
ReplyDeleteWe're Not Going To Iran
ReplyDeleteRobert Dreyfuss
September 20, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
Looking small and humbled on the big stage, trying to appear at once defiant and reasonable, President Bush yesterday addressed the United Nations General Assembly with few arrows in his quiver. Never before has the United States had so few allies, never before has an American president appeared before the world body so utterly bereft of credibility. The sprawling wreckage of American foreign policy was figuratively strewn across the room as Bush spoke. And when he addressed the central diplomatic question of the day—namely, what to do about Iran’s quest for nuclear technology and its likely plans to build a bomb—the president appeared naked and unarmed.
After three years of bluster, after three years of menacing Iran with military options ever “on the table,” after three long years of declaring forcefully that Iran will never gain access to nuclear technology, the president’s stunningly mild-mannered comments on the topic yesterday—“we’re working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis”—may be a sign that the corner has been turned on Iran. It may be a sign that once and for all that the realists have won, that the international community has triumphed, that the opposition of Russia and China to sanctions on Iran has been victorious, and that Western Europe’s far more level-headed approach to Iran has prevailed.
For the neoconservatives, David Frum—Mr. “Axis of Evil”—wrote soon after Bush’s speech: “Make no mistake: boring as it was, the president's speech to the U.N. today was one of the most important of his presidency. It marks the final fizzling out of his Iran policy of the past three years.” Indeed.
Not that the signs haven’t been building, if less noticed than they should have been. Most stunningly, it was Bush himself who approved the five-day visit to the United States by former Iranian President Khatami earlier this month. In an interview in the Wall Street Journal last week, Bush said:
I was interested to hear what he had to say. I’m interested in learning more about the Iranian government, how they think, what people think within the government.
Meanwhile neoconservatives in and out of government here fulminated against Khatami’s visit and denounced the administration for letting him into the country at all. The next day, Condi Rice suggested that even a temporary halt by Iran to its nuclear efforts would be enough to restart talks with Iran. Not permanent—temporary, mind you.
Bush’s nice-nice on Iran, and Condi’s willingness to bend over backwards to reopen the talks with Iran came after the most recent deadline of August 31. This was the supposed drop-dead date for Iran to capitulate to the U.S.-inspired Security Council resolution calling for a halt to uranium enrichment. Iran did not comply. The Bush administration’s conciliatory moves also came as leader after world leader—from Kofi Annan (“I do not believe sanctions are the solution to everything”) to Sergei Lavrov (Russia “unambiguously prefers the path of negotiations for the resolution of the Iranian problem”) to Jacques Chirac (“I am never in favor of sanctions”)—continued to box in the United States diplomatically.
It’s clear that the Europeans, led by France’s Chirac, are designing a carefully constructed diplomatic dance to entice both Iran and the United States back into a prolonged period of negotiations, giving both countries face-saving ways to do so. Whether the two religiously inspired fundamentalists who preside in Washington and Tehran will seize the opportunity isn’t a slam dunk, but it’s looking increasingly like the neocons aren’t going to get the war against Iran that they want.
Four years ago, of course, precisely the same diplomatic phalanx opposed Bush as he threatened Iraq. There are, I’ve written, many parallels: the Bush administration accusing Iran of harboring al-Qaida and building WMD, neoconservative analysts warning that time is running out, Pentagon task forces making contingency plans for war and so on. Back then, too, Bush smilingly promised to go to the United Nations to seek support for the crusade against Baghdad, only to launch a unilateral war of aggression on his own months later, after dismissing the United Nations as feckless and cowardly. Then, however, Bush had an army to invade Iraq. This time, that army is bogged down in Iraq, stretched to the breaking point, and the international community is both older and wiser. And the neoconservatives have been taken down a peg or two.
So, even as the president’s speechwriters were working on his U.N. address, Iran’s president was meeting with Iraq’s prime minister in Tehran, and Iran’s interior minister was meeting with his counterparts from all of Iraq’s neighbors to discuss a plan to prevent the Iraqi civil war from spilling out of Iraq into the region. Even James Baker, the Bush family’s consigliere who heads a realist-minded task force called the Iraq Study Group, told a Washington news conference on Tuesday that he would meet a top Iranian official soon to discuss U.S. policy in Iraq and the region.
Suddenly, stabilizing Iraq—and minimizing the political fallout from Iraq at home—may be more important to the Bush administration than sparking yet another conflagration in the region.
We can only hope. True, we could wake up any fall morning to the news that American planes are conducting bombing raids on Iran’s dozens of nuclear facilities—raids that would be likely to expand to countless other Iranian military targets, from airports and missile installations to ports, military bases, government offices and beyond. Or, we could awake to hear that Israel, on a more limited scale, has initiated attacks of its own on Iran. But more and more, it’s starting to look like the realists have won this fight.
Gee I've been out all day and missed some good posts.
ReplyDeleteHey Marcus. Its good to see you. I hope you're doing well.
Fascinating stories. Keep posting them. If you need anything, if its something we can do we'll do it. Just let us know.
I'd like to see you write a cover article for the blog. I'm sure Lydia would like that too.
Really good to see you.
worf
clif said...
ReplyDeleteWoodward: Cheney Cursed At Me About ‘State of Denial,’ Then Hung Up The Phone
Today on Meet the Press, Bob Woodward described how Vice President Dick Cheney called him 10 days ago about Woodward’s new book State of Denial. Woodward says Cheney cursed at him (”he said what I was saying was bull-something”) and then hung up the phone.
Woodward called Cheney’s behavior a “metaphor for what’s going on. Hang up when somebody has a different point of view or information you don’t want to deal with.”
Thats amazing Clif. I am just seeing this on TP now.
I can't imagine a man like this being vice president of the Country. A womens shoe store maybe, but of the United States?
Ridiculous.
Anonymous said
ReplyDeleteAll prayers in the name of the public should be non-denominational
Agreed.
And I understand what you're saying, I just wanted to point clarify, that we are talking about prayers not associated or favoring one given religion.
Non denominational is a term used primarily by Christian churches, referring to not being associated with a major governing body.
What you meant, and was clear by the preceeding sentences, was prayers based on no particular religion or philosophy. Agnostics should feel right at home when public prayer is offered.
And who knows? Maybe Gods just waiting for us to all grow past this religious crap so he\she\it can actually communicate with us.
Who knows.
Personally, I think the best religion, would have no answers at all.
ReplyDeleteOnly questions.
Some really good questions.
ReplyDeleteAP: Sen. Allen Failed To Disclose Stock Options
ReplyDeleteAssociated Press
SHARON THEIMER and BOB LEWIS October 8, 2006 at 01:38 PM
For the past five years, Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), has failed to tell Congress about stock options he got for his work as a director of a high-tech company. The Virginia Republican also asked the Army to help another business that gave him similar options.
Congressional rules require senators to disclose to the Senate all deferred compensation, such as stock options. The rules also urge senators to avoid taking any official action that could benefit them financially or appear to do so.
NEWS ALERT.
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea is reporting that North Korea just tested a Nuclear weapon.
I just saw the Woodward interview on Meet the Press.
ReplyDeleteWoodward just descimated the Bush administration, showing them for the childish oafs that they are.
He described how Cheney called him 10 days before the book came out, and complained about being quoted.
When Woodward pointed out that Cheney knew the interview was on the record, Cheney said his book was bullshit, and hung up.
Woodward pointed out to Tim Russert, that this was a perfect metaphor for the Bush administration.
They hang up on anything they don't want to hear, or disagree with.
Thank God for Bob Woodward. He took down one of the right wings OTHER CORRUPT Presidents, and his book is going to help take down this one.
His book is not biased, as he is not biased. His book is what he said it is, a "REPORTERS JOURNAL", based on 5 years of research, and is the best truth out there.
Well worfeus, seems like Georgie went after the WRONG country for WMD's didn't he, Iraq had None in 2003 and neither did North Korea,
ReplyDeleteIn 2006 Iraq is a Fiasco, and North Korea is testing a nuke.
Can we fire the Idiot NOW?
YES.
ReplyDeleteFire him and bring in someone with a freaking brain.
I heard his dad yesterday crying about how he's offended by people calling his son stupid.
ReplyDeleteTough.
Imagine how the rest of us feel being subjected to his stupid son.
We've got a Vice President who runs the country from behind the scenes, yet hangs up like a little girl on reporters who dare to disagree with him.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the rest of you, but I wants someone with a little more maturity than me, running things.
Well his daddy proly won't like the fact I think his son is not just stupid, but a first class Idiot.
ReplyDeleteBush Sr's son is a certifiable halfwit moron not fit or qualified to run a lemonade stand, and you aint seen nothing yet........now that the free ride is over and people are finally challenging Bush's and Cheney's and Coulter's BS you are going to see these morons throw a tantrum on a regular basis, in fact i'll post one of brat boy Bush's tantrums tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteRobert Dreyfuss
ReplyDeleteSeptember 13, 2006
There Is No War On Terror
Robert Dreyfuss
September 13, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and the entire Republican election team are scrambling to make their so-called war on terror the focus of the next seven weeks. As in 2002 and 2004, they’re counting on their ability to scare Americans with the al-Qaida bogeyman. And while the trauma of 9/11 has begun to dissipate and American voters seem less susceptible than ever to the scare tactics used by the White House, for the past five years the Democrats have been singularly unable to develop an effective counter to the Bush administration on terrorism. So, for that reason, here are 10 important facts about terrorism that opponents of President Bush should understand.
Part of what follows is derived from a series of some two dozen interviews I conducted over the summer with leading U.S. counterterrorism officials, many of whom served in top posts during the Bush administration. Not all of them agree with each other, nor with all of my conclusions, which can be found in the Sept. 21 issue of Rolling Stone . But most of them served on the front lines of the so-called "war on terror." If U.S. counterterrorism efforts were run by these officials, instead of Bush and Cheney, those efforts would look radically different than they do today.
I. The threat of terrorism is wildly exaggerated.
A strong and convincing case that the al-Qaida bogeyman is inflated far beyond the real but limited threat that it poses is made in the current issue of Foreign Affairs , in an article by political scientist John Mueller. He and others argue persuasively that the reason the United States has not been attacked since 9/11 is that terrorists are far less powerful than the White House claims. “If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest,” writes Mueller. Why haven’t the Democrats picked up this argument?
II. Al-Qaida barely exists at all as a threat.
The organization that attacked the United States on 9/11 has been shattered and pushed to the brink of extinction, despite claims to the contrary of the vast anti-terrorism industrial complex and its journalistic heavy-breathers. I interviewed Carl Ford, the former assistant secretary of state for intelligence, who told me:
We’re overstating their capability, because we can’t believe that there isn’t a more nefarious explanation for the fact that we haven’t been attacked. There aren’t a lot of terrorists out there, and they’re not 10-feet tall. … One appealing hypothesis is: they’ve been damaged more than we know.
The Democrats should stop ringing alarm bells about al-Qaida and explain calmly that the terrorist threat, which was small five years ago, has been greatly reduced since 9/11.
III. There is no Terrorist International.
President Bush lumps the remnants of al-Qaida together with states such as Iran and Syria, the resistance movement in Iraq, insurgent political parties such as Hezbollah and Hamas and other assorted entities into one, big “Islamofascist” enemy. Nothing could be more ill-informed or further from the truth. "That's an oversimplification of the task of dealing with the tactic [terrorism] that is used by many different groups, with many different ideologies," Paul R. Pillar, a former top CIA analyst and the author of a respected book on terrorism, told The Washington Post . "It leads to a misunderstanding of the need of what is in fact a different counterterrorist policy for each group and state we are dealing with. . . . Hamas is an entirely different entity than al-Qaeda. . . . Their objectives are very much different." Pillar said much the same thing to me. Bush claims that al-Qaida and its terrorist allies want to create an “empire than spans from Spain to Indonesia.” Not a chance. Larry Wilkerson, the former top aide to Colin Powell, told me: “I don’t think there’s a soul in the administration, except for Vice President Dick Cheney, who believes that crap about Islamofascism.” Why don’t Democrats ridicule this specific sort of fear-mongering?
IV. Iraq will not, and could not, fall to al-Qaida.
The Iraqi resistance is overwhelmingly made up of Sunni, former Baathist, nationalist members of Iraq’s former military and intelligence services, Sunni tribal leaders and just plain old “pissed-off Iraqis.” It is not al-Qaida. When Bush says that by leaving Iraq we would turn Iraq over to the al-Qaida types, he is making the same false argument that he made five years ago. Then, he told us that Saddam Hussein backed Osama bin Laden. Now, he tells us that pro-Saddam Hussein Iraqis back pro-bin Laden al-Qaida types. He lied then and he is lying now.
V. The Taliban is not al-Qaida.
In 2001, the Taliban and al-Qaida may have had a marriage of convenience. But, as in many marriages, it was not a happy one. Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership were suspicious and resentful of al-Qaida, and some Taliban leaders were openly hostile to bin Laden. Today, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a sad reminder that Bush bungled Afghanistan, too—but the Taliban fighters are Afghan Islamists, like the mujahideen that the CIA supported in the 1980s. They are not Arabs or foreign fighters, and they are not al-Qaida. If the Taliban pose a threat to U.S. interests, it is not a terrorist one.
VI. Neither Iran nor Syria sponsor anti-U.S. terrorism.
Al-Qaida has zero support in Iran and Syria. The Syrian regime is fiercely hostile to al-Qaida-style fundamentalist Islam. Iran, a Shiite theocracy, is bitterly hostile to Sunni fundamentalism and to al-Qaida. Although both countries tactically support Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel and although Iran routinely assassinates opposition leaders abroad, neither country has attacked the United States in decades. The few al-Qaida leaders—including Osama bin Laden’s son—reported to be in Iran are under house arrest and do not lead operations for the shattered terrorist group. Yet that hasn’t stopped Bush administration officials, such as Nicholas Burns of the State Department, from accusing Iran of “harboring” al-Qaida. Nonsense.
VII. It is not a “war.”
Although the Pentagon has garnered 90 percent of the money for the so-called war on terrorism, and although the Pentagon’s special operations command is supposedly in charge of the “war,” it is not a war. Terrorism cannot be fought with tanks, planes and missiles. The Defense Department cannot invade the London suburbs or mosques in Hamburg or the teeming cities of Pakistan. Cells of angry Muslims will coalesce spontaneously to seek revenge for real or alleged wrongs for decades to come. That is a problem for the CIA, the FBI, and, especially, foreign police and intelligence services, not Donald Rumsfeld’s legions. “I hate the term ‘global war on terrorism,’” John O. Brennan, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center until last year, told me. “The Department of Defense and others insist very strongly on calling it a war, because that allows the Pentagon to prosecute the military dimension of the conflict. It fits their strategy.”
VIII. There were never any al-Qaida sleeper cells in the United States.
In 2002, the Bush administration leaked to the press its assertion that al-Qaida had 5,000 “sleepers” in the United States, dormant agents that could be activated by Osama bin Laden. There were none—at least, not a single one has been found, and no terrorism has occurred in five years. No terrorism at all: In five years, no one in the United States has as much as been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim fundamentalist.
IX. Vulnerabilities are not threats.
The unnecessary, superfluous Department of Homeland Security is tracking countless points of vulnerability. Trains and trucks, buses and subways, chemical plants and factories, airports and ports, skyscrapers and bridges, tunnels and dams—the list of potential targets is endless. But the list of potential terrorists is infinitesimally small. Despite the recently uncovered London plot—details of which have still not been revealed and which is increasingly looking exaggerated—there hasn’t even been a single advanced terrorist plot uncovered in the United States since 9/11. President Bush gamely cites 10 supposed plots stopped by U.S. counterterrorism efforts, but on closer examination all 10 are either bogus or were to take place overseas. According to several top counterterrorism officials, the number of serious terrorist plots against the United States in the past five years is: zero.
X. No one is in charge.
After the creation of the DHS, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. Northern Command, the FBI’s new intelligence division and other counterterrorism agencies, no one is in charge. “We have a more confusing organization now,” Pillar told me. “It’s really hard to answer the question ‘Who’s in charge?’” Every agency, from the Pentagon to the lowliest police department, has used the threat of terrorism to win ever-larger appropriations from federal, state and local governments for the ostensible purpose of fighting terrorism. So far, none of them have found any actual terrorists—but the proliferation of competing agencies continues, and they continue to step on each other’s toes.
After 9/11, the Bush administration launched an open-ended war on an ambiguous enemy ("terror") while offering the nation no definition of what victory would look like. Five years later, the nation has spent billions in taxpayer dollars and lost thousands of American lives fighting a threat that should be the province of law enforcement and intelligence services, not the military. And the White House tells us there is no end in sight.
Mr. Bush: Do you still want the November election to be decided on this sorry record?
Alec Baldwin wrote this in Huffington Post. I was thinking the exact same thing, so I thought I'd post it.
ReplyDeleteThe Embarrassed Republicans
Sad to think that it took the Foley situation to get the "Embarrassed Republicans" to start voicing their embarrassment.
Nearly six years of lies, incompetence, lies, hate, lies, corruption, lies and war.
Misguided, meaningless war that has destroyed the landscape of Iraq and the souls of the Iraqi people. And what has the war done for us, other than line the pockets of Bush, and his father's friends?
Well, you know what they say, you can lie to the American people, take us into an ill-conceived war and subvert the Constitution in the process, but you diddle one page...and it's over.
I hope it's over.
I'll take the end of what Gingrich started, regardless of how we get there. If it's Mark Foley's body we step over, and hopefully Hastert's as well, then so be it.
DeLay may get away. Cheney. Novak. Armitage. Rumsfeld. All your crypto-facist scum, as well.
Bush, too, who will have no trouble raising money from his war-profiteering friends for a library which, I would imagine, will be the most poorly attended of any in our history. That's one certainty we can see on the horizon.
Bush really is the worst president in American history.
I almost feel sorry for him.
Alec Baldwin is the man!
ReplyDeleteHe needs to go down to Washington, call a special meeting with the Preisdent, and say,"PUT THAT COFFEE, DOWN".
Coffee is for closers.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush and Boy is He Surprised!
ReplyDeleteLarry C Johnson
That flash you saw in the West (or the East, depending on which way you were looking) weren't tourist cameras. Think Korean BBQ only with a mushroom cloud. Kim Jong Il has gone and done it. Boy, Bush can't buy a break. If you're having trouble keeping score here's the rundown:
Senator Warner signals that Iraq is headed down the tubes;
the Taliban are surging;
Mark Foley's Feeley-gate worsens (it seems that the only openly gay Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, was told about Foley's indiscretions five years ago;
Bob Woodward kissed and told (he said Bush's is really small. . .)
A majority of Americans now realize Bush punked them on Iraq and they ain't laughing;
Most Republican legislators are treating Bush like a leper with aids;
Dems are poised to take back the House and Senate.
Bush's bag of tricks is empty. Dems feared an October surprise. Looks like there was a surprise alright, but this one was for Bush. So, get ready. Bush will be out tomorrow reminding us that things are peachy keen in Korea and his policy is working. See, he's the decider and he just decided that there is nothing but good news, so there!
****************************************
Shorter Larry Johnson,
Bush FAILED, on North Korea, Iraq ], Afghanistan, Katrina, and his own party members do not want to be seen with him.
Lets see if I have it right, we went to war to either stop Iraq from getting the smoking "mushroom cloud" gun, or take it away if they had it.
ReplyDeleteAll the while North Korea was building one and Bush sort of ignored them?
And now Iraq is a fiasco and North Korea is the newest member of the world's nuclear power countries.
At this point Bush kind of makes even Denny Hastert look competent doesn't he?
Ask Larry why he thought there was NO terrorist risk in July of 2001. After all he is supposed to be some kine of expert (cough) on the subject.
ReplyDeleteTT get some bew talking points your are as tired as the repugs who claim to be keeping the US safe, after the destroyed a country who had NO nukes and Ignores the ones who are creating them.
ReplyDeleteYou a$$clowns are all frauds as Foley pointed out in spades.
Let's recap the Bush foreign policy plan.
ReplyDeleteI know, stop laughing, I did say "plan". Yes PLAN, that is what I said. Right I said Plan....yes I know, stop laughing, they said they had a plan.
See they went into a country which they had NO Intell because they claimed that Saddam wanted to get nuclear weapons, and HE had to be stopped. So Bush took the US there in March 2003, with tanks and bombs to stop Saddam. We searched and searched but NO nukes, no program, nothing. And now Iraq is a Fiasco, on the verge of breaking up, even Jim Baker says so. This will totally destabilise the entire region for probably a decade.
At the same time Bush warned us about North Koreas real plans to aquire a nuclear weapon. So what does he do, REFUSE to talk to them unless he can bring a whole lot of people to the talk, looks like georgie wanted to have somebody to HIDE behinsd when he was looking at Kim Jong Il, big bad Texan georgie is after all. But the North koreans saw the Bushg Administration as a paper tiger, because it could add up the troops and see that Bush had overplayed his hands, so Kim Jong Il simply ignored Bush and went ahead with HIS very real program.
Well six years later Saddam has no nukes and the Iraqi's have no country, just a civil war, and the North Koreans have a NUKE and last night they unleashed the smoking "mushroom cloud" gun to prove it. So the Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans, and other regional players will have to respond. And their responses might lead to soem attempting to aquire nukes of their own. This will probablt destabilise the region for a decade or so, until they balance of power can be re-established.
Heck of a job Georgie....
Hell at least one good thing for the repugs can come out of this. At this point Bush kind of makes even Denny Hastert look competent doesn't he?
Contrarian Chronicles10/2/2006 12:00 AM ET
ReplyDeleteBeware of the 'Bubbleonians'Earnings warnings and history don't seem to be enough to discourage bull-market believers
By Bill Fleckenstein
However, if one takes a step back, the world is a remarkably different place than when the Dow reached its high in late January of 2000. Looking farther back, most of us weren't in the business in September and October of 1973, but two friends who were have noted the similarities between the Dow's rally then and the one occurring now.
In '73, when stocks seemed worry free
That September/October rally was the last one before the market got annihilated. In fact, after the rally ended in late October 1973, the market dropped close to 20% in a month's time. A year later, it was down almost 40% from those October highs. Fast-forward to the present, where the macro backdrop is worse, and the contrast may prove telling.
Obviously, with animal spirits running high and folks thinking they have a free pass because it's the "fundamentally correct" time of the quarter to buy stocks, any bit of craziness is possible in the short run. However, it will be temporary. There will be no bailing out the housing bubble that bailed out the equity bubble. There's no way that the flagrant disregard for risk on the part of folks chasing stocks can end in anything other than tears for this temporary rebirth of Bubbleonian mentality.
Troll Tex said "Ask Larry why he thought there was NO terrorist risk in July of 2001. After all he is supposed to be some kine of expert (cough) on the subject."
ReplyDeletesure troll tex, i'll ask Larry if you ask Condi Rice, GWB, Rummy Wolfowitz etc... first.
as for no terrorist risk sure there is a terrorist risk, there is also a risk of getting stung by the rare killer african bee, one threat is overblown and exagerated and one isnt, the chance of getting in car accident on any given day is probably thousands of times more likely than being the victim of a terrorist attack and we havent changed our constitution or sacrificed our freedoms to prevent bee stings or car accidents...............BTW what did Wolfowitz, Dumbsfeld and Bush call fightinterorism and attacking Al Qaeda right before 9/11 like Richard Clark wanted to do........OH YEAH, SWATTING AT FLIES, and Rice just blew off his warnings and then lied about it recently, the bush Administration thinks Americans have poor memories and are to stupid to catch you fools in your lies, luckily it is you guys who are stupid morons too bad for daddy Bush that the truth about his halfwit moron son hurts and is hard to swallow......but then the truth hurts in many cases particularly to repugs who work so furiously to hide and surpress it, he should be used to defending and bailing out his worthless moron son by now though.
Robert Dreyfuss
ReplyDeleteSeptember 13, 2006
There Is No War On Terror
Robert Dreyfuss
September 13, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and the entire Republican election team are scrambling to make their so-called war on terror the focus of the next seven weeks. As in 2002 and 2004, they’re counting on their ability to scare Americans with the al-Qaida bogeyman. And while the trauma of 9/11 has begun to dissipate and American voters seem less susceptible than ever to the scare tactics used by the White House, for the past five years the Democrats have been singularly unable to develop an effective counter to the Bush administration on terrorism. So, for that reason, here are 10 important facts about terrorism that opponents of President Bush should understand.
Part of what follows is derived from a series of some two dozen interviews I conducted over the summer with leading U.S. counterterrorism officials, many of whom served in top posts during the Bush administration. Not all of them agree with each other, nor with all of my conclusions, which can be found in the Sept. 21 issue of Rolling Stone . But most of them served on the front lines of the so-called "war on terror." If U.S. counterterrorism efforts were run by these officials, instead of Bush and Cheney, those efforts would look radically different than they do today.
I. The threat of terrorism is wildly exaggerated.
A strong and convincing case that the al-Qaida bogeyman is inflated far beyond the real but limited threat that it poses is made in the current issue of Foreign Affairs , in an article by political scientist John Mueller. He and others argue persuasively that the reason the United States has not been attacked since 9/11 is that terrorists are far less powerful than the White House claims. “If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest,” writes Mueller. Why haven’t the Democrats picked up this argument?
II. Al-Qaida barely exists at all as a threat.
The organization that attacked the United States on 9/11 has been shattered and pushed to the brink of extinction, despite claims to the contrary of the vast anti-terrorism industrial complex and its journalistic heavy-breathers. I interviewed Carl Ford, the former assistant secretary of state for intelligence, who told me:
We’re overstating their capability, because we can’t believe that there isn’t a more nefarious explanation for the fact that we haven’t been attacked. There aren’t a lot of terrorists out there, and they’re not 10-feet tall. … One appealing hypothesis is: they’ve been damaged more than we know.
The Democrats should stop ringing alarm bells about al-Qaida and explain calmly that the terrorist threat, which was small five years ago, has been greatly reduced since 9/11.
III. There is no Terrorist International.
President Bush lumps the remnants of al-Qaida together with states such as Iran and Syria, the resistance movement in Iraq, insurgent political parties such as Hezbollah and Hamas and other assorted entities into one, big “Islamofascist” enemy. Nothing could be more ill-informed or further from the truth. "That's an oversimplification of the task of dealing with the tactic [terrorism] that is used by many different groups, with many different ideologies," Paul R. Pillar, a former top CIA analyst and the author of a respected book on terrorism, told The Washington Post . "It leads to a misunderstanding of the need of what is in fact a different counterterrorist policy for each group and state we are dealing with. . . . Hamas is an entirely different entity than al-Qaeda. . . . Their objectives are very much different." Pillar said much the same thing to me. Bush claims that al-Qaida and its terrorist allies want to create an “empire than spans from Spain to Indonesia.” Not a chance. Larry Wilkerson, the former top aide to Colin Powell, told me: “I don’t think there’s a soul in the administration, except for Vice President Dick Cheney, who believes that crap about Islamofascism.” Why don’t Democrats ridicule this specific sort of fear-mongering?
IV. Iraq will not, and could not, fall to al-Qaida.
The Iraqi resistance is overwhelmingly made up of Sunni, former Baathist, nationalist members of Iraq’s former military and intelligence services, Sunni tribal leaders and just plain old “pissed-off Iraqis.” It is not al-Qaida. When Bush says that by leaving Iraq we would turn Iraq over to the al-Qaida types, he is making the same false argument that he made five years ago. Then, he told us that Saddam Hussein backed Osama bin Laden. Now, he tells us that pro-Saddam Hussein Iraqis back pro-bin Laden al-Qaida types. He lied then and he is lying now.
V. The Taliban is not al-Qaida.
In 2001, the Taliban and al-Qaida may have had a marriage of convenience. But, as in many marriages, it was not a happy one. Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership were suspicious and resentful of al-Qaida, and some Taliban leaders were openly hostile to bin Laden. Today, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a sad reminder that Bush bungled Afghanistan, too—but the Taliban fighters are Afghan Islamists, like the mujahideen that the CIA supported in the 1980s. They are not Arabs or foreign fighters, and they are not al-Qaida. If the Taliban pose a threat to U.S. interests, it is not a terrorist one.
VI. Neither Iran nor Syria sponsor anti-U.S. terrorism.
Al-Qaida has zero support in Iran and Syria. The Syrian regime is fiercely hostile to al-Qaida-style fundamentalist Islam. Iran, a Shiite theocracy, is bitterly hostile to Sunni fundamentalism and to al-Qaida. Although both countries tactically support Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel and although Iran routinely assassinates opposition leaders abroad, neither country has attacked the United States in decades. The few al-Qaida leaders—including Osama bin Laden’s son—reported to be in Iran are under house arrest and do not lead operations for the shattered terrorist group. Yet that hasn’t stopped Bush administration officials, such as Nicholas Burns of the State Department, from accusing Iran of “harboring” al-Qaida. Nonsense.
VII. It is not a “war.”
Although the Pentagon has garnered 90 percent of the money for the so-called war on terrorism, and although the Pentagon’s special operations command is supposedly in charge of the “war,” it is not a war. Terrorism cannot be fought with tanks, planes and missiles. The Defense Department cannot invade the London suburbs or mosques in Hamburg or the teeming cities of Pakistan. Cells of angry Muslims will coalesce spontaneously to seek revenge for real or alleged wrongs for decades to come. That is a problem for the CIA, the FBI, and, especially, foreign police and intelligence services, not Donald Rumsfeld’s legions. “I hate the term ‘global war on terrorism,’” John O. Brennan, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center until last year, told me. “The Department of Defense and others insist very strongly on calling it a war, because that allows the Pentagon to prosecute the military dimension of the conflict. It fits their strategy.”
VIII. There were never any al-Qaida sleeper cells in the United States.
In 2002, the Bush administration leaked to the press its assertion that al-Qaida had 5,000 “sleepers” in the United States, dormant agents that could be activated by Osama bin Laden. There were none—at least, not a single one has been found, and no terrorism has occurred in five years. No terrorism at all: In five years, no one in the United States has as much as been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim fundamentalist.
IX. Vulnerabilities are not threats.
The unnecessary, superfluous Department of Homeland Security is tracking countless points of vulnerability. Trains and trucks, buses and subways, chemical plants and factories, airports and ports, skyscrapers and bridges, tunnels and dams—the list of potential targets is endless. But the list of potential terrorists is infinitesimally small. Despite the recently uncovered London plot—details of which have still not been revealed and which is increasingly looking exaggerated—there hasn’t even been a single advanced terrorist plot uncovered in the United States since 9/11. President Bush gamely cites 10 supposed plots stopped by U.S. counterterrorism efforts, but on closer examination all 10 are either bogus or were to take place overseas. According to several top counterterrorism officials, the number of serious terrorist plots against the United States in the past five years is: zero.
X. No one is in charge.
After the creation of the DHS, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. Northern Command, the FBI’s new intelligence division and other counterterrorism agencies, no one is in charge. “We have a more confusing organization now,” Pillar told me. “It’s really hard to answer the question ‘Who’s in charge?’” Every agency, from the Pentagon to the lowliest police department, has used the threat of terrorism to win ever-larger appropriations from federal, state and local governments for the ostensible purpose of fighting terrorism. So far, none of them have found any actual terrorists—but the proliferation of competing agencies continues, and they continue to step on each other’s toes.
After 9/11, the Bush administration launched an open-ended war on an ambiguous enemy ("terror") while offering the nation no definition of what victory would look like. Five years later, the nation has spent billions in taxpayer dollars and lost thousands of American lives fighting a threat that should be the province of law enforcement and intelligence services, not the military. And the White House tells us there is no end in sight.
Mr. Bush: Do you still want the November election to be decided on this sorry record?
Don't Buy the Dow's New High
ReplyDeletePeter Schiff
This week, the professional stock market boosters, who masquerade as wise market commentators, filled the airwaves with celebratory musings on the significance of a record high Dow. Many spoke of it as the milestone that will usher in a new bull market reminiscent of the one which roared during the 1990s. However, the Dow's new high is merely an inflationary illusion. The fact that Wall Street universally ignores inflation adjustments with respect to the Dow, while consistently qualifying oil prices in inflation adjusted terms, reveals the bullish bias of an industry dependent on optimism.
In the first place, adjusted for the CPI the Dow's January, 2000 peak would equate to over 14,000 in today's dollars. Of course, since the CPI understates the true inflation rate by at least 2-3 percentage points annually, the Dow Jones would likely have to be over 16,000 today to deliver the same purchasing power that it did then. Ignoring inflation and looking instead from a foreign exchange perspective the Dow is also far from a real high. Priced in British pounds, Canadian or Australian dollars, or euros, at 11,850 the Dow is still below its 2000 peak by approximately 25%, 26% and 32% respectively.
In the second place, the Dow Jones consists of just thirty stocks. If you look at broader market averages, such as the S& P 500 or the NASDAQ Composite, the former is about 13% below its 2000 high, while the latter is 55% below. When those numbers are adjusted for rises in the CPI, in real terms the indexes are below their 2000 peaks by more than 27% and 63% respectively. Of course, those numbers would be far higher were we using a more accurate inflation measure.
While the financial media is quick to proclaim a new bull market in stocks, they have simultaneously proclaimed an end to the current bull markets in gold and oil. Both calls are premature, unsupported by the facts, and more representative of wishful thinking than legitimate forecasting.
Since hitting its nominal peak in January 2000, the Dow Jones has lost just over half of its value relative to gold, even after the recent surge in the Dow and the dip in gold. It should be clear, therefore, that the real bull market is in gold, not the Dow. The way I see it, nothing has happened during the last several months to reverse these trends. From my perspective, we are simply experiencing normal counter-trend moves that typify bull and bear markets alike.
The most significant aspect of such counter-trend moves is their impact on market psychology. Bull market corrections produce fear, while bear market corrections produce hope. Among gold and oil investors, the fear is that the move is over. Those who got in early sell to preserve what remains of their gains, while recent entrants sell to mitigate their losses. Stock market investors buy more hoping to finally recover their losses.
However, neither emotion is likely to be validated. In fact, secular market trends generally continue until both emotions are completely exhausted. Bull markets will persist until all fear is eliminated; producing euphoria, while bear markets will persist until all hope is lost, producing despair. The Dow's new high, and the media hype surrounding it, should help create enough optimism for a major top to be established. Similarly, the recent sharp drops in the prices of gold and oil should unleash enough pessimism for significant bottoms to emerge.
The decree of leverage in today's markets tends to exaggerate the magnitude and speed of corrections. Hedge funds and other speculative players are generally trend-followers and are quick to exit when the winds appear to be shifting. It is important to remember that speculators do not create the underlying trends; they simply tag along for the ride. However, as their frequent entrances and exits add to short-term volatility, long-term investors should not follow their lead.
October 6, 2006
The best strategy for investors is to take advantage of the opportunities short-term speculators create. In other words, buy gold and oil. For the best way to take advantage of the big drop in oil and gas prices, download my must-read, free report on Canadian Energy Trusts here.
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Like usual the repugs are spinning away, thumping their chests and crowing about things they have no right to crow about, they should be ashamed of an economy were only the ultra wealthy have done well, were health care and medical costs are out of reach of the majority of americans and college is becoming out of reach as well, housing costs medical costs and college costs have in some cases doubled or tripled while wages have stagnated or even decreased for the majority of Americans.
Rush Limbaugh online
ReplyDeleteno one wants to listen to those corupt liars Coulter or Rush Troll Tex!
ReplyDeleteTalllTexan said...
ReplyDeleteAfter all he is supposed to be some kine of expert (cough) on the subject.
You mean like Bush is supposed to be some kind of expert (cough) on the subject?
Rush Limpballs is a child molesting peice of donkey crap.
ReplyDeleteHe went down to the DR for child prostitution, and when it comes out, the Foley scandal will look tame.
And all you idiots who worship this fat, festering, pussing bloated sack of maggots will once more look like fools.
"Mike said...
ReplyDeleteno one wants to listen to those corupt liars Coulter or Rush Troll Tex!
10:03 AM"
Tough.
Rush Limbaugh online
Robert Dreyfus said "President Bush lumps the remnants of al-Qaida together with states such as Iran and Syria, the resistance movement in Iraq, insurgent political parties such as Hezbollah and Hamas and other assorted entities into one, big “Islamofascist” enemy. Nothing could be more ill-informed or further from the truth. "That's an oversimplification of the task of dealing with the tactic [terrorism] that is used by many different groups, with many different ideologies," Paul R. Pillar, a former top CIA analyst and the author of a respected book on terrorism, told The Washington Post . "It leads to a misunderstanding of the need of what is in fact a different counterterrorist policy for each group and state we are dealing with. . . . Hamas is an entirely different entity than al-Qaeda. . . . Their objectives are very much different." Pillar said much the same thing to me. Bush claims that al-Qaida and its terrorist allies want to create an “empire than spans from Spain to Indonesia.” Not a chance. Larry Wilkerson, the former top aide to Colin Powell, told me: “I don’t think there’s a soul in the administration, except for Vice President Dick Cheney, who believes that crap about Islamofascism.” Why don’t Democrats ridicule this specific sort of fear-mongering?"
ReplyDeletethey allready do look like fools, look what the foul halfwit troll Tex has been reduced to, he spams the blog with a few stupid links that no one here cares about or reads and then runs away with his tail between his legs just like his heros Coulter and rush do, who also fear truth and honest debate, because they know their lies dont hold up in honest debate.......the free ride for you clowns is over from now on people are going to ask you clowns to back up your lies slander and outrageos statements with facts!
ReplyDeleteMike, what lies of mine can be found on this blog?
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh online
Looks like Tiny conscienceinTexan worships Limpman just as Mark Foley wanted the pages to worship him.
ReplyDeleteNaw, Clif, I just keep posting the link because Mike objected.
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh online
Sorry son you have posted that link every day long before Mike told you the TRUTH,
ReplyDeleteNo rational person wants to listen to that fat limpdick liar, get over it.
Seeing as though Mike can't find a lie of mine, how about a couple of his: 1) Nixon was impeached; 2) Clinton was not impeached.
ReplyDeleteOh, I almost forgot:
Rush Limbaugh online
In fact I'll bet Tiny used to work for Limpman, and they still text message each other...daily.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever go to the Dominican Republic with the limpman and HIS bottle of little blue pills ? Did ya Tiny, inquiring minds would like to know.
show me one example of where I EVER said Clinton was not impeached you slimy lying troll!
ReplyDeleteis that all you have to distract from your party's coruption, lies and incompetence Troll Tex, trying to slime clinton and bringing up another corupt liar who was "FORCED" to resign in disgrace to avoid being impeached and forceibly removed from office........like i said before you clowns have nothing to crow about every single time you fools come to power you screw up and make a mess of things 2006 is going to be just like 1973 and we know what happened in 1974 dont we troll tex?
ReplyDeleteTroll Tex said "Seeing as though Mike can't find a lie of mine, how about a couple of his: 1) Nixon was impeached; 2) Clinton was not impeached."
ReplyDeleteWell troll Tex you lied RIGHT HERE Foole! because I never said Clinton was never inpeached and since I immediately clarified my post and stated 5 times that nixon resigned to avoid being impeached and you kept repeating that I was saying he WAS impeached after that clarification, to try to make it look like I was saying he was impeached when I was not, that is a lie as well.........and lets not forget the oldy but goody that I beat you into the ground with when you lied and stated the Lydia and I were antisemetic, hated Israel and wanted to see it destroyed with no evidence whatsoever to back up your slanderous slimy lie, that was a whopper troll tex!
Mike, show me where you never said that.
ReplyDeleteLooks like some repugs are getting ready to "cut and run" they just do not want to lose the election they already are going to lose over it. In other words they are willing to be honest AFTER the election so they will not get any blame for the GOP's drumming.
ReplyDeleteDoing the Math
So yesterday, amidst the Foley grime and slime, some more consequential news: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-VA, returning from a trip to Iraq, offered a bleak assesment of the situation there.
"I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn't come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function, I think it's a responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take?" Warner said. "And I wouldn't take off the table any option at this time."
Now today comes word fom Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, that two other Senate Republicans have told him they'll break with the White House Iraq strategy.
But here's the hook -- they won't do so until after the November elections.
"Two leading Republican Senators have come to me," Biden recalled, and said that after the election "the need to protect the president will be nonexistent" and Republicans will be freer to break with the White House and call for change in Iraq.
Assuming Biden's tale is correct, it will be interesting to see which Republicans wait until after November 7 to break ranks with the White House on Iraq.
I wonder how a Senator who opposes the current Iraq war policy -- but hasn't stated so publicly -- calculates how many lives it's acceptable to have killed pursuing that policy before stating his opposition to it ….for the sole purpose of protecting his political party in an election.
How do you do the math on that?
Holding the Senate is worth, say, 500 dead? One thousand? How many US troops? How many wounded?
How do you justify it in your head?
"Well, my opposition won't change much on the ground there in the short term, anyway"...?
"I oppose the policy, but I don’t want President Bush to get miffed at me for helping the Democrats sweep Connecticut"...?
God, sometimes it's hard to work in this town and not grow deeply cynical.
Real stand up crowd of A$$CLOWNS you got there son.....real load of gutless limpmen who have no morals and no spine.
President Bush is “ticked off big-time”at former aides who helped Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, “State of Denial.” The NY Daily News reports, “In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.” 12:41 pm | Comment
ReplyDeleteMike, how about attributing writings that are not your own.
ReplyDeleteTroll Tex said "Mike, show me where you never said that."
ReplyDeleteKiss my A$$ you pathetic halwit loser troll.......time to crawl back under your rock before you get humilated like all the other lying repug morons and shrills.
Hey Talll Texan.
ReplyDeleteDo I make you horny?
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkprogress.org/ 2006/ 10/ 09/ president-bush-is-ticked-off-big-time/ trackback/
And yet the Republicans want everyone to think there was no coverup in La Cage Aux Foley? Puh-leeeze.
Comment by Badmoodman — October 9, 2006 @ 12:45 pm
“talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.”
Bush should review something called the Constitution of the United States and compare it with his actions in office before attempting to define disloyalty.
Comment by NutWrench — October 9, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
“ticked off big time”? Can we expect our little emperor momma’s boy to take out his frustration now? Maybe the chimp will order a teeny weeny little nuclear strike on Iran to show that he is still in charge.
Comment by RealScientist — October 9, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
Once again, pissed at the messengers, not the message.
You got to change your moron and evil ways before people stop talking about you like that Mr. Bush.
Comment by Spudge_Boy — October 9, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
Watch you’re back Mr. Woodward, you may be the first in the gate of GITMO to test bull shit bush’s new bill’s that were passed….Right TP.??
Comment by Sharon Cox — October 9, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
GOP REP KOLBE SAW FOLEY MESSAGES 6 YEARS AGO
ReplyDeleteWashington Post
Jonathan Weisman
October 8, 2006 at 11:35 PM
A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) confirmed yesterday that a former page showed the congressman Internet messages that had made the youth feel uncomfortable with the direction Foley (R-Fla.) was taking their e-mail relationship. Last week, when the Foley matter erupted, a Kolbe staff member suggested to the former page that he take the matter to the clerk of the House, Karen Haas, said Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline.
Thanks, Mike, but next time take more care in not leaving out the source.
ReplyDeleteHey Troll tex didnt the repugs used to be the party of morality, and fiscal responsibility and small government and no government interference and freedom, and personal accountability etc....WHAT HAPPENED, 6 years with you guys in charge and you screwed everything up, you "CLAIMED" you didnt want Iraq to have Nukes but yet North Korea and iran are developing them ON YOUR WATCH and you do nothing.
ReplyDeleteYou were handed a surplus and you ran up the biggest deficit of all time, you claim to be the party of morality but you cover for a child predator, you have done nothing to secure our ports and borders and your invasion of Iraq based on lies as well as abandoning the real war on terror in Afghanistan has made us much less safe, you went into Iraq with no plan except to line the pockets of big oil and the wealthy elite and there is still no plan.
YOU GUYS ARE INCOMPETENT BUFFOONS TT how bout you explain that Troll!
Yea TT.
ReplyDeleteI BET you want to talk about whether Mike said Clinton was impeached or not.
I bet you want to endlessly rant on mindless drivel and insignificant minutia.
Cause you know your ass is done in Congress.
You want to talk about ANYTHING other than whats happening now.
ReplyDeleteRemember slim, the numbers there if you need it.
“Why should I care about North Korea?”In State of Denial, Bob Woodward recounts a conversation between then-Gov. George W. Bush and then-Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar, in which Bush wonders why he should care about North Korea. “I get these briefings on all parts of the world,” Bush said, “and everybody is talking to me about North Korea.” 11:40 am | Comment (105)
ReplyDeleteFiled under:
Posted by Faiz at 11:40 am
Permalink | Comment (105)
105 Comments »
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://thinkprogress.org/ 2006/ 10/ 09/ why-should-i-care-about-north-korea/ trackback/
Worf said, "Cause you know your ass is done in Congress."
ReplyDeleteThe House is too close to call, but the Senate is, and will remain, GOP.
Time for the trolls to quit sniffing glue and wake up to the fact that their guy Bush is an imbecile.
ReplyDeleteComment by RealScientist — October 9, 2006 @ 11:51 am
Why should I care about Osama?
Why should I care about North Korea?
Why should I care about NOLA?
Why should I care about body bags?
Why should I care about PDB’s?
Why should I care about a gottdamn piece of paper?
Why should I care………………
Anyone else seeing a pattern here by or socipathic administration?
Comment by Dog_named_Boo — October 9, 2006
admit it troll Tex the senate is too close to call the house will flip democrat and you know that damn well or you would not of cowardly weaseled out of your original bet tough guy1
ReplyDeleteAdmit it Troll Tex you repugs dont like engaging in fights or wagers that arent either rigged or decided in your favor beforehand!
ReplyDeleteTiny one I will do Mike ONE better, Carl posted this on his BLOG
ReplyDeleteI'm SHOCKED!
While stressing his commitment to diplomacy, Bush said he had told South Korea and Japan that "the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments" in the Asia-Pacific region.
What? We'll honor a treaty????? Wait...Bush walked away from START...Or the Geneva Conventions....suddenly treaties matter?
Really?
And I responded with this in his comments section.
Carl, Bush will say anything about this point.
Jim Baker has stabbed him in the back about his stay the course, and we'll stand down when they stand up policy failures, with his not so secret plan.
Woodward has undercut most of the repugs about their absolute failures BEFORE 9-11, and what they really did after which allowed Osama to escape.
The military generals who have come out to defend the military from these feckless morons and their total insane war fighting skills, is not what the repugs wanted to hear.
And the Foley scandal has just about neutered the GOP on family values and keeping us safe, after all if they can not keep teenagers safe in the Halls of congress, how can they keep the rest of us safe.
The GOP is in meltdown mode, and the idiot they chose to front for them in the oval office is just about as lost as he was sitting in that classroom reading "My Pet Goat".
They all tried to get Armageddon started, but instead they got Karmageddon as their October surprise. And the god of Karma has a hard on for the GOP which Foley could only have wished in his wildest dreams to be found on a page, too bad instead of just Foley, it F*cked the whole GOP.
Couldn't have happened to a better bunch of A$$CLOWNS who are a real load of gutless limpmen who have no morals and no spine.
clif | Homepage | 10.09.06 - 3:03 pm
See it is not that hard son, just stop drinking the kool aid, and don't return any more of Limpman's text messages, and you can start your self on the road of recovery. |
Sean Hannity - listen online
ReplyDeleteyou and the repugs wings have been clipped troll tex, you clowns are done you make a mess of everything you touch.
ReplyDeleteTiny is left to be a sorry little pitchman for the most dishonest blathering heads Fox Lies ET AL could find, bet you wouldn't have thought it would get THIS bad ...eh Tiny?
ReplyDeleteTalllTexan said...
ReplyDeleteThe House is too close to call, but the Senate is, and will remain, GOP.
You keep on telling yourself that slappy, and we'll see you in November.
Correction: The Senate is NOT too close to call. My bad.
ReplyDeleteYes, Worf, I just saved this thread and we'll see who is right and who is wrong.
On second thought, we probably won't see you if you lose both houses.
ReplyDeleteLiberals are able to deal with loss, and keep moving ahead.
Conservatives tend to crawl into a hole and hide, like Saddam did.
I wonder if Tiny actually works for Diebold?
ReplyDeleteTall Toxin said;
ReplyDeleteYes, Worf, I just saved this thread and we'll see who is right and who is wrong.
Thats right, we will.
clif said...
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Tiny actually works for Diebold?
Well he certainly seems to feel like he knows something other than what almost ever political analyst out there knows.
Everything I have heard on the news, including internal republican polls, say your ass is grass TT.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, North Korea, EMBOLDENED by the MISTAKES OF THE RIGHT WING, has detonated a nuke for the first time in history.
ReplyDeleteIdiots like you Talll Tex, will never get it. You're an idiot, because you don't know how to be tough. You think you do, but you don't.
By invading Iraq, a mission that was GUARUNTEED to fail, you showed the world our ass.
I told you this almost a year ago.
You showed the world what we could, and more importantly, COULD NOT do.
Up until you morons decided to go rough shot into Iraq with no plan, we actually were feared in the world. After 911 countries like Russia were worried about what we'd do. No one knew.
And more imporatantly, no one knew our capabilites.
Now, EVERYONE knows what we will and will not do, and one thing they know is we won't invade North Korea. Because we can't. They know our army is broken, and we are hopelessly underfunded, underequipped and understaffed.
They KNOW we can't handle Iraq, (which before we went in, they thought we "MIGHT" be able to), and so they know we can't handle anything else.
You did what most republicans do. You shot your wad early, and now you're standing there with your cock in your hand and spooge on your pants, and nothing but a shit eating grin on your face.
You're a fool TT.
A patheticly stupid, stupid man.
Worf said "Meanwhile, North Korea, EMBOLDENED by the MISTAKES OF THE RIGHT WING, has detonated a nuke for the first time in history.
ReplyDeleteIdiots like you Talll Tex, will never get it. You're an idiot, because you don't know how to be tough. You think you do, but you don't.
By invading Iraq, a mission that was GUARUNTEED to fail, you showed the world our ass.
I told you this almost a year ago.
You showed the world what we could, and more importantly, COULD NOT do.
Up until you morons decided to go rough shot into Iraq with no plan, we actually were feared in the world. After 911 countries like Russia were worried about what we'd do. No one knew.
And more imporatantly, no one knew our capabilites.
Now, EVERYONE knows what we will and will not do, and one thing they know is we won't invade North Korea. Because we can't. They know our army is broken, and we are hopelessly underfunded, underequipped and understaffed.
They KNOW we can't handle Iraq, (which before we went in, they thought we "MIGHT" be able to), and so they know we can't handle anything else.
You did what most republicans do. You shot your wad early, and now you're standing there with your cock in your hand and spooge on your pants, and nothing but a shit eating grin on your face.
You're a fool TT.
A patheticly stupid, stupid man."
+1 I couldnt have said it better!
He's a fool like his master.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what kind of idiot refuses to talk to North Korea, and then orders them to NOT test a nuke, all the while KNOWING they have absolutely ZERO power to enforce that demand?
Republicans know how to talk tough, and thats about it. All they had to do was go to the negotiating table 2 years ago when Kim Jong Il started his threats about having nukes.
Jong offered to talk to the US, and negotiate, but ohhh nooo. Not Bush. He was "too tough" to talk.
He instead just tossed out a bunch of axis of evil bullshit, and ultimatiums, and now, 2 years later, the first ever nuke detonated on the north Korean peninsula has been launched.
Right after Bush ordered them not to.
Theres a name for this TT.
Its called, impotence.
If that words too big for you, ask your wife.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure she's familiar with it.
Come on Worfeus, tell him what you really think of him............LOL
ReplyDeleteGreat post, but he might want your number about now.
He just can not put the Kool aid down yet. And November he will blame everyone but the total incompetence of the most corrupt congress ever.
A congress which neutered itself...and rolled over for the Neo-cons, and ignored it's Constitutional responsibility, at the same time they were protecting a child predator.
No it will be a vast left wing conspiracy...which has been planned for a long time...instead of the GOP's being so incompetent and corrupt, that the American people have just quit accepting their lies and spin. That would destroy his belief that they can keep power for perpetuity.
It is a conspiracy alright, just one that happens every two years, where the reichwingnuts need to find a new way to lie and spin for votes so they will not have to steal so many of them election day. But this time they are failing in spades, and all the bloviating by Tiny's limpman brigade will not stop it this year.
Like Clinton said, they trotted out the same tired old dog out for the third time, but it has Mange all over it.
The repugs are trying to put lipstick not on the pig this time but the huge pile of feces they have left after even the pigs are giving up on them.
On CNN;
ReplyDeleteWhich party will you vote for, for congress
Democrats 58%
Republicans 37%
Tiny, jot down Worfeus's number just in case son, I wouldn't want yoyu to be with out it late some Tuesday night in November.
A 21 point lead just four weeks put?
ReplyDeleteThat is bad news for the GOP eh tiny?
Friday, October 08, 2004
ReplyDeleteSummarizing Bush’s Job Creation Record
We now have the final employment figures that both sides can use down the home stretch of the campaign. The Bush campaign can truthfully state that 1.71 million new jobs have been created in the last year (or 1.78 million new jobs since August 2003).
But when hearing such numbers, always remember to apply context: it remains true the Bush’s best year of job creation can’t measure up to Clinton’s worst year.
For their part, the Kerry campaign can truthfully assert that the US economy currently has lost a net of 821,000 total jobs since Bush was inaugurated, and 1.63 million private-sector jobs. (Yes, the Bush economy has been pretty good at creating more government jobs.)
The current recovery continues to set records for poor job creation. Incorporating today’s new data, the following graph shows the total number of private-sector jobs during the current recession and recovery, and compares it to the last recession and recovery in 1990-94 – a recovery that was often called the “jobless recovery”. (Interesting how in some cases it takes a decade for irony to become apparent.)
(Note: Employment during each period is expressed as an index, with the employment level of 6 months before the official start of the recession set to be 100. So the graph starts 6 months before each recession started.)
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: Bush was not responsible for the recession, in my opinion. However, he is a least somewhat responsible for the type of economic recovery we’ve had. Good economic policies would have led to good job creation over the past two years. But Bush’s sole and repetitive economic policy idea of cutting taxes, primarily on wealthy individuals, obviously does not fit that criterion.
Kash
Bush' Blunder In North Korea
ReplyDeleteFormer U.S. National Security Advisor Donald Gregg First: Don't panic. Kim Jong Il's objective is survival and eventual change in North Korea, not suicide. The diplomatic situation in Northeast Asia will be immensely complicated by the North Korea test, which I think was a huge mistake on their part, but missiles are not about to start flying.
The test may indicate the rise in influence of a hard-line faction in the KPA, which is holding sway, at least for now, over others more interested in transformational change in NK. The initiation of a strong bilateral dialogue between NK and the US would strengthen the moderates, and ease the situation in general, but that is not at all likely to happen.
Second: Why won't the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country's good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake.
Donald Gregg was a CIA official since 1951 and a liaison to President Carter's National Security Council and, National Security Advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush and U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993. He's now chairman of the board of the Korea Society
****************************************
This coming from President George Herbert Walker Bush's ambasador the South Korea....not good for the Idiot eh Tiny?
Friday, October 08, 2004
ReplyDeleteThe Bush Economy, in Context
despite the difficulties faced by other presidents, Bush Jr.'s term in office has set records in almost every economic dimension (except for GDP growth, which has been average):
Bush Jr.'s term saw the absolute worst job creation, both in the private-sector and in the economy as a whole.
Bush Jr.'s term has yielded the absolute worst growth in employee compensation.
Bush Jr.'s term has produced gains in after-tax income that, while not the absolute worst, are the third worst of the last 9 presidential terms. This despite what Bush has billed as "the largest tax cuts in history."
Bush Jr.'s term has also produced the fastest growth in discretionary government spending of all 9 presidential terms.
Related to that, note as well that Bush Jr.'s term is one of only a few (the Nixon terms and the Bush Sr. term being the others) that have seen government employment grow faster than private-sector employment. (You can see this from the difference between the two measures of employment growth.) This growth in government makes the poor economic performance in the other categories even more remarkable.
Bush has been running for reelection based on his record as a wartime president, and on his foreign policy record. Even though his foreign policy has been deeply flawed, and even though this is becoming more apparent day by day, looking at data like this makes it clear why: running on his economic record would have been a sure-fire losing proposition.
Kash
Monday, October 11, 2004
ReplyDeleteJob Growth in Perspective, Part I
Editorial Note: Because this post turned out so long, I'm breaking it into two parts. The current post gives some motivation and then describes and presents the data, but with little interpretation. I'll give my interpretation and comments in Part II.
In a fantastic post on Friday, Kash showed how truly poorly the Bush II Economy rates on a variety of metrics: employment, GDP, compensation, after-tax income, and government spending. Inspired by Kash's post, as well as the frequent surfacing of jobs-creation as a debate issue, I decided to examine the following question:
We all know that Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs over the entire course of his administration. That's clearly bad, but how bad is it?
First the mandatory disclaimer. Kash, PGL, and I have written at various times and in various ways that the there's truth to Bush's claim that he inherited a recession. Where we place the blame is on his failure to effectively do anything about it. Certainly, cutting taxes likely had some stimulative effect, but it was evidently minimal -- seemingly by design. By skewing the benefits so dramatically upwards, directed towards the few rather than the many, he virtually ensured that the resulting demand stimulation would likewise be narrow rather than widespread. Since the demand stimulus was minimal, the resulting need for additional people to make stuff (i.e., job creation) was insufficient to offset the recession-induced fall in jobs. Today, we see the results of this 'policy': an astoundingly bad, historically bad, record of job creation.
How bad is it? Very bad. I have color-coded the data below it so even the dimwitted will understand this.
The data are from the Greenspan-approved establishment, or "payroll", survey (actually, nearly every economist not working for or hacking for the administration says the establishment survey is better) which is far more comprehensive than the household survey. The data are aggregated from monthly changes, meaning the annual change figures are the average of the monthly changes within a year (if you instead computed year-over-year changes, the resulting numbers would be close but slightly different.)
Also, since this has been an issue recently, I've broken it down into private-sector and total employment; the difference between the two is government employment. A few more notes, and then the data. From the second half of Eisenhower's administration to the present, the overall average month-over-month rate of employment growth is 0.17% (in today's numbers, that's about 180,000 new jobs monthly). The standard deviation of that statistic is .0015, and the distribution is somewhat skewed downward, meaning that employment growth one standard deviation below the mean or more is more common than the reverse. The best year in the data, 1978 (Carter), averaged .41% monthly job creation; the worst year, 1982 (Reagan), averaged -.20% monthly job dis-creation.
Here's the key to the color-coded data:
And here are the jobs data:
Data source: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
AB
Monday, February 09, 2004
ReplyDeleteWeapons of Math Destruction, Part III
CORRECTION: Brad re-ran the numbers and finds that the actual necessary job growth is 320,000/month, not 470,000. That's still an impossible target: it's been reached in only 18 of the 119 months between Feb. 1994 and Dec. 2003.
Brad DeLong catches another one: Table 3-1 of the 2004 The Economic Report of the President, on page 98 predicts that the US economy will average 132.7 million jobs in 2004 (not end with, but average); 2003 averaged 130.1 million jobs. Given the January number Brad ballparks that the economy will need to create 470,000 new jobs per month for the rest of the year (we've lost about 2.2 million jobs since Bush took office.)
How could this get into the budget? In a follow up post, Brad speculates that
Whatever powerful person it was then called the forecasters in on the carpet: "We cannot publish a number saying that payroll employment in 2004 will be lower than it was at the start of the administration. That number *must* be bigger than 132.5 million [the number at the start of Bush's administration]. If that number is smaller than 132.5 million, there will be lots of negative newspaper stories saying 'Bush administration forecasts negative job growth over first term'. We can't have that."
And so the number is 132.7 million.
But perhaps Brad is too harsh. Maybe, just maybe, 470,000 per month isn't that crazy -- we all remember the booming Clinton years; surely they had monthly job growth over 470,000. How often was monthly job growth over 400,000 under Clinton? The answer: 7 times, and in only two of those months were over 470,000+ jobs added. That's right, the prediction underlying the jobs numbers in the current Economic Report of the President requires that the economy create more jobs in the next 11 months in a row than it created in any eleven months in the last decade (not 11 months in a row, the best 11 months out of the last 120 months). Here are the data, color coded to help the reader see how times have changed:
Flat out, the 132.7 million jobs in 2004 is impossible and whoever wrote that knows this. It is a lie, not a mistake or misguided optimism.
AB
UPDATE: Further proof that the 470,000 target is impossible. Atrios says "I believe after the last tax cut I promised that if they made their jobs projection I would vote for Bush in '04. I make that promise once again with this new round of numbers."
THIS IS INTERESTING.....very interesting.
ReplyDeleteFrom Talkingpointsmemeo
No one seems willing to come out and say it yet. But it's really starting to look like that North Korean nuclear test didn't work. An unnamed intel official tells the Times that "We have assessed that the explosion in North Korea was a sub-kiloton explosion." I don't want to wade very far in at all on the technical details of evaluating this blast. I can't imagine a topic more distant from any expertise I have. But that would be really, really small for a nuclear blast.
Is it possible that the North Korean nuclear test was as big a failure as President Bush's nuclear policy?
Late Update: From what I can tell, the foreign press is entertaining the thought that this might have been a failed test more than the US press. The French Defense Minister has already said the meager yield suggests the test may have failed. I'd like to follow this closely. So if you see press reports that shed more light on this question, please let me know.
-- Josh Marshall
Success, failure or bluff? Scientists pore over data
ReplyDeletePARIS - Scientists took a dour wait-and-see attitude after North Korea claimed to have successfully conducted a nuclear test on Monday.
Only careful analysis of data returned by seismic or atmospheric sensors will say whether the blast was a success or a damp squib, they said.
Nor could they rule out the possibility of a scam, in which North Korea blew up a huge stock of conventional explosives to bolster its claim to have joined the nuclear club.
James Acton of Vertic, an independent non-governmental organisation (NGO) in London that specialises in verification research, noted enormous discrepancies in the estimated size of the blast.
The Korea Earthquake Research Centre in South Korea said there was a 3.58-magnitude tremor from North Korea’s North Hamgyong province that translated into the equivalent of 800 tonnes (0.8 of a kilotonne) of TNT.
But Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency, said the strength was five to 15 kilotonnes. By comparison, “Little Boy,” the US atomic bomb, which destroyed Hiroshima during World War II released the equivalent of around 12,500 tonnes of TNT.
“I’ve heard from three different sources that it (the North Korean blast) was less than one kilotonne,” said Acton, a nuclear physicist by training.
“This (the Russian figure) is not a difference of 10 or 20 percent (in the yield). It’s huge. We should wait to see if that Russian statement is confirmed,” he said.
Acton said that going for a 15-kilotonne yield was “the natural size” for a country trying to test a nuclear weapon. Paradoxically, it is easier to make and test a Hiroshima-sized arm of this size rather than to make a smaller one, which requires mastery of important miniaturisation techniques.
“If it turns out to be less than a kilotonne, it could look very much like a fizzle,” a bomb that failed to detonate properly and achieve a full chain reaction, Acton told AFP.
Possibilities
Another theoretical possibility is that North Korea stashed lots of TNT underground and blew it up.
“It is possible to tell the difference between a conventional explosion and a nuclear test,” said Acton. “The differences are very fine and subtle, and you need time to analyse the signatures.”
Bruno Seignier, in charge of the analysis and monitoring department at France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), said a nuclear explosion “has a more instant shockwave than a chemical one.”
He said that “in a small (seismic) event”, picking out such differences would take time.
“The analysis is complicated because the energy that radiates out is weak compared with the subterranean background noise picked up by detectors. You really have to make a very detailed analysis when you look into such an event.”
As for the scenario of a hoax, Acton cautioned that to detonate a huge quantity of TNT to simulate a nuclear blast was in itself quite difficult, as it entails digging a large cavity underground—which would be visible to spy satellites—and requires detonators to be triggered all at the same time.
In addition to seismic sensors run by national governments, the UN’s Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CBTO) in Vienna also has a network of 189 seismic and hydroacoustic monitoring stations designed to detect nuclear tests.
The body is not qualified to make public statements on the nature of the incidents registered by its monitoring systems, and therefore did not confirm whether or not a nuclear explosion had taken place as claimed by North Korea.
However, the raw data has been passed on to the organisation’s 176 member states and to 770 institutions around the world.
Radioactive particles and gases that can vent from an underground nuclear blast are also a telltale, providing clues as to the type of material (uranium or plutonium) that was used and to the size of the weapon.
Sniffer planes and ground sensors can be used to monitor this airborne evidence. In the case of a totally sealed site, nothing may emerge, though.
A third monitoring technique is to use satellites with ground-scanning radars, which record the topography of a test site before and after an event. Movement or subsidence of the soil is the sign of a big blast.
I was wondering about the nuclear blast after the estimated size came out, because a sub kiloton nuclear blast is among the smaller size we are expiermentring with, remember the 750 ton blast test planned for last june, this is among the state of the art we are going for.
ReplyDeleteIf it was a real nuke, it was a DUD...a partial nuclaer yeild which is still probablimatic, but not what you want as you are trying to perfect the technology.
But maybe the North koreans realise that a mine shaft could be filled with about 1000 tons of TNT and it would simulate a nuke blast..which would get them noticed as a nuke power. After all this was exactally the plan to test the results of such a blast in Nevada until it was quashed.....
Kim Jong Il wants respect and the US to talk to him, and maybe this was the route he chose.....insane as it appears to be.
Clif said "Kim Jong Il wants respect and the US to talk to him, and maybe this was the route he chose.....insane as it appears to be."
ReplyDeletewell Clif, Bush craves respect and mant would say he is insane and not playing with a full deck either........birds of a feather 1
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt you would send anyone a care package, you money grubbing fool!
Mike, your kind of people are worthless and selfish
ReplyDeleteMike this guy is right on your point;
ReplyDeleteTPM Reader RT takes some grim solace from the possibility that the North Korean bang may have been a bust ...
So the Bush approach to NK is all blustery talk and very little delivery department. The NK approach to weapons research is very little bang for all the bluff.
Do these two deserve each other or what?
In Karl's grand quest to dumb down expectations, we are left with two miserable failures hell bent on World War III. The only thing saving the planet is the only thing they succeed at - being incompetent.
Maybe Mark Foley should mediate a measuring of State Wangs to settle which fool is the victor.
Very shrill on that last point.
-- Josh Marshall
Flaming gaseous...err I mean asseous...err I mean Worfeus.
ReplyDeleteTake your crisis bullshit and shove it up your ass already.
Also from TPM
ReplyDeleteJane's Defense Weekly, a premier source on this sort of thing, says that if the initial reports of a .55 kT (half a kiloton) blast are correct "it would suggest that the test had been a "pre- or post-detonation" event (ie a failure), as it had been anticipated that North Korea's first nuclear test would have a significantly higher yield."
-- Josh Marshall
oh look Johnny the troll is back insulting people anonymously go figure.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been here in a couple weeks,
ReplyDeleteMike put down that 20" pizza, you fat asshole!
I mean Jeezlouise, look at your fat ass in the mirror....pig
Worf is shitfaced on moonshine in the "INBRED" State of Virginia!
ReplyDeleteStupid hillbilly
are you retarded johnny boy or do you just think your cute calling me fat, last I checked i had about 6% body fat loser, i'd tell you to get yourself fixed so you dont polute the gene pool with any retarded kids johnny, but we all know repugs shoot blanks and prefer molesting little boys to women anyway........maybe thats why youve been so quiet because of the Foley scandal johnny your laying low so you wont be found out and exposed also for the lowlife piece of slime you are.
ReplyDeleteI knew I'd rile you up Mike...LOL...LOL.. gotcha you Demmie assed son of a bitch.
ReplyDeleteMike you are the easiest mark in this room cause you are the stupidest human being on Gods Green Earth!
6% my ass, you are a fat ass pathetic loser who sponges off soceity and eats all da abd night
Radical extremists of any political or religious ilk are to be feared, whether far left like Stalin, or far right like the Fascists, Islamic extremists like Bin Laden, or reichwingnut christians like Warren Jeffs, David Koresh or the Christian Idenity movement.
ReplyDeleteAll extremists have the same claim, they have the real truth and their god given right to kill unbelievers. All extremists distort the true meanings of the messages of the religion they hijack.
In the US the neo-con's have allied themselves with the far reichwingnut extremists of the dominion movement and are "working" to bring the world political situation into allignment with their deluded ideaology of the rapture. Like GOD really needs their help in anything.
The neo-cons use their delusions for political advantage, because the exact region where the religious extremists of The Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions all come together, is where a massive amount of OIL exists. By attempting to bring "freedom" with bomnbs, tanks and large numbers of deaths, they can insert their attempts to CONTROL the region.
But the funny part about the freedom they are bringing, it DOES NOT allow the freedom of the indigenous people to tell the neo-cons to LEAVE them alone. 71% of Iraqis want the US troops to leave within a year, but are the Neo-cons listening ....NO, because the wishes of the vast majority of the Iraqi's does NOT fit into the plans of neo-cons, plans they began to formulate as far back as 1992.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteahhh, c,mon pussy ass afraid to admit the truth.
Mike c'mon put down the 6 burritos and and the 20" pizza...ahhh c'mon... now like that's not enough put down that Big Mac and TRIPLE Whopper with cheese....Jeez what a pig and looks like a gorrila too!
BTW with all the Foleygate stealing the headlines;
ReplyDeleteSen John Warner, chairman of the senate armed services committee said that Iraq has just a couple of months to improve or the US needs a new strategy,
LIKE THEY ALREADY HAD ONE!
And repug trolls stay the course is a sound bite, NOT a military strategy.
Clif said "
ReplyDelete27%.
That's the number of Americans who think Denny Hastert should remain as Speaker, according to SurveyUSA.
63% think he resign."
Wow the backwash is going down, wonder if its evaporating or if the repugs are swallowing it cause they are almost out of koolaid?
I think wrong is putting a child molestor on a committee to protect children from child molestors, i think wrong is instead of admitting you are wrong and pushing to remove Hastert and all the people who enabled Foley you dredge up dirty laundry about a Democrat that had an affair or molested a child "once" decades ago instead of focusing on fixing the problem today in 2006, wrong is instead of securing our borders and ports or bringing Osama and the Taliban who attacked us to justice or killing them to invade a country that had nothing to do with attacking us while people like Frist and Bush "APPEASE" Osama and the Taliban by attempting to legitimize them or say they dont matter. Wrong is destroying and dismantling the Constitution and our personal freedoms and supporting and touting torture and imprisonment without due process and Habeous Corpus. wrong is spying on regular Americans instead of spending the money to keep us safe and create good will.
ReplyDeleteMike, now what, a case of beer and Jack Daniels, what would you expect from one of the indigenous ones...tsk tsk!!
ReplyDeleteRepugs are all smoke and mirrors with no accountabilty
ReplyDeleteBush Signs Fence Bill That Carries No Funding? By Michelle Mittelstadt Houston Chronicle
For some in congress, the passage of a bill to wall of 700 miles of the US Mexico border offers the best proof yet of their determination to crack down on illegal immigration.
But even as fence supporters tout their legislative success, others predict that the barrier will never be built, they note that the 700 mile fence bill doesnt include a penny to actually build the double layered barrier estimated to cost up to 9 billion.
Frank Sharry Executive Director of The National Immigration Forum said " I am going out on a limb here, we will never see a 700 mile wall.
So once again the "all hat no cattle" repug liars just for show pass a bill that they dont even have funding to make a REALITY, TO MAKE THEM "APPEAR" TOUGH ON BORDER SECURITY AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, just as THEY APPOINT A PREDATORY CHILD MOLESTOR TO A COMMITTE TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL PREDATORS, SO THEY CAN "APPEAR" TOUGH ON CHILD MOLESTORS AND SEXUAL PREDATORS, just like Bush invades a sovreign country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH ATTACKING US ON 9/11 SO HE CAN "APPEAR" TOUGH ON TERRORISM.
but the truth is that couldnt be further from the truth, the repugs, abandoned the hunt for Osama the guy who attacked us, forsook the war on terror in Afghanistan to enrich the wealthy elite and big oil by invading Iraq, a sovreign country that had nothing to do with attacking us on 9/11. They allowed a child molestor to be appointed to a committee to protect kids from child molestors then instead of taking action allowed him to continue preying on kids all to desperately cling to political power
The repug hippocrissy, lack of morality and lack of sound judgement knows no bounds, its time for some accountability, its Congress's job to provide oversight and accountability to the Executive Branch, these immoral incompetent fools lack the proper judgement, morality and accountabilty to provide oversite to them selves and their own branch of government, how can we possibly expect them to provide oversight to the immoral power mad Executive Branch, we need to take out the trash and vote these fools out of office!
ReplyDelete1) the repugs appoint a child molestor to head up a committe to protect kids from child molestors/sexual predators
2) They pass bills like a 9 billion dollar border fence to appear tough on national security of our borders and immigration without any money to fund the project.
3) They claim to value freedom and democracy but pass bills denying even Americans Habeous Corpus, Due Process, protection from torture, the right to be tried by a jury of peers rather than a secret military tribunal who serves asjudge, jury and executioner and can use tainted evidence obtained from torture to convict people in secret.
It's always fun razzing the living shit out of Mike, cause he is a freak of nature, "fat stupid bastard"
ReplyDeleteThe Repugs where always the party allegedly known for
ReplyDelete1) Fiscal responsibility
2) sexual morality
3) small government and limited governmental power
Isnt that a laugh, that couldnt be further from the truth, you clowns are clearly strongly against all 3 things, its been a repug congress for 12 years and you guys spend money you dont have like drunken 18 yrar olds with a pocketfulof credit cards, you railon dems for alledly being tax and spend, you spend money we dont even have......which is worse.
Mark Foley, Bob Ney, and Mel Gibson all cried that they were alcoholics, as an excuse.
ReplyDeleteWell in AA circles there is a good quote that undermines their slimy attempts to AVOID responsibility.
If you sober up a drunken horse thief, you still have a horse thief.
Just as if you sober up a drunken BIGOT, you still have a sober bigot.
And if you sober up a drunken child predator, you still have a child predator.
Alcohol is NOT the reason for their actions, it just lowered their inhabitions to showing their TRUE selves.
Mike said...
ReplyDeleteDemm's are all smoke and mirrors with no accountabilty
Kerry wants to Signs Fence Bill That Carries No Funding? By Michelle Mittelstadt Houston Chronicle
For some in congress, the passage of a bill to wall of 700 miles of the US Mexico border offers the best proof yet of their determination to crack down on illegal immigration.
But even as fence supporters tout their legislative success, others predict that the barrier will never be built, they note that the 700 mile fence bill doesnt include a penny to actually build the double layered barrier estimated to cost up to 9 billion.
Mike Sharry Executive Director of The National Immigration Forum said " I am going out on a limb here, we will never see a 700 mile wall.
So once again the "all hat no cattle" repug liars just for show pass a bill that they dont even have funding to make a REALITY, TO MAKE THEM "APPEAR" TOUGH ON BORDER SECURITY AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Bush takes command of a sovreign country that had EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ATTACKING US ON 9/11.
but the truth is that couldnt be further from the truth, the Democrats, abandoned the hunt for Hussein the guy who attacked us, forsook the war on terror in Afghanistan to enrich the wealthy Democrat and big oil by invading Iraq, a sovreign country
Mike said...
ReplyDeleteDemm's are all smoke and mirrors with no accountabilty
Kerry wants to Signs Fence Bill That Carries No Funding? By Michelle Mittelstadt Houston Chronicle
For some in congress, the passage of a bill to wall of 700 miles of the US Mexico border offers the best proof yet of their determination to crack down on illegal immigration.
But even as fence supporters tout their legislative success, others predict that the barrier will never be built, they note that the 700 mile fence bill doesnt include a penny to actually build the double layered barrier estimated to cost up to 9 billion.
Mike Sharry Executive Director of The National Immigration Forum said " I am going out on a limb here, we will never see a 700 mile wall.
So once again the "all hat no cattle" repug liars just for show pass a bill that they dont even have funding to make a REALITY, TO MAKE THEM "APPEAR" TOUGH ON BORDER SECURITY AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Bush takes command of a sovreign country that had EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ATTACKING US ON 9/11.
but the truth is that couldnt be further from the truth, the Democrats, abandoned the hunt for Hussein the guy who attacked us, forsook the war on terror in Afghanistan to enrich the wealthy Democrat and big oil by invading Iraq, a sovreign country