Quote du jour

Anyone who can be shocked by someone in America getting hold of a firearm and shooting a bunch of random strangers simply hasn’t been paying attention.

-- WIIIAI

Quote du jour

"The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature." -- James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation.

Which of the thousands of Bush's primitive, inarticulate arguments is Carafano referring to? This one: "This is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here." Carafano is one of several think-tankers and in-government "experts" telling McClatchy that this particular argument is just so much GWBS.

Quote du jour

If there is a tragedy associated with Bill Clinton's case, it is not his, but ours: that a man with the insight and intellect that he has often displayed should reach the pinnacle of national power, and do nothing with it but serve the rich, serve the masters of war, and serve himself. But then, if Clinton had been other than what he was, he never would have reached that pinnacle.

-- Chris Floyd.

Quote du jour

You know, I hear people equate supporting this war with "supporting our troops" twenty times a day, but every so often it just pisses me off all over again.

-- WIIIAI

Quote du jour

"In the beloved Iraq, the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign occupation and detestable sectarianism." -- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, today (emphasis added).

Quote du jour

Now that night has descended and illusions about the great crusade shattered for ever, let us tip our hats to those who opposed this war from the start ­ the real left: the libertarians and those without illusions about the "civilizing mission" of the great powers.

-- Alexander Cockburn.

Bizarre quote du jour

[Update added 3/19 for clarity--see below]

"Why does the US support Musharraf? Because he has nuclear weapons and could hold the key to finding Osama bin Laden." -- Andrea Mitchell on tonight's NBC Nightly News.

Frau Greenspan didn't bother to elaborate on her claim about nuclear weapons. She didn't quote anybody, administration liar or otherwise, to support it. I think there's some truth to it, but to just hear her brazenly make such a claim on national TV after the US has rattled and even inserted the sword at many countries because of alleged weapons programs? Bizarre.

The whole Nightly News experience reminded me why so many Americans are so ignorant. If all you know about the world is what you get from network news, you know less than nothing.

[Update] James e-mailed me wondering why I thought the quote bizarre, since I should know that Pakistan has nukes. Rereading the post, I can see that that is the simplest way to interpret the post--that I was shocked that anyone could suggest that Pakistan has nukes. That isn't what I intended--I've know that Pakistan has nukes for almost as long as they've had them (I've even ranted about it). I thought that what Mitchell said was bizarre was because she gave Pakistan's nukes as a reason for US support. While I believe there is some truth in that, I don't think any administration official has come out and said "We support Musharraf because he has nuclear weapons." It's always "Musharraf has been a good partner in the war on terror," or some similar BS. It seemed bizarre to me that Mitchell, in the middle of a supposedly straight news story about riots in Pakistan, would brazenly editorialize like that--and without any corroborating evidence or quote. [End Update]

Quote du jour

"The only thing I would trust Cheney for advice on is if I had a dead hooker in my hotel room." -- Jon Stewart

Another quote du jour

One of the infuriating aspects of covering Iraq in the past three years has been to hear the US and British governments claim that there are large parts of Iraq that are at peace and know it is untrue, but to prove that they are lying would mean getting killed oneself.

-- Patrick Cockburn

Quote du jour

With not a shred of victory in sight, "our troops" have become the prime symbol of both American virtue and insecurity, the prime reason to stay in Iraq now that every other publicly ballyhooed reason has disappeared.

-- Ira Chernus, from an essay on the possibility of an "Iraq syndrome" arising, similar to the "Vietnam syndrome," and its being turned rather quickly, as the Vietnam syndrome was, as a basis for even more militarism and imperialism.

Quote du jour: "It's over. You lost."

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It's worse. It's over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq's first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

-- Iraqi blogger Riverbend, in a post about the alleged gang-rape of an Iraqi woman by the so-called security forces (and their immediate exoneration by puppet-monkey Maliki). More on the subject from Chris Floyd and WIIIAI.

Meta-quote du jour

Holy Joe Lieberman hang-doggedly warned today that the non-binding resolution will turn into a constitutional crisis, "an escalating battle that threatens to consume our government over many months ahead, a battle that will neither solve the sprawling challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation to defeat the enemies of our security throughout the world from Islamist extremists." In other words--and I suspect you're all way ahead of me here--exactly like the war in Iraq.

-- WIIIAI

Stupid quote du jour

This is a global war on terror. Some people from the other side seem to believe that if we pull out of Iraq, that the Iraqi people are going to go back to tending sheep and herding goats. That's not what's going to happen. If we pull out of Iraq, what's going to happen is you are going to see more bloodshed than we have seen in a long time in this world.

-- Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA). Westmoreland is not, apparently, related to that other champion of endless war, Gen. William Westmoreland. Still, it's hard to know where to start in ripping this moron a new one.

• First, following on my post from earlier today: Shut the Cheney up about a "war on terror!"
• Second, it has been a long time since most Iraqis tended sheep or herded goats (if there ever was such a time). According to Wikipedia: "In 1996 some 66.4 percent of the labor force worked in services, 17.5 percent in industry, and 16.1 percent in agriculture." So I guess he's right there--Iraq is unlikely to return to a past that never was.
• More bloodshed than we've seen in a long time? Well, maybe if you ignore the Congo and what's been going on in Iraq for the past four years. And while there is plenty of evidence that American troops staying is not improving the situation in Iraq, there is none at all that leaving will make it worse. Admittedly, none to indicate that leaving will make it better--because IT HASN'T BEEN TRIED. Staying is a proven failure; leaving isn't a guarantee of anything, but it is evidence of sanity.

Anyway--here's a photo of Westmoron for your dartboard:


And you can read more about him, including his Ten Commandments legislation and his appearance on the Colbert Report, on Wikipedia. Some of these people are too stupid to live, but not too stupid to be in Congress.

Quote du jour

This is what the Bushists are tacitly admitting when they claim that the Shiite militias are fragging their ostensible American allies with Iranian weapons. They are saying that even the factions "liberated" and empowered by the American invasion are now attacking and killing U.S. soldiers, with even more virulence than the Sunni insurgents. They are saying that Bush is now "surging" more soldiers into a situation where every single armed faction in the Iraqi conflict is targeting and killing Americans, including those factions armed and funded by the Americans themselves.

-- Chris Floyd

Quote du jour

To review: news shows are, yes, shows. They do not make money by providing us useful information. They make money by providing us... to the advertisers.

-- Bob Harris, noting that out of the over 100,000 deaths in the world today, only one is getting much attention from our so-called news networks. Harris notes that these "news" organizations are not underestimating the American public--that one particular death is the most popular story on Google News and Yahoo News.

Quote du jour

We had no right to invade and occupy Iraq. Iraq never attacked us, and did not threaten us. We have committed an unforgivable war crime, on an immense scale. Insofar as fundamental moral principles are concerned, we deserve to lose.

"Victory" was impossible before this criminal enterprise began, because we never knew what we were doing at the most basic level. The longer we remain in Iraq, the worse the devastation will be. We must leave as quickly as possible, and then make whatever reparations we can.

-- Arthur Silber

Quote du jour

"Bush is using proper English, as it will be spoken in the 23rd Century after 200 more years of budget cuts in education." -- Ted Rall

Quote du jour

It's quite difficult to convince people you are killing them for their own good. That's our basic problem in Iraq.

-- Molly Ivins, who died yesterday. WIIIAI has a bunch of great Molly quotes, and is collecting more.

Quote du jour

"We are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire." -- Chalmers Johnson, from a TomDispatch article introducing his new book.

Johnson concludes with a sentiment that I've expressed several times over the past few years: Our only escape from Bushian endless war and totalitarianism will be through financial collapse (which is pretty close to already being here in Michigan):

So far, both the Chinese and Japanese governments continue to be willing to be paid in dollars in order to sustain American purchases of their exports.

For the sake of their own domestic employment, both countries lend huge amounts to the American treasury, but there is no guarantee of how long they will want to, or be able to do so. Marshall Auerback, an international financial strategist, says we have become a "Blanche Dubois economy" (so named after the leading character in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire) heavily dependent on "the kindness of strangers." Unfortunately, in our case, as in Blanche's, there are ever fewer strangers willing to support our illusions.

So my own hope is that -- if the American people do not find a way to choose democracy over empire -- at least our imperial venture will end not with a nuclear bang but a financial whimper.

Pot-Kettle-Black Department

Orwellian quote du jour: "Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism." -- CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden, speaking to Congress recently.

The quote comes from a WaPo article which states that the Bushies have "authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program."

The real goal, I'm afraid, is to create a pretext for going to war with Iran, as Paul Craig Roberts writes pretty much every week.

[Update 10:40 AM] Chris Floyd comments:

What Bush has done with this order is to turn the American military into his own private death squad. It is an act of breathtaking dishonor, of unspeakable moral filth. That this pathetic little man and the jumped-up thugs around him--especially the hulking, smirking, lying coward Dick Cheney--are allowed to show their faces among civilized people, much less exercise power over a mighty nation, remains an unfathomable mystery...and a source of deep shame for all Americans.

Quote du jour

I want to make sure I hear from as many of those ideas and opinions as possible. Today I heard from some opinions that matter a lot to me... And I am proud to have listened to their points of view.

-- AWol, who is clearly drinking again. (Read more of his gibberish at WIIIAI)

So he talks to families who die and hears from opinions that matter a lot to him. I'd call him a moron again, but that's insulting. To morons.

Quote du jour

"We implore all Iraqis not to become pawns of those who seek to destroy you and your country." -- U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad

Gee, Zal, I thought making pawns of Iraqis was what all this training of police and military was all about!

The ability of all Bushies to completely miss how much everything they say reflects directly on themselves never ceases to amaze.

Quote du jour

Here there is no democracy, no security, no women's rights. When I speak in parliament they threaten me. In May they beat me by throwing bottles of water at me and they shouted, "Take her and rape her." These men who are in power, never have they apologised for their crimes that they committed in the wars, and now, with the support of the US, they continue with their crimes in a different way. That is why there is no fundamental change in the situation of women.

-- Malalai Joya, 28 years old, "the youngest and most famous of all the women in the Afghan parliament." From a Guardian article on the still-miserable state of affairs for Afghan women--an article Bush apparently, like pretty much everything else, hasn't read:

Every ally can take pride in the transformation that NATO is making possible for the people of Afghanistan. Because of our efforts, Afghanistan has gone from a totalitarian nightmare to a free nation, with an elected president, a democratic constitution, and brave soldiers and police fighting for their country.

Over 4.6 million Afghan refugees have come home. It's one of the largest return movements in history. The Afghan economy has tripled in size over the past five years. About two million girls are now in school, compared to zero under the Taliban -- and 85 women were elected or appointed to the Afghan National Assembly.

-- aWol, babbling yesterday at the NATO summit about Fantasy Afghanistan. I wonder how many of those returning refugees are returning from Iraq, or maybe New Orleans? My guess is that that number is a complete lie, unless by "have come home" he means "have died." The part about zero girls in school under the Taliban is directly contradicted by the Guardian article--the woman quoted above worked in secret underground schools in Herat during Taliban times. The article makes it pretty clear that in most of Afghanistan, secret underground schools are still about the only way for girls to be educated.

And I'm guessing that most of the tripling in size of the Afghan economy has come from the resurgence of opium production.

Quote du jour

"We have not failed yet." -- General John Abizaid, speaking at Harvard last Friday.

Not exactly John Paul Jones, is he?

Everything about that article is disturbing, including the crappy writing by Boston Globe writer Charles M. Sennott. (Yeah, I make mistakes too, but this isn't my job and I don't have an editor.) But really...

Speaking over the faint chants of a small group of protesters outside, US Army General John P. Abizaid told an audience at Harvard University yesterday that the war in Iraq was winnable despite the gathering dissent at home.

On a day of distant echoes of the Vietnam War, Abizaid, the senior US commander in the Middle East, and President Bush, who was in Hanoi, faced a quagmire of tough questions about the comparison of that conflict and the Iraq war.

Can you hear the distant echoes of the faint chants saying "Crappy writing! Crappy writing!?" I know I can.

Then there's the group that sponsored Abizaid's talk:

Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, which sponsored the talk, introduced the general. She described Abizaid's "uniquely valuable perspective" and cautioned against blaming military leaders for executing decisions made by political leaders.

Referring to the way the Vietnam War polarized the country and crippled the military, she said: "We have been down that road before."

Oh yes, the poor crippled U.S. military, having to get by on only $500 billion a year, plus supplementals for all the actual wars they're fighting, while practically deafened by the faint chants of those of us who oppose those wars. It's all our fault, obviously, isn't it, Ms. Sewall?

Abizaid said the stakes were high in Iraq and in the global struggle against the rise of violent Islamic extremism, which he has dubbed "the long war."
...
The speech was part of a yearlong calendar of events at the Carr Center titled "The Long War Series."

Wonderful. An entire series of stupid talks on endless war (the "global struggle against the rise of violent Islamic extremism" -- yikes! That's the longest one yet).

Of course, the star idiot was Abizaid himself. Like all the lying scumbags, he says it will take one Friedman to turn the mess around:

"We absolutely are in the stage where we have got to make this work," he said. "We need to start having better effect against the sectarian violence within six months."

Of course, he couldn't leave without one more tasteless and obnoxious joke, which also happened to be a lie:

At the end of a grueling week in which he was barraged on Wednesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill with questions and criticism about the war, Abizaid joked with the audience about why he wore camouflage fatigues instead of his green dress uniform for the evening.

"I usually wear my green uniform," he said to a polite round of laughter. "But there was so much blood on it, I had to come in this uniform."

WIIIAI noted Abizaid's casual dress when meeting with Maliki on November 13, and again on November 16 when Abizaid showed up in his dress uni to talk to the Senate Armed Services Committee. But the next day, he's back in his fatigues speaking to "polite laughter" at Harvard. Was that committee meeting really that bloody?



Wouldn't stunned silence have been more appropriate than polite laughter to a sick "joke" like that? Better yet, why not just tell him off and walk out, like the audience did after Michael Richards' tirade?

Quote du jour

NY Times:

Downtrodden Republicans enjoyed the spectacle of the split between Ms. Pelosi and those Democrats who rallied behind Mr. Hoyer.

"I can't believe they are self-destructing before they even get started," said Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois. "Everyone on our side is giddy."

Actually, Ray, the word is "insane."

That the Dems don't have a Hammer to make sure every lemming acts exactly the same way should be seen as a good sign--for the country, if not the party. Hopefully LaHood is giddy about the chances that lawmakers will now be more likely to evaluate legislation on its merits, but I'm sure that he's not.

Weasel quote du jour

There is a great opportunity for us to show the country that Republicans and Democrats are equally as patriotic and equally as concerned about the future and we can work together.

-- aWol, today

Of course there was no such opportunity in the past six years, was there George, as you and your minions ignored and belittled any Democratic (and democratic) concerns about anything, with your secret task forces, recess appointments, and refusal to answer legitimate and necessary questions. I have my concerns that W may be right about Repugs and Dumbos being equally concerned about the future (which for both means only one thing--2008), but with his Gates and Bolton nominations in the past couple of days, he has already shown that he has no more interest in working together than he did before.

Quote du jour

A country ruled by a political party that is great at winning elections but terrible at actually governing is heading for one hell of a smash up, sooner or later. The only question is how long it will take and how bad the crash will be -- in the real world if not in the ballot booth.

-- Billmon, in a post on how the Rovians have intertwined politics and governance, with huge success in the first and abysmal failure in the latter. He compares the Rovians with FDR's New Dealers, who also intertwined politics and governance, but were actually able to do the second one.

Quote du jour

There is scarcely an acknowledgement anywhere in the Media Establishment that the Iraq War was an evil and misbegotten enterprise from the very beginning: conceived in greed and arrogance, sold by deceit, a criminal action by every legal and moral reckoning. As Hamlet said: "It cannot and it will not come to good." And it has not. Wars of aggression are evil things -- the "supreme international crime," as the Nuremberg Tribunal recognized -- and they will breed nothing but evil. When Bush sat before the television cameras to announce the invasion of Iraq that night in March 2003, he might as well have pulled out the shredded corpse of a child and began gnawing on the red, corrupted flesh, for he was at that moment consigning thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death.

-- Chris Floyd

Quote du jour

I find it humiliating to live in a country where Henry Kissinger can go outside without being spit on by hundreds of concerned citizens.

-- Jonathan Schwarz

Why do you even have a table then?

Quote du jour: "We've taken nothing off the table and we've put nothing on the table." -- James Evil Baker III

So the man who played a major role in creating the mess in Iraq years ago, and who helped assure the appointment of our current pResident in 2000, has now been appointed to the "Iraq Study Group" by said pResident in order to do nothing for month after month.

"I will say one other thing -- there's no magic bullet for the situation in Iraq. It is very, very difficult," Baker said on Tuesday in a speech to the World Affairs Council of Houston.

"So anybody who thinks that somehow we're going to come up with something that is going to totally solve the problem is engaging in wishful thinking," he said.

Don't worry, evil one, I don't think anyone expected you to solve the problem, especially when your sponsors are profiting so excessively from it.

Given the track record of the likes of Dean Rusk, Henry Kissinger, Baker, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice, can anyone explain why we even HAVE a Secretary of State? Just a more efficient way to piss off the world? And certainly, once they're out of office, can't we PLEASE forbid them from doing any further damage? In addition to Baker's continuing damage direction (control isn't the right word), Woodward's latest book says that genocider Kissinger is still giving advice to our current crop of war criminals.

Quote du jour

"Lack of confirmation is not proof of a non-event." -- Unidentified intelligence official, commenting on reports that there is no evidence of radiation from North Korea's supposed nuclear test.

Quote du jour

Dennis Perrin writes about the right-wingnut reaction to the latest report on the number of deaths caused by the Iraq war:

For all the lip-smacking and arm-waving about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, there's plenty of comparable moral blindness on our end, the major difference being that Ahmadinejad, so far as I know, had no hand in operating or supporting Nazi death camps. Americans can't say the same about those we've exterminated either by hand or through tax dollars and political support.

Southeast Asia.

Central America.

The Middle East.

Iraq.

And we still "celebrate" Columbus Day.

Quote du jour

"Between T.O. and North Korea, I'm surprised we're even on television." -- Detroit Tigers' pitcher Todd Jones.

For those who come here mainly for the politics, "T.O." stands for controversial Dallas Cowboys' wide receiver Terrell Owens, who made headlines last week by not killing himself.

Quote du jour

Billmon, in response to the Amish school shooting:

It's a horrible story, and as a father my heart goes out to the families involved, but I feel compelled to point out that if this were Baghdad, a day with only five dead children and five wounded ones would be considered the dawn of a new era of peace, and Tony Snow would be bragging about how much progress we're making in Iraq.
...
If it bleeds, it leads -- as long as it's American blood, that is.

Quote du jour

"The only reason I know we're doing the right thing is that we're widely criticized." -- Roger Ailes, president of Fox News.

If the only reason you've got for running a sleazy faux news channel supporting a criminal administration is that people criticize you for it, don't you think maybe you ought to stop? Sometimes, carrying on in the face of criticism is a sign of strength and perseverence. But a lot of times it's because you're just plain wrong. And if the criticism is your ONLY reason for thinking you're right, you should probably think a little harder.

I don't know who was the first slimeball to justify his actions by pointing out that people he doesn't like disapprove of them, but it's a stupid, childish ploy which is used constantly. Bush uses it all the time, quoting terrorists to validate his own actions (supposedly) against terrorists.

Quote du jour

"If I were one of these sickos, I'd be nervous with America's Most Wanted on my trail." -- Rep. Mark Foley (R-Sicko), via Josh Marshall, who has the video.

Quote du jour

As a general rule, it's a bad idea to call a news conference if you have nothing to say. It's worse if you announce that answers are urgently needed but then decline to provide any.

-- Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, describing yesterday's "briefing" by the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, James "#$%@!@#$#" Baker and Lee "%$##%$#@@" Hamilton. These imperial jokers have been "working" since March to come up with solutions to Bush Quagmire Two. So how's it going?

"We're not going to speculate with you today about recommendations," Baker announced at the session, hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Can the war in Iraq be won?

"We're not going to make any assessments today about what we think the status of the situation is in Iraq," said Hamilton.

Could they at least explain their definitions of success and failure in Iraq?

"We're not going to get into that today," Baker replied.

After more such probing, Hamilton became categorical. "We've made no judgment of any kind at this point about any aspect of policy with regard to Iraq."
...
"The next three months are critical," Hamilton warned at the start. "Before the end of this year, this [Iraqi] government needs to show progress in securing Baghdad, pursuing national reconciliation and delivering basic services."

But no matter how urgent the situation in Iraq, the solutions will have to wait at least until Nov. 8 -- and possibly much later -- because of a more urgent consideration: domestic politics. We're "going to report after the midterm election," Baker announced.

Bill Jones of Executive Intelligence Review asked the obvious question. "The situation in Iraq seems to be degenerating from day to day" and may not be a "salvageable situation" by November, he said. "Shouldn't the urgency be propelled by developments in Iraq rather than the calendar here?"

Baker didn't think so. "We think it's more important, frankly, to make sure whatever we bring forward is taken, to the extent that we can take it, out of domestic politics," he said.

Because, frankly, they don't give a flying Cheney about the thousands of Iraqis who will die between now and then.

On the other hand, the less we hear from James "#$%@!@#$#" Baker, the better.

Milbank clearly deserves a Pulitzer for this one--providing a suitably mocking tone when reporting on two jokers who richly deserve to be mocked. Milbank even (gasp!) checks what the jokers said yesterday against what they said before:

Baker, a troubleshooter for President Bush, said "We have said from Day One that we were going to report after the midterm election." In fact, Baker said on Day One -- the commission's launch on March 15, 2006 -- that "we have not set a time frame" and that "we may come forward with some interim reports."

"Half of Lebanon is destroyed; is that a loss?"

That's from Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, as reported in Haaretz. I first saw that quote at WIIIAI. I wanted a little more context, so I went Googling, finally finding that Haaretz article from September 6. As bad as it sounds, the context actually makes it sound worse (emphasis added):

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday, with reference to the impact on Syria of the recent war in Lebanon, that no country "in our vicinity would take a chance on this or that military move with a marginal tactical goal because it understands the price it would pay. Thus, the fighting in Lebanon was a deterrent act."

Olmert said the Syrians "understand our strategic capabilities in other wars, when we would remove the limitations we placed on ourselves in the fighting in South Lebanon."

MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), who called Olmert's appearance before the committee "haughty," said everyone in Israel knows the war is the forerunner for the next one. "This war ended in complete failure," Cohen added.

Banging on the table angrily in response to the criticism, Olmert said, "I'm sorry that some MKs have lost their sense of proportion. Stop exaggerating.

"No danger to Israel was revealed during the past month. You didn't know that Hezbollah had 12,000 missiles in Lebanon? You didn't know that Iran supported them?"

Olmert also told the committee that "there were failures in the war, but there were also amazing achievements. Has the U.S. collapsed after three years in Iraq? What's the panic? We all make mistakes, I first of all."

"What did you think, that there would be a war and nothing would happen to our soldiers," Olmert asked the committee. "The claim that we lost is unfounded. Half of Lebanon is destroyed; is that a loss?"

With regard to the demand for a state commission of inquiry, Olmert said that while he valued the judicial system very highly, "that does not mean that at any given time they have to be the problem-solver."

The prime minister argued that a state commission would paralyze the political and military systems for a long period of time.

To which I say, with all sincerity: Is that a loss?

And don't you just love how the US debacle in Iraq is being used by Olmert as a positive example? Pooty-Poot didn't let aWol get away with that nonsense.

Quote du jour

"His face just started to turn red. I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom." -- Tyler Radkey, age 13, who was one of "The Pet Goat" readers at Booker Elementary School when its most infamous visitor dropped in five years ago.

Scary quote du jour

"My message to the world is this: Just treat us the way we treat you." -- AWol's Labor Day speech.

Actually, world, feel free to regime change us, but without all the bombs and depleted uranium and Abu Ghraibs, okay?

Quote du jour

I've come back to New Orleans to tell you the words that I spoke on Jackson Square are just as true today as they were then.

-- aWol, yesterday in New Orleans.

As WIIIAI points out, that is precisely the problem. Lies then, lies now. Just as true.

Collecting oil

Here's an interesting paragraph from Juan Cole's daily rundown of the mayhem in Iraq:

The explosion at a leaking oil pipeline near Diwaniyah that killed 16 persons who came to collect petroleum from it would have been bad news enough all on its own. Instead, a mere deadly accident flew under the news radar. The tragedy came because of the severe fuel crisis in Iraq, which drives people to try to collect oil in dangerous ways.

In a larger sense, the tragedy came because of the severe fuel crisis in America, which drives people to try to collect oil anywhere and everywhere in extremely dangerous ways.

Juan Cole's summary of the situation:

Bombings stretched from Istanbul to southern Iraq on Monday, in a new arc of crisis. This isn't going very well.

Which leads to the quote du jour: "Iraq will never be in a civil war." -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

Just imagine, President Abraham al-Malincolni delivering the Gettysburg Address: "America will never be in a civil war."

Quote du jour

Because many in the administration and Congress feel strongly that coerced confessions constitute the "best practice" to get truth from people suspected of bad things, then, under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, American citizens should be permitted to use the same method to pry the truth out of their elected representatives.

-- "rob payne," in a comment at A Tiny Revolution

This blog does not endorse the use of torture under any circumstances, but admits to finding the above suggestion intriguing.

Quote du jour

An old one, but very relevant:

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

-- Mahatma Gandhi

Quote du jour

Did you ever think we'd see more wall-to-wall JonBenet Ramsey cable coverage in our lifetimes? I honestly believed that was over, but that's what happens when you think positively.

-- Dennis Perrin

Quote du jour

According to reports, Fidel Castro is alert and being briefed. And I'm thinking, why didn't we get a president like that?

--David Letterman, via Past Peak

Quote du jour

Every day, the Regime makes it abundantly, overwhelmingly, undeniably clear that there is only one thing that sick poor people--and used-up soldiers and chained-up prisoners--can do to play their part in Bush's noble vision for American society: they should all slink off into the dark somewhere and die.

That is the very quintessence of Bushism. That is now the actual, actionable platform of the modern Republican Party. This is the reality they want to create behind the words "the United States of America."

-- Chris Floyd, whose latest post discusses three recent news stories about recent Badministration efforts to 1) Cut funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center even as IED's in Iraq and Afghanistan are swelling the number of brain-damaged servicemen and women; 2) Loosen regulations on using prisoners for drug testing; and 3) Huge cuts in Medicaid funding.

Quote du jour

Gar Lipow, writing at Maxspeak:

We need to break the frenzy of fear and bloodlust that makes people willing to give up any liberty, to commit any atrocity if Daddy will just save them. The sane people of American need take a new pledge--a pledge against cowards and cowardice. A pledge that their fear of terrorism is not so great they will sacrifice their liberties, their judgment, their sacred honor to stop it. A pledge that fear of terrorism will not cause them to support the continued destruction of Iraq or the terror bombing of Lebanon, or new wars on Iran or Syria. A pledge that they understand that 911 did not change everything--that the laws of physics were not repealed, that bluster was not magically transformed into bravery, that our memorial to the murder of 3,000 people was not to say “evil be thou my good”.

Quote du jour

"If these horrific actions are not state terrorism then what is state terrorism?" -- Lebanon's prime minister Fouad Siniora, referring to Israel's latest massacre of 40 Lebanese in Houla.

Quote du jour

The difference between Ahmadinejad and Olmert is that the Iranian president is a blowhard. The one who had practical plans to wipe a country off the map was Olmert.

-- Juan Cole, who illustrates his point with these before-and-after satellite photos of a portion of Beirut:

Quote du jour

Billmon:

Anyone who has even a smidgeon of knowledge about, or experience in, the Middle East, and who says he is absolutely, 100% certain he has the right answers, is either a liar, a fanatic, or Tom Friedman -- which is to say, a world-class educated fool.

Blair, unfortunately, is all three.

Wait--Blair is Tom Friedman? Well, Friedman claims the world is flat; Blair is helping W to make it true.

Meta-quote du jour

Condoleezza Rice, Bush's official idiot-savant, gave us a memorable quote last week concerning Israeli barbarism in Lebanon: "We are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East." I wonder what would have been press reaction in America to some high official saying, as the World Trade Center toppled in flames, "We are witnessing the birth pangs of a new America?"

-- John Chuckman

On a similar note, Billmon points out that Rush Limbaugh is sounding a lot like Osama bin Laden these days when it comes to the killing of civilians.

Quote du jour

"George Bush is a 'Wheel of Fortune' President in a 'Jeopardy' world." -- Will Durst, via Past Peak, who has lots of good Bush jokes.

Quote du jour

From Pooty-Poot:

"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same," Bush said.

To that, Putin replied, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

I must say, that is SOME BUBBLE aWol has. I consider it to be at least marginally insane to have any optimism about Iraq ever having real democracy, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion--especially at the hands of our fascist neocons. But considering Iraq, currently, to be a model for ANYONE is beyond crazy. Freedom of religion, in a country where dozens of people are killed each day for their religion--Sunnis kill people because they're Shiites, Shiites kill people because they're Sunnis, Americans kill people because they're Muslim. And anyone who thinks there is freedom of the press in Iraq hasn't read this interview with Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief.

The restrictions on [journalists’] movements are very severe. It is extremely dangerous to move around anywhere in Iraq, but we do. We all have Iraqi staff who get around, and we go on trips arranged by the U.S. State Department as frequently as we can.

But the military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story—they use the word slant—what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don’t like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed. But we get out among the Iraqi public a whole lot more than almost any American official, certainly more than military officials do.

George! If you really want to promote democracy, start in the country where you actually have some authority. Get rid of the electronic voting machines, promote runoff voting, and stop shredding the Constitution.

BTW, a couple of days ago Chris Floyd wrote about the whackos W is backing to bring "democracy" to Russia. Not too much different from those other guys who tried to "liberate" Russia back in 1941 with Panzer tanks.

Quote du jour

The corporate masters of astroturf PR and industry-funded junk science are in much the same position as their White House colleagues: Still firmly in control on the bridge of the Titanic, even as the forward compartments gradually fill with sea water.

-- Billmon, in a post about Al Gore's movie.

Quote du jour

Right now we are borrowing huge amounts of money from China to buy huge amounts of oil from the most unstable region of the world, and to bring it here and burn it in ways that destroy the habitability of the planet. That is nuts! We have to change every aspect of that.

-- President Al Gore

Idiot quote du jour

"When history looks back, I'd rather be judged as solving problems and being correct, rather than being popular." -- George Worthless Bush, who has sometimes inexplicably been the latter, but not once in his miserable 60 years been the former. Larry King interviewed him and the worst lady yesterday.

And whereas W gets his news verbally, filtered heavily by his liars advisors, Laura apparently gets her news only from W:

I feel exactly like George does. I think it's really the right thing to do. I think if you look back and we--Saddam Hussein was still there. And nothing had ever been done, and 17 resolutions had been passed and he had never complied with any of those resolutions.

I guess I'm going to have to look up what those resolutions were--I always thought they had something to do with getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. If Laura's right, the resolutions must have been about shaving his moustache or something.

And W is apparently completely unaware of the liberal-free bubble he travels in. When asked about his low poll numbers, he told Larry King:

It's a sign, but it's not necessarily really what we see. I mean, when we travel around the country, when we visit with people, that's not what we hear all the time.

Is he really not aware that every group he speaks to is one of the following: 1) A bunch of fellow-traveling ideologues, like when he speaks at the Heritage Foundation; 2) A carefully-selected group of brain-dead Repug sycophants, with anyone remotely likely to say something negative screened out at the door--even if they have tickets; or 3) A bunch of military guys under orders to keep their mouths shut? I guess he isn't.

Quote du jour

According to Juan Cole quoting Al-Hayat, an Iranian official joked recently that the US doesn't need to invade Iran:

He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a US invasion.

Unfortunately--since when has the Cheney administration needed a point? Invasion is an end in itself for these criminals.

Quote du jour

I can't help wondering today how many of the innocents slaughtered in Haditha took the opportunity to vote in the Iraqi elections -- before their "liberators" murdered them.

-- Robert Fisk

Quote du Jour

President Bush called for the National Guard to patrol the US/Mexican border. The guards will track down and find illegals. That's not their job. They're trained to defend our country--not track down and find people. Let's be honest, the Guard couldn't even track down and find President Bush when he was in the National Guard.

-- Jay Leno, via Past Peak

In a similar vein, WIIIAI suggests that we're using unmanned aerial drones on the border because pilotin' is work Americans just won't do.

Quote du jour

Billmon questions whether Friday's WaPo poll showing 63% of Americans supporting the NSA spying on us is accurate. More importantly, he points out that it CAN'T matter in a supposedly free society:

I get a little crazy in the head when I hear people (usually on the authoritarian right) citing the latest poll numbers as a political justification for their own position.

The whole point of having civil liberties is that they are not supposed to be subject to a majority veto. Hobbes may not have believed in natural rights, but our founders did. And their opponents, the anti-Federalists, were even more zealous about restraining the powers of the federal superstate, which is why they forced the Federalists to write the Bill of Rights directly into the Constitution.

It defeats the purpose of having a 4th Amendment if its validiity is entirely dependent on breaking 50% in the latest poll.

The WSWS explains some of the dangers in this program, for those 63% who apparently have never heard of "1984" or "The Gulag Archipelago:"

By these accounts, the computer programs being used by the NSA to analyze the phone call databases it purchased from the big telecommunications companies are a more advanced form of the "social-network analysis" software used by commercial and political marketing firms to profile potential advertising targets. Phone trees are traced to identify nodes and determine common interests and activities among those targeted.

In the case of commercial marketing, the purpose is to identify the best targets to receive a sales pitch. For the intelligence agencies, the purpose is to select targets for more intensive electronic surveillance, or arrest and (perhaps indefinite) detention.

The potential value of this information for purposes of political intimidation is enormous. Every person who has ever telephoned a 900 number, for instance, now has that fact permanently recorded in a government database, making him or her vulnerable to blackmail by federal agents. Likewise those whose phone records suggest problems with gambling, narcotics abuse, or even extramarital affairs.

The FBI regularly used such information for nefarious purposes during the notorious 50-year reign of J. Edgar Hoover, who kept special files on the sexual and other peccadilloes of congressmen and government officials. Now such information will be available on every American citizen.

Now some of the 63% are going to say (and a few even truthfully)--I don't do any of that stuff, so I've got nothing to worry about. Yeah? Got any friends or relatives with these problems, anyone you've called or who has called you. Got any friends or relatives who are politically active or protest in the streets or write blogs?

Remember, we are talking about an administration that clearly told numerous lies to start a war, that has locked up hundreds, including some US citizens, for years without legal protection. They keep a "no-fly" list, but won't tell us who is on it or why. They claim repeatedly to be above the law. Maybe you're thinking, well, if it's that bad, I'll just leave the country. Well, those soldiers they're talking about putting on the borders will be able to control the flow both ways. If these fascist criminals decide to make your life miserable, they can and will. All this data they're collecting just makes it easier. In most cases, they'll just use it as petty harrassment--"Stop calling your Congressman about Iraq or we'll tell everybody at your workplace about your little 'hobby'" or something. "I wouldn't vote today if I were you, if I didn't want my wife to know about that weekend in Atlanta." And so on. Even if the government as a whole weren't engaging in blackmail, the chances that someone with access to the data would be. They shouldn't have this stuff, period.

Dear Mr. President

I just read Le Monde's translation of Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush. The English is a bit garbled, whether from bad translation or bad writing in the original Farsi. In other words, quite a bit more coherent than what we usually hear from Bush. For the most part, it comes across as a plaintive cry, appealing to the common sense and belief in Christian principles on the part of the reader, trying to reach W's inner soul and intelligence. In other words, wasted effort. Ahmadinejad says he too is glad that Saddam is no longer in power, but that that in no way justifies the brutal invasion or its continuation as brutal occupation. He seems actually befuddled that a man who professes to believe in democracy and Christian principles can really do what Bush is doing, and hopes that maybe one rambling letter translated into bad English (i.e., speaking Bush's language) might actually make a difference.

Of course, our Decider in Chief doesn't read--he was apparently only "briefed" on the letter.

Now, I'm not nearly as familiar with the hypocrisy of Mr. Ahmadinejad as I am with that of, say, Mr. Cheney. So I'm unable to pick apart every fine sentiment of his and point out the contradictions, as I did a few days ago with Cheney. But Juan Cole knows a lot about Iran, so I'll pick a few paragraphs out of his blog:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to W., in which he insisted on Iran's right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to conduct scientific research on uranium enrichment. The NPT does in fact allow such research, but it is Bush administration policy to abrogate that right and stop even civilian research programs that might lead to the closing of the fuel cycle. It is another big leap from such an ability to making a bomb.

Ahmadinejad is a crank, and some of what he says is either badly translated or makes no sense in the original. Both are possible. Le Monde has a translation (pdf). Persian text here.

In any case, his letter to Bush holds no prospect of reducing tensions. It should be remembered that then Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh angered Washington in the early 1950s by nationalizing Iranian petroleum. Eisenhower slapped sanctions on Iran and destroyed its economy. Washington at that time thought Mosaddegh was a pinko, though in fact he was a relatively conservative aristocrat. At the height of the crisis, Mosaddegh wrote a letter to Eisenhower, which was ignored. Ike had the CIA overthrow the elected, parliamentary government of Iran and install the Shah as a megalomaniacal dictator. So the tradition of letter-writing by Iranian leaders at times of tensions with Washington isn't replete with successes. Of course, the Iranians took revenge for the heavy-handed US interference with their form of government. They made an Islamic Revolution in 1978-79, and more recently elected Ahmadinejad. What Washington wouldn't do to have that nice Mr. Mosaddegh back.

Shimon Peres says he wants to remind Iran that it, too, can be wiped off the face of the earth, implying that Israel is capable of obliterating it with its nuclear arsenal. Peres also had the gall to blame Iran for provoking a nuclear arms race in the area!
There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, as opposed to a still backward civilian energy research program. But if you were Iran's security establishment, what would you conclude you had to do after Peres's remarks?

The misquotation of Ahmadinejad, who actually quoted Khomeini as saying, "This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time," now seems all by itself to be producing visions of nuclear war!

Ahmadinejad, however, has condemned mass killing of any sort and was not threatening military action (he is in any case not in command of the Iranian military). He compares his hope for an end to any Zionist regime in geographical Palestine to Khomeini's prediction that the Soviet Union would one day vanish. It wasn't a hope to kill Soviet citizens, but a desire for regime change. Ahmadinejad's hostility to Israel and his Holocaust denial and bigotry are beneath contempt. But he has not threatened military action, and has no unconventional weapons, and his words, however hurtful, do not constitute a legitimate basis for a war of aggression on Iran.

Of course, our Decider in Chief hasn't needed a legitimate basis for a war yet.

Quote du jour

(Emphasis added)

A female Iraqi filmmaker has gone undercover – literally so, for there are now vast quadrants of Iraq where women who go unveiled are at grave risk of attack – to show the reality of women's lives under the Bush-imposed regime. As in so many other cases, a despairing consensus emerges: "It's worse than under Saddam." Think about that: worse than life under one of the worst regimes in modern history. That's what Bush has accomplished in Iraq. That is his true legacy.

Bush's father once famously declared that Saddam was "worse than Hitler." Now the judgment of history is already clear: his son is "worse than Saddam."

From Chris Floyd.

And "worse than" is generally considered to be a transitive relation, so you mathematicians out there can connect the dots.

Quote du jour

Regimes that repress and tyrannize their own people also threaten the peace and the stability of other lands. They feed rivalries and hatreds to obscure their own failings. They seek to impose their will by force, and they make our world more dangerous. We support democracy and reform, because governments accountable to their citizens are peaceful. Free peoples do not live in endless deprivation, tending old grievances, growing in their resentments, and posing threats to others. Free peoples do not dwell on every disagreement and conflict of the past; rather, they see the possibilities of the future, and turn their creative gifts to building a better tomorrow.

-- Dick Cheney, today in Lithuania.

Let's try that again.

Regimes that repress and tyrannize their own people

U.S. Prison Population Tops 2 Million

Bush says he signed NSA wiretap order

also threaten the peace and the stability of other lands.

Regime change in Iran now in Bush’s sights

New Plans Foresee Fighting Terrorism Beyond War Zones


They feed rivalries and hatreds to obscure their own failings.

Keep national anthem English: Bush

Religious Freedom Panel Raises Alarms on Islamic Extremism

They seek to impose their will by force,

All options 'on the table' with Iran: Bush

and they make our world more dangerous.

US says world terrorism attacks kill 14,600 in '05

We support democracy and reform,

US AGENCY, IRI, BOASTS "WE WERE THE BRIDGE" IN VENEZUELA COUP

Marines Re-Take Haiti, the US-Backed Coup Continues

because governments accountable to their citizens are peaceful.

Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage

Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha?

Free peoples do not live in endless deprivation,



tending old grievances,



growing in their resentments,

Arab-Americans and Muslims attacked in the US

and posing threats to others.

Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century

Free peoples do not dwell on every disagreement and conflict of the past;



rather, they see the possibilities of the future, and turn their creative gifts to building a better tomorrow.

Pentagon Preps for War in Space

Quote du jour

[T]he real utility of the polygraph machine, or "lie detector," is that many of the tens of thousands of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works--and thus will frequently admit to things they might not otherwise acknowledge during an interview or interrogation.

From a WaPo article: Polygraph Results Often in Question. The subtitle to the article: "CIA, FBI Defend Test's Use in Probes." Well, of course they do. As a way to find the truth, polygraphs suck. As intimidation, however, they rock.

But even critics of the polygraph concede that it can help managers learn things about employees that would otherwise remain hidden. That aspect of polygraph testing lies at the heart of its continuing appeal, said Alan Zelicoff, a former scientist at Sandia National Laboratories who quit because he believed that polygraphs are unethical.

Although polygraph tests involving national security are supposed to be about a handful of questions involving espionage, Zelicoff said the tests take hours: "In each and every test, what happens is after question two or three the questioner will pause and very deliberately take a long hard look at the chart and take a deep breath and sigh and say, 'You did really well on question one, but on the second question, about whether you released classified information, I am getting a strange reading. Tell you what--I am going to turn the machine off and I am going to ask whether there is something you want to get off your chest.'"

"That is what the polygraph is about," said Zelicoff, who has testimony from several employees who are angry about the tests. "It is about an excuse to conduct a wide-ranging inquisition."

I would go one step further. As with torture, the point of the polygraph is not really to discover the truth--it is simply a method of intimidation. The real target isn't the person tied to the machine; it's all the others who might be tempted by their consciences to blow the whistle on some nasty thing the government is doing."

Former NY Times columnist William Safire, who could be a total idiot about some things (such as the alleged tie between Iraq and 9/11), was spot on when it came to polygraphs. Along with fingerprints and I'm sure many other tools, they rely on unwarranted public confidence to increase both the control and the apparent credibility of the police state.

Quote du jour

"I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English." -- AWol, who clearly doesn't believe that this rule (or any other) applies to the pResident. Later he adds "I am a supporter of comprehensive immigration." So come on in, everybody! (I wonder if he told his base about that one.)

And about today's press conference: I wish the White House transcript would identify the reporters asking the questions, because I'd really like to know who these idiots are who are actually trying to goad Bush into going to war with Iran. Some examples (emphasis added):

Q Thank you, sir. The IAEA says that Iran is not in compliance with the Security Council. What sort of sanctions would you like to see and that could bring Russia and Chinese support?

* * * * * * * *

Q Let's come back to Iran, if we can. The Iranians have said they're going to ignore what happens at the U.N. Security Council. Doesn't that mean the diplomatic options are dwindling?

* * * * * * * *

Q You often say Iran is not Iraq.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I do say that.

Q There are many people who fear that this will turn into a military confrontation. Why is Iran not Iraq? There's WMD --

THE PRESIDENT: Iraq went through 16 different Security Council resolutions. There was resolution after resolution after resolution. Iraq had invaded its neighbors. Iraq was shooting at U.S. aircraft. Iraq had actually used weapons of mass destruction on its people before. There's a difference between the two countries.

Iran's desire to have a nuclear weapon is dangerous, in my judgment. The diplomatic process is just starting.

Q But when you talk about that, how many resolutions are you going to let go here? How far --

THE PRESIDENT: We haven't had one yet.

Q I know, but how far can you let them go? If you really fear that they're building a nuclear --

* * * * * * * *

Q I just want to follow up one more time on Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted this morning as saying those who want to prevent Iranians from obtaining their right "should know that we do not give a damn," his words, sir, "about such resolutions."

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

Q When you're talking about diplomacy, sir, a question of tactics, at this point, not goals. If you have, for instance, Russia saying they don't want a Chapter 7 resolution, if you're dealing with a gentleman who uses this kind of rhetoric, what kind of tactics can you possibly come up with?

THE PRESIDENT: I guess the first thing I would do is refer those comments to our partners and get their reaction, to see what they say, see how they react to those kind of comments. And I haven't had a chance to do that yet, since it just happened today. But I will continue to work with our friends and allies.

Listen, key--step one is to have a common goal. I know that sounds simple to you, probably, but it wasn't always that way. The world wasn't always of like mind that the Iranians were, you know, headed for a weapon, and that that would be a dangerous course of action. And now we are of like mind. And so we are in the stage now of formulating a strategy to achieve a diplomatic solution to this problem.

Q But Mr. President, given everything you've been hearing from Mr. Ahmadinejad over the past several weeks and months, in your estimation, is this someone you can work with?

Just in case you were wondering where the term "so-called liberal media" came from. It's hard work to make this warmongering pResident appear cautious and reasonable, but these questioners are sure trying.

I'm sure there was plenty of other scary nonsense in the press conference, but I'm not up to reading it all right now. I'll wait for WIIIAI's take.

Quote du jour

"Our government has no integrity." -- Jack Bauer, superhero of Fox's TV thriller "24." On the show, President Logan has arranged for terrorists to get their hands on deadly nerve gas as part of a plot for the US to gain control of the world's oil fields. In the process, a respected former president (hey, this is fiction!) is assassinated and dozens of Americans injured or killed. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) uncovers the plot and has to figure out a way to bring down the president, who is using the power of his office to try and kill Jack.

A very interesting theme for a TV show right now, don't you think? I've read some other blogs suggesting that Rupert Murdoch is using his Fox empire to support the Bush empire because of the ridiculous partisanship and jingoism of Fox News. I don't think he has a political agenda at all--he just wants to make money. Fox News hits the same audience that has made Rush Lamebrain such a hit for years. But shows like "Arrested Development" and "The Simpsons" take many delightful shots at the idiots running this country (Homer referred to Bush as "Commander Cuckoo Bananas"). And then there's "24," which seems to appeal to people across the political spectrum. I have my very own 24 blog, and as far as I know all of the readers of that blog are far-lefties like myself and devoted watchers of the show. While Jack and the CTU gang don't generally show a lot of respect for constitutionally-protected rights, some of the plots (like this year's) are especially timely. In Season Two, which ran in the 2002-2003 TV season, 24's president (the guy who got killed this year) and Jack Bauer spent the last eight episodes of the season working desperately to keep the country OUT of a war in the Middle East, in sharp contrast to what was going on at the same time in the so-called real world. Right wingers, I think, just revel in the steamrolling of rights and wasting of "terrorists," missing these story lines entirely. (I don't doubt that there are many people across the political spectrum who despise the show for these same reasons, or just because it is ultra-violent.)

Anyway, they've still got six hours left to get the terrorist president out of office before the show's over, which is pretty close to where we stand in so-called reality as well.

Quote du jour

The denials of plans for a military strike on Iran should be treated only as an indication that the administration believes it is currently in its best interests to lie about them--and nothing more.

-- Billmon

Oh, if you're not scared yet, it's because you haven't read this Billmon post yet.

Person of the week

Harry Taylor, Charlotte, NC:

"While I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges," said a man who later identified himself as Harry Taylor, a 61-year-old commercial real estate broker. Mr. Taylor also said he was a member of the liberal political group Move On, but attended the speech on his own behalf.

Standing on a stage in shirtsleeves, holding a microphone, Mr. Bush drew applause and laughter by chiming in, "I'm not your favorite guy."

Mr. Taylor went on, "What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate."

Mr. Bush hushed boos from the audience by saying: "No, wait a sec. Let him speak."

Mr. Taylor continued, "I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself."

Good on Bush for letting Taylor speak. Bad on Bush for not paying any attention.

Referring to abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, Mr. Bush said, "What took place there and the pictures there just represented everything we didn't stand for." He added: "I wish that could be done over. It was a disgraceful experience."

So he's disappointed that Saddam didn't have WMD's, and he wants to do Abu Ghraib all over again. (Of course, all indications are that Abu Ghraib-style torture continues to this day, and is defended by aWol's insane attorney general.)

The NY Times suggests that allowing Taylor and maybe a few other Bush opponents in was a risky change in strategy:

The visit here was part of the White House strategy to put Mr. Bush in front of crowds, including those hostile to him, as he tries to reverse sagging support for the war, and his presidency, in a crucial election year for his party in Congress.

But the event on Thursday, a speech about national security before the World Affairs Council of Charlotte, also highlighted the downside for his administration of breaking away from the friendly town hall meetings packed with pre-screened audiences that were a staple of his 2004 re-election campaign.

Given the mentions in the selection quoted above about "applause and laughter" for Bush and "boos" for Taylor, I'm guessing this was just a refinement of the strategy, not a change. Back in 1980, I went to hear George H.W. Bush speak at the University of Illinois when he was running for vice president. At the end, he fielded three or four questions. The last one came from a hippy-ish looking guy who asked a negative, argumentative question. Bush Sr. of course didn't answer it, but used it as a launching pad for one last rant about the greatness of the country and the correctness of Reagan's policies (okay, it was 26 years ago; I don't remember exactly what he said). The mostly pro-Reagan/Bush crowd went wild as Bush waved goodbye. I left convinced that the last "questioner" was a plant, a stooge hired to ask that question and give Bush the chance to rise up in righteous anger. I'd hate to think that Harry Taylor was also a plant, given that I just gave him my Person of the Week award. But, setup or not, letting one or two real or phony nay-sayers (representing the majority of the American people, BTW) into an audience only to be shouted down by the supporters who predominate in the crowd is certainly more refined political theater than just having person after person raise his/her hand and say "Mr. President, I wake up every morning and thank God that you are our president," which is what usually goes on when Bush "speaks."

Quote du jour

"I fully understand that the intelligence was wrong, and I’m just as disappointed as everybody else is." -- George Worthless Bush, talking about Iraq's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. He really wanted Saddam to have WMD's, I guess.

Aaargh!!!!

Kerry FINALLY calls for withdrawal from Iraq

He hops on the condescension bandwagon already overcrowded with the likes of Levin, Rice and Bush. The warmongers, including Kerry, have never been willing to clearly spell out what a supposed "victory" in Iraq would look like. But they are finally agreeing on a definition of "failure": The inability of the Iraqi parliament, elected according to US-defined rules, to form a "government of national unity." This definition of failure appeals to them because it allows to place the blame on the Iraqis. In an op-ed in today's NY Times, Kerry calls for two deadlines--pull US troops out by May 15 if the Iraqis don't form an "effective unity government," or pull them out by the end of the year if they do.

Sounds good to me. But of course Kerry doesn't run this country (mostly because he didn't say this stuff two years ago). Also, of course, he finally chooses the correct course for all of the wrong reasons. First of all, he is every bit as condescending as Levin, Rice and Bush were:

So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines — a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections.
...
Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all.
...
For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough.

He also treats withdrawal of our troops as some sort of punishment to Iraq, even though he points out that "the majority of Iraqis..want us to leave their country." He also envisions, a la Murtha, that US forces will be just "over the horizon" ready to bring murder and mayhem back to Iraq on a moment's notice. Worst of all, he suggests:

An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat...

How stupid are you, John? Are you really stupid enough to fall for W's lies once again?? Of course you are.

Despite his horrible reasoning and rhetoric, it would be wonderful to see his suggestions become policy. Of course, it would provide a great incentive for the parliament to delay agreeing on anything until after May 15, which would make the majority of Iraqis very happy.

Eli at Left I rips Kerry further.

Quote du jour

"It's time for the elected leaders to stand up and do their job." -- George W. Bush, yesterday.

This is too easy.


"It's time for the elected leaders to stand up and do their job."

Quote du jour

Vice President Dick Cheney said the other day that Democrats are not competent to fight the war in Iraq--this coming from a guy who shot a bird and hit a lawyer.

— Jay Leno, via Past Peak. Not that Useless Dick is wrong. The war is so completely FUBAR that no Democrat or Republican, or even some hypothetical intelligent well-intentioned political party, could possible fight it. Even the best possile solution available now, cutting and running, is likely to suck in multiple ways. But it is the only one that offers at least a slight hope of not making things worse.

Quote du jour

I'm always amazed by the way we kid ourselves about the influence of the Military-Industrial Complex in our society. We use euphemisms like supply-side economics or the Laffer Curve. We never say: We're artificially making work. If the WPA [Works Progress Administration of the Great Depression] was often called a dig-holes-and-fill-em-up-again project, now we're making things that blow up and we sell them to people.

-- Chalmers Johnson, in an interview at TomDispatch.

More from Johnson:

So what kind of empire is ours? The unit is not the colony, it's the military base. This is not quite as unusual as defenders of the concept of empire often assume. That is to say, we can easily calculate the main military bases of the Roman Empire in the Middle East, and it turns out to be about the same number it takes to garrison the region today. You need about 38 major bases. You can plot them out in Roman times and you can plot them out today.

An empire of bases -- that's the concept that best explains the logic of the 700 or more military bases around the world acknowledged by the Department of Defense. Now, we're just kidding ourselves that this is to provide security for Americans. In most cases, it's true that we first occupied these bases with some strategic purpose in mind in one of our wars. Then the war ends and we never give them up. We discovered that it's part of the game; it's the perk for the people who fought the war. The Marines to this day believe they deserve to be in Okinawa because of the losses they had in the bloodiest and last big battle of World War II.
...
Militarily, we've got an incoherent, not very intelligent budget. It becomes less incoherent only when you realize the ways it's being used to fund our industries or that one of the few things we still manufacture reasonably effectively is weapons. It's a huge export business, run not by the companies but by foreign military sales within the Pentagon.

This is not, of course, free enterprise. Four huge manufacturers with only one major customer. This is state socialism and it's keeping the economy running not in the way it's taught in any economics course in any American university.

$#!+head quote du jour

Dick Cheney, today:

I made sure both in 2000 and 2004 that the president had other options. I mean, I didn't ask for this job. I didn't campaign for it. I got drafted.

Yeah, DICKweed, by you. Couldn't get even ONE deferment this time? He was threatening to serve out the remainder of his term on Face the Nation today.

Quote du jour

The United States has largely been reduced to a nation of people that sell each other hamburgers, with foreigners paying the checks.

-- From an essay entitled The End of Civilization by Dave Eriqat, in which he trumps the scary idea that the Bushies don't know what they're doing with the much scarier idea that they do.

Quote du jour

"Good Americans are among some of the worst people you'll ever meet." -- Dennis Perrin

In fuller context:

It was liberal Hollywood that pointed me in this direction and made me aware of real American history, and it continues to offer alternative, vital counterpoints to the larger mainstream discussion. That's a major reason why cultural reactionaries hate Hollywood so. In their fevered minds, the less you know about what's happened in America, the better American you are, which is why Good Americans are among some of the worst people you'll ever meet.

Quote du jour

“I’m not aware. I wasn’t aware then. I’m not knowledgeable today.” -- Donald Rumsfeld

Quote du jour

It is fair to say that there has never before been an administration so committed to producing hot air, so organized just to say stuff to the American people, so committed to the principle of selling rather than doing. It is government by hypnotism.

-- Tom Burka, part of an excellent commentary on the New Orleans levee story.

Quote du jour

"This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security of the United States of America." -- George W. Bush

He adds: "People don't need to worry about security."

So: Repeal the Patriot Act and stop spying on us!

Quote du jour

I don’t consider it a huge security risk that an Emirati multinational corporation rather than a British or an American one will be hiring the illegal immigrants who work in our ports.

-- WIIIAI, who also informs us that "Emerati" refers to people from the United Arab Emirates.

Quote du jour

Fact and analysis no longer play a role. The spun reality in which Americans live is insulated against intelligent perception.

-- Paul Craig Roberts

Quote du jour

Cheney thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Cheney thought Whittington was a small bird.

-- Juan Cole

Actually, I'll take issue with the professor here. Both Iraq and Whittington stood between Cheney and what he wanted; so he "peppered" them both.

Quote du jour

When the Wall Street Journal editorialists describe Iran's current leaders as "possessed of an apocalyptic vision" they could just as well be describing Bush's evangelical supporters and the neocon Jacobins that are driving America to impose the neocon will on the Middle East. This is the program of lunatics. No conservative could possibly support it.

-- Paul Craig Roberts

Quote du jour

"Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton." -- aWol, talking to Bob Schieffer of CBS News about the possibility that Hillary may succeed him in the oval office. Just in case you were wondering if there is any real difference between the two parties or the ruling families.

Quote du jour

"The new federal program is too complicated for many people to understand, and the implementation of the new program by the federal government has been awful," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a Republican.

Pawlenty is talking about the multitude of screwups in the new Medicare bill, the one jammed down the throat of Congress in 2003 with lies, threats and bribes. Lots of poor old people are having a real hard time getting their meds these days, thanks to the criminal subversion of the democratic process on behalf of Big Pharma by the likes of Bush, Tommy Thompson, and Tom DeLay.

Normally I would applaud a Republican criticizing the Bush administration, but Pawlenty is undeserving of praise--he was a Bush "Pioneer" in the 2004 election cycle, raising over $100,000 for aWol's re-selection. He also withdrew from the 2002 senate race at the request of the Veep from the Deep, figuring I guess that the rights of a war-criminal oilman from Wyoming take precedence over the preferences of the people of Minnesota in picking a senator. (Pawlenty's withdrawal cleared the way for the atrocious Norm Coleman to be the Republican candidate for Senate, and Coleman won because his opponent Paul Wellstone was murdered in a plane crash.)

So go Cheney yourself, guv'nor, although in this case it seems like you may already have done so.

Like the war in Iraq and Katrina, the Medicare fiasco demonstrates that selecting really bad presidents has really bad consequences.

Quote du jour

[Natural gas is] "the single best energy source we've ever had. It's too bad we didn't understand it. We've used up probably two thirds of the finest natural gas in the world through one of two reasons- we either flared it because we didn't have any idea what to do with it, or we sold it for 1/10th the amount we sold oil for and we gave oil away. It's not the emissions aspect of natural gas that makes it so unbelievably precious. It's the only source we have of instant heat."

-- Matthew Simmons

Maybe he'll get that written into the next version

Fascist quote du jour: "No one should be allowed to block the Patriot Act." -- Mad King George. Other babblings from Mad King George from that article:

• "There is an enemy that lurks."
• "The senators obstructing the Patriot Act need to understand that the expiration of this vital law will endanger America and will leave us in a weaker position in the fight against brutal killers."

Like those vegans in Indianapolis, I guess.

Mad King George
was a scary old fool
a scary old fool was he

A petulant twit
Who cared not a whit
for "liberty and justice for all."

Quote du jour

"The only thing more annoying than Bush not doing his job is Bush doing his job." -- WIIIAI

WIIIAI also points out that aWol said this in the press conference: "There’s a lot of work to get rid of the past." Most presidents want to make history; W wants to destroy it.

Quote du jour

"Three hots and a cot is more than I got." -- Biloxi, Mississippi resident Elaine Parker, whose house and neighborhood are threatened by plans to build casinos and other touristy crap in the wake of Katrina. The context for the quote, from the NY Times:

Ms. Harris's fears are resounding through Point Cadet's shattered streets as wholesale land clearing by the government rolls slowly westward from the point's eastern tip. Three blocks from the water on Oak Street, Martha Bryant, 44, a licensed contractor, said she is rebuilding her house with her friend, Richard Fredrickson, despite what she sees as resistance from the city.

"They've made my life a living hell since they found out I'm going to move back there," Ms. Bryant said, requiring permits that she found excessive.

She noted that plans for a $400 million Golden Nugget resort with a 60,000-square-foot casino near her home were announced in late November.

"They want to put up an amusement park, a golf course," she said. "I'm east of Oak Street. They're saying everything east of Oak is going to go."

Ms. Bryant, who owns a painting business, erected a multicolored plywood sign on the front of her house that reads: "Hell No I Won't Go."

Her neighbor Elaine Parker, 61, with whom Ms. Bryant made a pact not to sell their houses, hung a protest sign as well. It read: "Now Recruiting Point Cadet Militia People vs. City."

Soon after she hung the sign behind her front fence, a city code enforcement officer came and took it down, she said, for being on city property.

"Of course, you had to be born and raised on Point Cadet to understand the humor in it," Ms. Parker said. Point Cadet has historically been a tough part of town. "We've lost everything, and now are you going to take my sense of humor away from me?"

Ms. Parker asked the enforcement officer whether she could hang the sign on her house, well within her property line. "He said a citation will be issued and you will be put in jail for up to two days," she recalled.

"Can I get 30 days?" she said she asked him. "Because three hots and a cot is more than I got."

It's depressing to read that the "New Urbanists" seem to have teamed up with MS governor Haley Barbour and other Repug developer types in the vegas-ification of the Gulf Coast. I've admired New Urbanism's plans for walkable communities, but I don't think Myrtle Beach should be the model, and it shouldn't be built over the homes and objections of long-time residents. If the only future the Gulf region has is gambling and golf, well, it has no future.

Quote du jour

"Dick Cheney is too crooked, too cruel and too crazy to be allowed to continue warping this country's policies." -- Madison Capital Times

Quote du jour

"This is not a war of words, this is a war." -- Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), responding to Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH SHUT UP), who said on the House floor last Friday that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Murtha has called Schmidt's comment ridiculous.

"You can't spin this. You've got to have a real solution," Murtha said Monday when asked about her remarks at a news conference in Pennsylvania. "This is not a war of words, this is a war."

Unfortunately, I'm sure there are still plenty of Schmidtheads out there, especially in Congress.

Fascist oxymoron quote du jour

Free speech works because most of us have the good sense to know when to keep our mouths shut.

-- Kay Anderson, Orem, Utah wingnut opposing Michael Moore's speaking on the campus of Utah Valley State College last year. The debate surrounding Moore's appearance in the heart of wingnuttery is documented in a new film, This Divided State. You can watch the first 26 minutes of the film on the web site, although only for a limited time.

The film is apparently showing in Detroit now, and the DVD is available through the web site.

Quote du jour

"I haven't heard that many gunshots." Camden, New Jersey resident Gracy Muniz, explaining that her neighborhood feels a bit safer, even though Camden repeated its ranking as the most dangerous city in the US.

Listed as the most dangerous cities are: Camden, New Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Flint, Michigan; Richmond, Virginia; Baltimore, Maryland; Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Gary, Indiana; Birmingham, Alabama.

Quote du jour

"The planet's most serious danger is the government of the United States. ... The people of the United States are being governed by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman." -- Hugo Chávez

Moron quote du jour

From Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

You know, what--what makes our economy grow is energy. And, and Americans are used to going to the gas tank (sic), and when they put that hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it. And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I don't want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we've worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it, and if we're going improve (sic) our standard of living, you have to consume more energy.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! I want! It's mine!!! Waah!

This is America--a spoiled child.

Quote du jour

From Condiliar herself: "Everybody wants people to be brought to justice."

This is true:


From Ireland On-line:

Separately, Rice did not rule out eventual trials of terrorist figures that might mirror the current trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Everybody wants people to be brought to justice," Rice said when asked whether alleged terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, assumed to be under interrogation in US custody, might one day be put on trial. Rice was careful not to confirm that he is in US hands.

Bringing terrorists to justice should be "done in a way that there will be confidence even for people who clearly have been killers, have been murderers on a scale that is unimaginable. I think that we will want to make sure that people know that they got a fair trial."

Yeah, right. Talked to Herr Doktor Frist or his colleagues in the Senate death chambers recently? How about your beloved boss, aWol, who termed the targeted assassinations of supposedly suspected terrorists as "the meaning of American justice."

To which Condiliar replied:

Three in a row

Quotes du jour for Juan Cole, that is. Except this time I won't quote him directly, just send you off to read his post about the 80,000 victims of the Kashmir earthquake who may die soon if we don't help.

Quote du jour

Two in a row for Juan Cole:

European settler colonists or "immigrants" have caused far more trouble in the Middle East than vice versa.

That's from an informative post about the riots in France, something Cole seems to have a decent handle on, having lived in France and visited several African countries from which many of the immigrants came. Cole sees the problem as much more one of racism and economic inequality, not of religion. He points out that a high percentage of the population in France is not religious, whether they are nominally Christian, Muslim, Jew, or whatever. He explains:

The kind of riots we are seeing in France also have occurred in US cities (they sent Detroit into a tailspin from 1967). They are always produced by racial segregation, racist discrimination, spectacular unemployment, and lack of access to the mainstream economy.

Quote du Jour

"Not all points of view are valuable." -- Juan Cole