Quoted in The Art of Mental Warfare
"We are like people born in a cage and unable to visualize any world beyond our familiar bars of prejudice and superstition. That opinion the few create in order to control the many has seen to it that we are kept in permanent ignorance of our actual estate."
- Gore Vidal, The Great Unmentionable, Harvard lecture
Showing posts with label propaganda catapult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda catapult. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Helliburton in Burma, or wherever the pipelines go, you get repression
For days I've been away from the computer and depending on the television for my news. Gawd. Watching minute clips of monks protesting somethin-or-other in Myanmar. But listening to the MSM, do you think they'd actually EXPLAIN what's going on? (no)
I was wondering if we weren't just watching pretty color film at 11 about another color-coded so-called "revolution" (I hate quotation marks too but I just am inexplicably compelled to use them, ignore and read on, please.)
So today, I get mail:
It's been 17 tragic years since Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was elected prime minister of Burma - only to have the military junta nullify the election and place her under house arrest ever since.
In August, the junta doubled fuel prices and created enormous hardships. The Burmese people have taken to the streets for peaceful protests, but the junta has responded with naked brutality.
Please join me in urging the United Nations Security Council to immediately send a mission to Burma.
Bob Fertik
I was wondering if we weren't just watching pretty color film at 11 about another color-coded so-called "revolution" (I hate quotation marks too but I just am inexplicably compelled to use them, ignore and read on, please.)
So today, I get mail:
Dear Activist,
Stand against oppression
I've watched in horror all week.
In Burma, Buddhist monks, marching against tyranny, are reported to have been disrobed and shackled. Many detained, many killed. They marched against injustice and oppression, and their actions were met with a cruel and ruthless crackdown.
You can take a stand against the oppression of these peaceful monks. Take action today.
The death counts vary wildly. But you can be sure that the military junta has brutally beaten and possibly murdered many more than we'll ever be able to confirm.
Please take action today for the people of Burma.
As you know, Amnesty International has been working for decades to protect human rights in Burma (Myanmar) and to support the pro-democracy forces' right to peaceful dissent. When the people of Burma last staged mass pro-democracy protests back in 1988, the military junta murdered thousands. But history does not have to repeat itself."
It's been 17 tragic years since Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was elected prime minister of Burma - only to have the military junta nullify the election and place her under house arrest ever since.
In August, the junta doubled fuel prices and created enormous hardships. The Burmese people have taken to the streets for peaceful protests, but the junta has responded with naked brutality.
Please join me in urging the United Nations Security Council to immediately send a mission to Burma.
Bob Fertik
Then I read this and put 2 + 2 together, it's just like the phony 'war on terror', it's all about them oil pipelines... and Dirty Dick Cheney's Helliburton who always makes a buck dealing with criminal governments, and making business opportunities for the security industry.
Okay, that said, how much of the background story have you heard on the mainstream media? Zip.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Dear Bill Moyers, on "Buying the War"
...as opposed to "selling" the war.
You seem to "think" our main stream media was gullible. That seems to be the point of your program tonight on PBS.
I think many in the MSM were complicit.
(Probably paid off in one way or the other.
Elite, Privileged Americans, especially in D.C., are such brazen whores.)
President Bush freely has spoken of his role as a "propaganda catapult" so I don't think I'm spilling any beans here, neither am I a Conspiracy Theorist, as the folks on National Propaganda Radio used to say repeatedly, as if by mantra.
As a flyover midwestern housefrau who reads, I was aware of the avowed goals of the PNAC Neocons, the boldfaced lies of Colin Powell, Condoleeeza, Rumsey, Dick Cheney, and Dubya, Judith Miller's lying and the discrepancy between the front page and the interior pages of the New York Times, the influence of media ownership on reporting and editorial content, the idiocy of the pundits, the truth of Scott Ritter's, and Hans Blix' and Ray McGovern's professional testimony, and the odd juxtaposition of your pal, Dan Rather's complicity in the Bush National Guard records papers fiasco with his part in the Niger yellowcake paper's scandal.
Do you remember how "boldly" Dan Rather revealed those phony papers - obviously fraudulent - and then the War Party administration... as if scripted for a serial weekly television show ... was able to say the LIBRUL MEDIA was phonying up papers to smear the noble Bush, and thus they got a free ride on the truly phony Niger papers?
This is from Media Matters, to jog your memory...
"Power Line's Johnson falsely claimed CBS panel found Bush Air National Guard documents were forged"
On the November 13 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Scott Johnson, a fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute and a contributor to the right-wing weblog Power Line, falsely claimed that the independent panel hired by CBS to investigate the reporting of a September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday segment questioning President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service found that documents cited in the 60 Minutes Wednesday story were forgeries. But contrary to Johnson's assertion, the independent panel's report reached no conclusion as to whether the documents were forged.
Johnson appeared on Reliable Sources opposite Eric Boehlert, a former senior writer at the online magazine Salon and a contributor to The Huffington Post website. During the segment, Boehlert asked rhetorically, "[I]f the documents [upon which the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment was based] were forgery [sic], why didn't Republican Richard Thornburgh [co-chairman of the panel investigating the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment] make that conclusion in his report? He couldn't. And he wouldn't." Johnson responded, "It's on Page 175 [of the report]."
In fact, Page 175 of the independent panel report contains no conclusions about the authenticity of the documents. Page 175 contains the panel's assessment of testimony provided by typography expert Peter Tytell (whose testimony Johnson cited during the Reliable Sources segment). The report states that the panel "found [Tytell's] analysis sound in terms of why he believed the documents were not authentic," but adds, "[t]he [p]anel reaches no conclusion as to whether Tytell was correct in all respects." Moreover, in its executive summary, the report states that although the panel "identified a number of issues that raise serious questions about the authenticity of the documents and their content," it "has not been able to conclude with absolute certainty whether the ... documents are authentic or forgeries."
In the executive summary, the report states that the September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service "failed to meet" CBS' standards of "accuracy and fairness." The panel found that "with better reporting ... questions [about the authenticity of the documents] should have been raised before the September 8 [s]egment aired." The panel's report, made public on January 10, prompted the ouster of four CBS News employees, including Mary Mapes, the producer of the faulted segment, who also appeared on the November 13 edition of Reliable Sources. CBS News' Dan Rather, who reported the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, also announced his retirement as anchor of CBS' Evening News November 23, 2004, following the flap over the story. Rather claimed he made the decision to resign during the summer of 2004, and he continued to host the Evening News until March 9, 2005.
From the November 23 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
JOHNSON: Well, I just go back to the fact that the substance of the story was a hoax without those documents, which were absolutely forgeries. Look at -- look at the Thornburgh report has the testimony of Peter Tytell, who indicates that this Times New Roman type that those four documents were prepared in didn't exist on typewriters. And he concludes that those were word-processed documents.
HOWARD KURTZ (host): Right.
JOHNSON: Without the documents, there was no story.
KURTZ: In fairness, there were different experts, although many experts do agree with the expert hired by the commission. But you just used the word "hoax." That's a very strong word, because that suggests that CBS and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather did this deliberately, as opposed to perhaps not being careful enough. Do you believe they actually tried to mislead viewers?
JOHNSON: Well, all I would say is the evidence in the report of coordination with the Kerry campaign is substantial. But I will say, now, for Mary Mapes to come on this show this morning and reiterate these fraudulent charges, is a hoax, is a deliberate fraud. Whatever was the status of the story on September 8, 2004, in November 2005, it is a knowing fraud.
KURTZ: Eric Boehlert, you've got the last 20 seconds.
BOEHLERT: Well, that's the problem with this. You know, I think the bloggers got -- hit a home run with this, and their arrogance is now out of control. They're saying the whole Bush National Guard story is a joke. And if the documents were forgery [sic], why didn't Republican Richard Thornburgh make that conclusion in his report? He couldn't. And he wouldn't.
KURTZ: All right.
JOHNSON: It's on Page 175.
Now Bill, Juxtapose that report with this, from Jefferson Morley, in the WaPost:
The Niger Papers: Obstacles to Coverage
Could a media scandal from the 2004 election wind up hindering a major U.S. media organization from following up on the Bush administration's alleged use of forged documents to justify the Iraq war?
The Los Angeles Times is one of several U.S. papers to pick up on the La Repubblica series, focusing on the travails of Elizabeth Burba, the writer for the Italian weekly Panorama who was one of the first journalists to receive the bogus papers on Iraq's alleged attempts to acquire nuclear materials in Africa.Burba told the LAT "she wanted to press ahead with efforts to investigate the case further and determine who forged the documents, but her magazine never published any additional reports."
Panorama is owned by the family of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian leader was a strong supporter of the U.S. effort to topple Saddam Hussein.
Burba "has also been interviewed by the CBS investigative show '60 Minutes' for a piece on the documents that was pulled in the wake of the problems that brought down Dan Rather," according to the LAT.
But after suffering a major black eye last year for relying on forged documents for a story about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS would risk controversy if it aired a story about how the Bush administration allegedly relied on doctored intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. CBS's coverage would seem to be handcuffed, at least temporarily, by Rather's 2004 election mistake.
So Bill, Bill, Bill, I must ask you. Why did you feature Dan Rather so prominently now, in 2007, in this package, "Buying the War" that you are selling as a fundraiser for PBS? Are we fogging history in order to rewrite it? Are we packaging the truth for insertion in the Memory Hole?
Dan Rather was a schill who helped Dubya get re-elected and helped him lead us to war.
I, a nobody, knew Dan Rather personally shared a Western ranch property with his personal pal Don Rumsfield. Didn't it occur to you that when Dan Rather brought out the obviously phony documents that he was playing the crucial role that he was groomed for all these years? Why bring that dirty mole back out of the wormy woodwork?
I learned in the nursery that birds of a feather flock together.
Let Dan Rather rot on Rumsey's Ranch.
I mix metphors when I'm mad. Deal with it.
Post script... and now Charley Rose is interviewing the fabulist Robert Novak, telling twisted tales from his bent perspective.
Hope dies last. PBS has drunk the Koolaide.
You seem to "think" our main stream media was gullible. That seems to be the point of your program tonight on PBS.
I think many in the MSM were complicit.
(Probably paid off in one way or the other.
Elite, Privileged Americans, especially in D.C., are such brazen whores.)
President Bush freely has spoken of his role as a "propaganda catapult" so I don't think I'm spilling any beans here, neither am I a Conspiracy Theorist, as the folks on National Propaganda Radio used to say repeatedly, as if by mantra.
As a flyover midwestern housefrau who reads, I was aware of the avowed goals of the PNAC Neocons, the boldfaced lies of Colin Powell, Condoleeeza, Rumsey, Dick Cheney, and Dubya, Judith Miller's lying and the discrepancy between the front page and the interior pages of the New York Times, the influence of media ownership on reporting and editorial content, the idiocy of the pundits, the truth of Scott Ritter's, and Hans Blix' and Ray McGovern's professional testimony, and the odd juxtaposition of your pal, Dan Rather's complicity in the Bush National Guard records papers fiasco with his part in the Niger yellowcake paper's scandal.
Do you remember how "boldly" Dan Rather revealed those phony papers - obviously fraudulent - and then the War Party administration... as if scripted for a serial weekly television show ... was able to say the LIBRUL MEDIA was phonying up papers to smear the noble Bush, and thus they got a free ride on the truly phony Niger papers?
This is from Media Matters, to jog your memory...
"Power Line's Johnson falsely claimed CBS panel found Bush Air National Guard documents were forged"
On the November 13 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Scott Johnson, a fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute and a contributor to the right-wing weblog Power Line, falsely claimed that the independent panel hired by CBS to investigate the reporting of a September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday segment questioning President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service found that documents cited in the 60 Minutes Wednesday story were forgeries. But contrary to Johnson's assertion, the independent panel's report reached no conclusion as to whether the documents were forged.
Johnson appeared on Reliable Sources opposite Eric Boehlert, a former senior writer at the online magazine Salon and a contributor to The Huffington Post website. During the segment, Boehlert asked rhetorically, "[I]f the documents [upon which the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment was based] were forgery [sic], why didn't Republican Richard Thornburgh [co-chairman of the panel investigating the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment] make that conclusion in his report? He couldn't. And he wouldn't." Johnson responded, "It's on Page 175 [of the report]."
In fact, Page 175 of the independent panel report contains no conclusions about the authenticity of the documents. Page 175 contains the panel's assessment of testimony provided by typography expert Peter Tytell (whose testimony Johnson cited during the Reliable Sources segment). The report states that the panel "found [Tytell's] analysis sound in terms of why he believed the documents were not authentic," but adds, "[t]he [p]anel reaches no conclusion as to whether Tytell was correct in all respects." Moreover, in its executive summary, the report states that although the panel "identified a number of issues that raise serious questions about the authenticity of the documents and their content," it "has not been able to conclude with absolute certainty whether the ... documents are authentic or forgeries."
In the executive summary, the report states that the September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service "failed to meet" CBS' standards of "accuracy and fairness." The panel found that "with better reporting ... questions [about the authenticity of the documents] should have been raised before the September 8 [s]egment aired." The panel's report, made public on January 10, prompted the ouster of four CBS News employees, including Mary Mapes, the producer of the faulted segment, who also appeared on the November 13 edition of Reliable Sources. CBS News' Dan Rather, who reported the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, also announced his retirement as anchor of CBS' Evening News November 23, 2004, following the flap over the story. Rather claimed he made the decision to resign during the summer of 2004, and he continued to host the Evening News until March 9, 2005.
From the November 23 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
JOHNSON: Well, I just go back to the fact that the substance of the story was a hoax without those documents, which were absolutely forgeries. Look at -- look at the Thornburgh report has the testimony of Peter Tytell, who indicates that this Times New Roman type that those four documents were prepared in didn't exist on typewriters. And he concludes that those were word-processed documents.
HOWARD KURTZ (host): Right.
JOHNSON: Without the documents, there was no story.
KURTZ: In fairness, there were different experts, although many experts do agree with the expert hired by the commission. But you just used the word "hoax." That's a very strong word, because that suggests that CBS and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather did this deliberately, as opposed to perhaps not being careful enough. Do you believe they actually tried to mislead viewers?
JOHNSON: Well, all I would say is the evidence in the report of coordination with the Kerry campaign is substantial. But I will say, now, for Mary Mapes to come on this show this morning and reiterate these fraudulent charges, is a hoax, is a deliberate fraud. Whatever was the status of the story on September 8, 2004, in November 2005, it is a knowing fraud.
KURTZ: Eric Boehlert, you've got the last 20 seconds.
BOEHLERT: Well, that's the problem with this. You know, I think the bloggers got -- hit a home run with this, and their arrogance is now out of control. They're saying the whole Bush National Guard story is a joke. And if the documents were forgery [sic], why didn't Republican Richard Thornburgh make that conclusion in his report? He couldn't. And he wouldn't.
KURTZ: All right.
JOHNSON: It's on Page 175.
Now Bill, Juxtapose that report with this, from Jefferson Morley, in the WaPost:
The Niger Papers: Obstacles to Coverage
Could a media scandal from the 2004 election wind up hindering a major U.S. media organization from following up on the Bush administration's alleged use of forged documents to justify the Iraq war?
The Los Angeles Times is one of several U.S. papers to pick up on the La Repubblica series, focusing on the travails of Elizabeth Burba, the writer for the Italian weekly Panorama who was one of the first journalists to receive the bogus papers on Iraq's alleged attempts to acquire nuclear materials in Africa.Burba told the LAT "she wanted to press ahead with efforts to investigate the case further and determine who forged the documents, but her magazine never published any additional reports."
Panorama is owned by the family of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian leader was a strong supporter of the U.S. effort to topple Saddam Hussein.
Burba "has also been interviewed by the CBS investigative show '60 Minutes' for a piece on the documents that was pulled in the wake of the problems that brought down Dan Rather," according to the LAT.
But after suffering a major black eye last year for relying on forged documents for a story about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS would risk controversy if it aired a story about how the Bush administration allegedly relied on doctored intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. CBS's coverage would seem to be handcuffed, at least temporarily, by Rather's 2004 election mistake.
So Bill, Bill, Bill, I must ask you. Why did you feature Dan Rather so prominently now, in 2007, in this package, "Buying the War" that you are selling as a fundraiser for PBS? Are we fogging history in order to rewrite it? Are we packaging the truth for insertion in the Memory Hole?
Dan Rather was a schill who helped Dubya get re-elected and helped him lead us to war.
I, a nobody, knew Dan Rather personally shared a Western ranch property with his personal pal Don Rumsfield. Didn't it occur to you that when Dan Rather brought out the obviously phony documents that he was playing the crucial role that he was groomed for all these years? Why bring that dirty mole back out of the wormy woodwork?
I learned in the nursery that birds of a feather flock together.
Let Dan Rather rot on Rumsey's Ranch.
I mix metphors when I'm mad. Deal with it.
Post script... and now Charley Rose is interviewing the fabulist Robert Novak, telling twisted tales from his bent perspective.
Hope dies last. PBS has drunk the Koolaide.
Friday, April 27, 2007
refresh my memory about Tillman and Lynch
I recall reading that Tillman was becoming disillusioned, and the news was that Pat was planning to meet with his Congressman when his tour was over, just before he was 'killed'.
Coincidentally, the War Party needed a big story for Civilian Propaganda to divert attention from the emerging Abu Grahib story (remember, they had plenty of lead time and released the torture pictures on their own schedule.)
Timing is everything.
It was all fishy to me from Day One.
And...
I recall reading that Jessica was portrayed as a naive young "blond" who "took a wrong turn" and ended up in a nest of Iraqis. I wondered why in the hell she didn't follow her GPS as she was trained to do?
Or if... her GPS directed her to make the wrong-way turn, who could have programmed it to do that? Wasn't that convenient, if you needed her character for a "story"?
I remember reading her Iraqi doctor's story and how she wasn't mistreated at all, and that her "rescuers" had to wait a whole day to get the proper press in to film the rescue.
Coincidentally, the War Party needed a romantic war story that would appeal to the young right, for the Office of Civilian Propaganda to divert attention from the Rachael Corry story that was playing in the foreign press and appealing to the young left. Their brave young girl soldier story would suck all of the air out of the brave young girl peace-nic being bulldozed by the Israelis story.
Timing is everything in war. You do bad things, make contracts, tell lies, steal elections, roll over innocents, let others be killed, make more contracts and then you Move On. Apologies? if necessary. No reparations.
Coincidentally, the War Party needed a big story for Civilian Propaganda to divert attention from the emerging Abu Grahib story (remember, they had plenty of lead time and released the torture pictures on their own schedule.)
Timing is everything.
It was all fishy to me from Day One.
And...
I recall reading that Jessica was portrayed as a naive young "blond" who "took a wrong turn" and ended up in a nest of Iraqis. I wondered why in the hell she didn't follow her GPS as she was trained to do?
Or if... her GPS directed her to make the wrong-way turn, who could have programmed it to do that? Wasn't that convenient, if you needed her character for a "story"?
I remember reading her Iraqi doctor's story and how she wasn't mistreated at all, and that her "rescuers" had to wait a whole day to get the proper press in to film the rescue.
Coincidentally, the War Party needed a romantic war story that would appeal to the young right, for the Office of Civilian Propaganda to divert attention from the Rachael Corry story that was playing in the foreign press and appealing to the young left. Their brave young girl soldier story would suck all of the air out of the brave young girl peace-nic being bulldozed by the Israelis story.
Timing is everything in war. You do bad things, make contracts, tell lies, steal elections, roll over innocents, let others be killed, make more contracts and then you Move On. Apologies? if necessary. No reparations.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Dear Diane Rehm - a big lie repeated, and you just sat there
Your guest, a reporter for ABC News, repeated a "big lie".
Of course, she's a corporate, imbedded reporter. Take those with a grain of salt.
The Big Lie your guest repeated, discussed by Dr. Les Roberts in the following interview, is that the new British study of the famous John-Hopkins study on civilian Iraqi deaths found that the original study may have been too conservative in its numbers.
The big lie she mouthed was that yes, the Brit scientists (of whom nobody could question their expertise) said the numbers were determined to be "wrong".
Some propaganda is easy - lie by ommission.
Not that the numbers were conservative, but that they were wrong... implying they were perhaps excessive or done sloppily.
The study of the study said the numbers were too small.
Dr. Roberts was in Rwanda after the genocide. He said the numbers of dead innocent people in Iraq equal or exceed the numbers of dead in the Rwandan genocide.
Chew on that.
Antiwar Radio: Charles Goyette Interviews Les Roberts
Thursday, March 29th, 2007 in News, War crimes, Antiwar Radio, Iraq by Charles Goyette (link listen)
Dr. Les Roberts from Columbia University discusses the famous Johns Hopkins/Lancet studies of “excess civilian deaths” in Iraq since 2003, the UK government scientists who told Tony Blair that Lancet had, if anything, underestimated the dead at 655,000 (more than the Rwandan genocide of 1994), the deliberate efforts of the U.S. government to suppress numbers of the dead.
MP3 here. (16:49)
Les Roberts, PhD, holds has a Masters degree in public health from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins. He did a post-doctorate fellowship in epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where he worked for 4 years. In 1994, he worked as an epidemiologist for the World Health Organization in Rwanda during their civil war. He previously served as the Director of Health Policy at the International Rescue Committee. He is a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering where he teaches each fall. He teaches a class entitled Water and Sanitation in Complex Emergencies and the 7-week quantitative component of the Program’s Investigative Methods in Complex Emergencies course.
Of course, she's a corporate, imbedded reporter. Take those with a grain of salt.
The Big Lie your guest repeated, discussed by Dr. Les Roberts in the following interview, is that the new British study of the famous John-Hopkins study on civilian Iraqi deaths found that the original study may have been too conservative in its numbers.
The big lie she mouthed was that yes, the Brit scientists (of whom nobody could question their expertise) said the numbers were determined to be "wrong".
Some propaganda is easy - lie by ommission.
Not that the numbers were conservative, but that they were wrong... implying they were perhaps excessive or done sloppily.
The study of the study said the numbers were too small.
Dr. Roberts was in Rwanda after the genocide. He said the numbers of dead innocent people in Iraq equal or exceed the numbers of dead in the Rwandan genocide.
Chew on that.
Antiwar Radio: Charles Goyette Interviews Les Roberts
Thursday, March 29th, 2007 in News, War crimes, Antiwar Radio, Iraq by Charles Goyette (link listen)
Dr. Les Roberts from Columbia University discusses the famous Johns Hopkins/Lancet studies of “excess civilian deaths” in Iraq since 2003, the UK government scientists who told Tony Blair that Lancet had, if anything, underestimated the dead at 655,000 (more than the Rwandan genocide of 1994), the deliberate efforts of the U.S. government to suppress numbers of the dead.
MP3 here. (16:49)
Les Roberts, PhD, holds has a Masters degree in public health from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins. He did a post-doctorate fellowship in epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where he worked for 4 years. In 1994, he worked as an epidemiologist for the World Health Organization in Rwanda during their civil war. He previously served as the Director of Health Policy at the International Rescue Committee. He is a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering where he teaches each fall. He teaches a class entitled Water and Sanitation in Complex Emergencies and the 7-week quantitative component of the Program’s Investigative Methods in Complex Emergencies course.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Jeb resurfaces from the swamp
Jeb Bush Denied Honor at U. of Florida
By Associated Press
Sat Mar 24
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - University of Florida President Bernie Machen says he was "tremendously disappointed" with the school's Faculty Senate vote to deny former Gov. Jeb Bush an honorary degree.
The Senate voted 38-28 Thursday against giving the honorary degree to Bush, who left office in January.
"Jeb Bush has been a great friend of the University of Florida," Machen said Friday, adding that the Senate's action is "unheard of."
Some faculty expressed concern about Bush's record in higher education.
"I really don't feel this is a person who has been a supporter of UF," Kathleen Price, associate dean of library and technology at the school's Levin College of Law, told The Gainesville Sun after the vote.
Bush's approval of three new medical schools during his tenure has diluted resources, Price told the newspaper.
Bush has also been criticized for his "One Florida" proposal, an initiative that ended race-based admissions programs at state universities.
(...)
University officials said they could not recall any precedent for the Senate rejecting the nominees put forth by the Faculty Senate's Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee. The committee determines whether nominees deserve consideration according to standards that include "eminent distinction in scholarship or high distinction in public service."
"The committee endorsed him," Machen said. "It is unheard of that a faculty committee would look at candidates, make recommendations and then (those candidates) be overturned by the Senate." (...)
==================================
Along the same subject lines (the Imperial Bush Dynasty, not education)...
Remember a few years ago, Daddy Bush's big donor, Rev. Sun Yung Moon took his center of operations to Brazil?
Remember Dubya sending the twinset to South America for photo ops, and buying a ranch in Paraguay?
Paraguay is one of the last old time fascist countries left in South America, and, just sayin' here, would be prime territory for a Blackwater style paramilitary jumping off point for covert operations to cause problems, such as the Bush Crime Family speciality... provacation... in the neighborhood.
Good for the arms dealer- drug dealer connection that neoconservatives find such personal wealth in, and which keeps America politically so dependent on the established system of militarism and security.
After all, America's biggest export is not automobiles, it's arms.
A factoid from this is hell:
The Bush dynasty is going from oil to ethanol.
Daddy Bush's Carlyle is dipping its dipstick into the agriculture end of ethanol.
Remember Dubya's Big biofuel agreement he made with Brazil's President Lula during his south America victory tour last week?
Any future for Brazilian ethanol will be undermined by the US 53-cent a gallon tariff we have on ethanol.
Lula and Brazil would like to see that disappear, but it won't, so the positives from this will all be pure political propaganda for the lapdog mainstream media to say that Bush is doing somethng positive to wean us from our oil addiction.
Yeah, right, why would the 'dealer' wreck his own business.
Keeping all this in mind, think about the following...
Fact from Hell (from the This is Hell radio program):
Guess who is the co-chair of the interamerican ethanol commission an organization that promotes the use of ethanol in America?
Answer: Brother Jeb Bush.
Red state update on Al Gore
By Associated Press
Sat Mar 24
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - University of Florida President Bernie Machen says he was "tremendously disappointed" with the school's Faculty Senate vote to deny former Gov. Jeb Bush an honorary degree.
The Senate voted 38-28 Thursday against giving the honorary degree to Bush, who left office in January.
"Jeb Bush has been a great friend of the University of Florida," Machen said Friday, adding that the Senate's action is "unheard of."
Some faculty expressed concern about Bush's record in higher education.
"I really don't feel this is a person who has been a supporter of UF," Kathleen Price, associate dean of library and technology at the school's Levin College of Law, told The Gainesville Sun after the vote.
Bush's approval of three new medical schools during his tenure has diluted resources, Price told the newspaper.
Bush has also been criticized for his "One Florida" proposal, an initiative that ended race-based admissions programs at state universities.
(...)
University officials said they could not recall any precedent for the Senate rejecting the nominees put forth by the Faculty Senate's Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee. The committee determines whether nominees deserve consideration according to standards that include "eminent distinction in scholarship or high distinction in public service."
"The committee endorsed him," Machen said. "It is unheard of that a faculty committee would look at candidates, make recommendations and then (those candidates) be overturned by the Senate." (...)
==================================
Along the same subject lines (the Imperial Bush Dynasty, not education)...
Remember a few years ago, Daddy Bush's big donor, Rev. Sun Yung Moon took his center of operations to Brazil?
Remember Dubya sending the twinset to South America for photo ops, and buying a ranch in Paraguay?
Paraguay is one of the last old time fascist countries left in South America, and, just sayin' here, would be prime territory for a Blackwater style paramilitary jumping off point for covert operations to cause problems, such as the Bush Crime Family speciality... provacation... in the neighborhood.
Good for the arms dealer- drug dealer connection that neoconservatives find such personal wealth in, and which keeps America politically so dependent on the established system of militarism and security.
After all, America's biggest export is not automobiles, it's arms.
A factoid from this is hell:
The Bush dynasty is going from oil to ethanol.
Daddy Bush's Carlyle is dipping its dipstick into the agriculture end of ethanol.
Remember Dubya's Big biofuel agreement he made with Brazil's President Lula during his south America victory tour last week?
Any future for Brazilian ethanol will be undermined by the US 53-cent a gallon tariff we have on ethanol.
Lula and Brazil would like to see that disappear, but it won't, so the positives from this will all be pure political propaganda for the lapdog mainstream media to say that Bush is doing somethng positive to wean us from our oil addiction.
Yeah, right, why would the 'dealer' wreck his own business.
Keeping all this in mind, think about the following...
Fact from Hell (from the This is Hell radio program):
Guess who is the co-chair of the interamerican ethanol commission an organization that promotes the use of ethanol in America?
Answer: Brother Jeb Bush.
Red state update on Al Gore
Thursday, March 22, 2007
deja vu all over again
Sy Hersh, the guy who has always been right in the past. Unless Congress impeaches Bush and Cheney, Iran will be the new Iraq.
And Michael Klare connects all the dots for us...
Tomgram: Michael Klare, Talking Points for the Next War
posted February 25, 2007 on www.tomdispatch.com
a project of the Nation Institute
compiled and edited by Tom Engelhardt
This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=169271
At 10:16 PM on March 19, 2003, after copious military preparations in the Persian Gulf region and beyond, after months of diplomatic maneuvers at the United Nations, after a drumbeat of leaked intelligence warnings and hair-raising statements by top U.S. officials and the President about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and how close Saddam Hussein might be to developing a nuclear weapon, after declaring Saddam's regime a major threat to Americans, after countless insinuations that it was somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks on our country, after endless denials that war with Iraq was necessarily on the administration's agenda, President George W. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office. "My fellow citizens," he began, "at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger…"
Almost four years later, all the above elements are again in place, this time in relation to Iran -- with Iranian responsibility for the deaths of Americans in Iraq replacing Iraqi responsibility for the deaths of Americans in New York and Washington. On a careful reading of our President's latest speeches and statements, Michael Klare has noted that an actual list of charges against Iran, a case for war, has already essentially been drawn up, making it easy enough to imagine that at 10:16 PM on some night not so very distant from this one, from that same desk in the Oval Office, the President of the United States might again begin, "My fellow citizens, at this hour…" But read on for yourself. Tom
Bush's Future Iran War Speech
Three Charges in the Case for War
By Michael T. Klare
Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur -- let it be so! -- but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war.
Three of his statements, in particular, contained the essence of this justification: his January 10 televised speech on his plan for a troop "surge" in Iraq, his State of the Union Address of January 23, and his first televised press conference of the year on February 14. None of these was primarily focused on Iran, but the President used each of them to warn of the extraordinary dangers that country poses to the United States and to hint at severe U.S. reprisals if the Iranians did not desist from "harming U.S. troops." In each, moreover, he laid out various parts of the overall argument he will certainly use to justify an attack on Iran. String these together in one place and you can almost anticipate what Bush's speechwriters will concoct before he addresses the American people from the Oval Office sometime later this year. Think of them as talking points for the next war.
The first of these revealing statements was Bush's January 10th televised address on Iraq. This speech was supposedly intended to rally public and Congressional support behind his plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops into the Iraqi capital and al-Anbar Province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. But his presentation that night was so uninspired, so lacking in conviction, that -- according to media commentary and polling data -- few, if any, Americans were persuaded by his arguments. Only once that evening did Bush visibly come alive: When he spoke about the threat to Iraq supposedly posed by Iran.
"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges," he declared, which meant, he assured his audience, addressing the problem of Iran. That country, he asserted, "is providing material support for attacks on American troops." (This support was later identified as advanced improvised explosive devices -- IEDs or roadside bombs -- given to anti-American Shiite militias.) Then followed an unambiguous warning: "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces... And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
Consider this item one in his casus belli: Because Iran is aiding and abetting our enemies in Iraq, we are justified in attacking Iran as a matter of self-defense.
Bush put it this way in an interview with Juan Williams of National Public Radio on January 29: "If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly… It makes common sense for the commander-in-chief to say to our troops and the Iraqi people -- and the Iraqi government -- that we will help you defend yourself from people that want to sow discord and harm."
In his January 10 address, the President went on to fill in a second item in any future casus belli: Iran is seeking nuclear weapons in order to dominate the Middle East to the detriment of our friends in the region -- a goal that it simply cannot be allowed to achieve.
In response to such a possibility, the President declared, "We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East." These included deploying a second U.S. aircraft carrier battle group to the Gulf region, consisting of the USS John C. Stennis and a flotilla of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines (presumably to provide additional air and missile assets for strikes on Iran), along with additional Patriot anti-missile batteries (presumably to shoot down any Iranian missiles that might be fired in retaliation for an air attack on the country and its nuclear facilities). "And," Bush added, "we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."
Bush added a third item to the casus belli in his State of the Union Address on January 23. After years of describing Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as the greatest threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East, he now introduced a new menace: the resurgent Shia branch of Islam led by Iran.
Aside from al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists, he explained, "it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East." Many of these extremists, he noted, "are known to take direction from the regime in Iran," including the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
As if to nail down this point, he offered some hair-raising imagery right out of the Left Behind bestselling book series so beloved of Christian evangelicals and their neoconservative allies: "If American forces step back [from Iraq] before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists backed by Al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill across the country, and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective."
As refined by Bush speechwriters, this, then, is the third item in his casus belli for attacking Iran: to prevent a "nightmare scenario" in which the Shia leaders of Iran might emerge as the grandmasters of regional instability, using proxies like Hezbollah to imperil Israel and pro-American regimes in Jordan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia -- with potentially catastrophic consequences for the safety of Middle Eastern oil supplies. You can be sure of what Bush will say to this in his future address: No American president would ever allow such a scenario to come to pass.
Many of these themes were reiterated in the president's White House Valentine's Day press conference. Once again, Iraq was meant to be the main story, but Iran captured all the headlines.
Bush's most widely cited comments on Iran focused on claims of Iranian involvement in the delivery of sophisticated versions of the roadside IEDs that have been responsible for many of the U.S. casualties in recent months. Just a few days earlier, unidentified American military officials in Baghdad had declared that elements of the Iranian military -- specifically, the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- were supplying the deadly devices to Shiite militias in Iraq, and that high-ranking Iranian government officials were aware of the deliveries. These claims were contested by other U.S. officials and members of Congress who expressed doubt about the reliability of the evidence and the intelligence work behind it, but Bush evinced no such uncertainty:
"What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known."
What is not known, he continued, is just how high up in the Iranian government went the decision-making that led such IEDs to be delivered to the Shia militias in Iraq. But that doesn't matter, he explained. "What matters is, is that they're there... [W]e know they're there, and we're going to protect our troops." As Commander-in-Chief, he insisted, he would "do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way."
He then went on to indicate that "the biggest problem I see is the Iranians' desire to have a nuclear weapon." He expressed his wish that this problem can be "dealt with" in a peaceful way -- by the Iranians voluntarily agreeing to cease their program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. But he also made it clear that the onus was purely on Tehran to take the necessary action to avoid unspecified harm: "I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people."
No reporters at the press conference asked him to explain this odd twist of phrase, delivered in the past tense, about his regret that he was unable to explain to the Iranian people why he had meant them no harm -- presumably after the fact. However, if you view this as the Bush version of a Freudian slip, one obvious conclusion can be drawn: that the President has already made the decision to begin the countdown for an attack on Iran, and only total capitulation by the Iranians could possibly bring the process to a halt.
Further evidence for this conclusion is provided by Bush's repeated reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. On three separate occasions during the press conference he praised Russia, China, and the "EU3" -- Britain, France, and Germany -- for framing the December 23 Security Council resolution condemning Iran's nuclear activities and imposing economic sanctions on Iran in the context of Chapter 7 -- that is, of "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression."
This sets the stage for the international community, under UN leadership, to take such steps as may be deemed necessary "to maintain or restore international peace and stability," ranging from mild economic sanctions to full-scale war (steps that are described in Articles 39 to 51). But the December 23 resolution was specifically framed under Article 41, which entails "measures not involving the use of armed force," a stipulation demanded by China and Russia, which have categorically ruled out the use of military force to resolve the nuclear dispute with Iran.
One suspects that President Bush has Chapter 7 on the brain because he now intends to ask for a new resolution under Article 42, which allows the use of military force to restore international peace and stability. But it is nearly inconceivable that Russia and China would approve such a resolution. Such approval would also be tantamount to acknowledging American hegemony worldwide, and this is something they are simply unwilling to do.
So we can expect several months of fruitless diplomacy at the United Nations in which the United States may achieve slightly more severe economic sanctions under Chapter 41 but not approval for military action under Chapter 42. Bush knows that this is the inevitable outcome, and so I am convinced that, in his various speeches and meetings with reporters, he is already preparing the way for a future address to the nation. In it, he will speak somberly of a tireless American effort to secure a meaningful resolution from the United Nations on Iran with real teeth in it and his deep disappointment that no such resolution has been not forthcoming. He will also point out that, despite the heroic efforts of American diplomats as well as military commanders in Iraq, Iran continues to pose a vital and unchecked threat to American security in Iraq, in the region, and even -- via its nuclear program -- in the wider world.
Further diplomacy, he will insist, appears futile and yet Iran must be stopped. Hence, he will say, "I have made the unavoidable decision to eliminate this vital threat through direct military action," and will announce -- in language eerily reminiscent of his address to the nation on March 19, 2003 -- that a massive air offensive against Iran has already been underway for several hours.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the defense correspondent of the Nation magazine. He is the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books).
Copyright 2007 Michael T. Klare
And Michael Klare connects all the dots for us...
Tomgram: Michael Klare, Talking Points for the Next War
posted February 25, 2007 on www.tomdispatch.com
a project of the Nation Institute
compiled and edited by Tom Engelhardt
This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=169271
At 10:16 PM on March 19, 2003, after copious military preparations in the Persian Gulf region and beyond, after months of diplomatic maneuvers at the United Nations, after a drumbeat of leaked intelligence warnings and hair-raising statements by top U.S. officials and the President about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and how close Saddam Hussein might be to developing a nuclear weapon, after declaring Saddam's regime a major threat to Americans, after countless insinuations that it was somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks on our country, after endless denials that war with Iraq was necessarily on the administration's agenda, President George W. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office. "My fellow citizens," he began, "at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger…"
Almost four years later, all the above elements are again in place, this time in relation to Iran -- with Iranian responsibility for the deaths of Americans in Iraq replacing Iraqi responsibility for the deaths of Americans in New York and Washington. On a careful reading of our President's latest speeches and statements, Michael Klare has noted that an actual list of charges against Iran, a case for war, has already essentially been drawn up, making it easy enough to imagine that at 10:16 PM on some night not so very distant from this one, from that same desk in the Oval Office, the President of the United States might again begin, "My fellow citizens, at this hour…" But read on for yourself. Tom
Bush's Future Iran War Speech
Three Charges in the Case for War
By Michael T. Klare
Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur -- let it be so! -- but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war.
Three of his statements, in particular, contained the essence of this justification: his January 10 televised speech on his plan for a troop "surge" in Iraq, his State of the Union Address of January 23, and his first televised press conference of the year on February 14. None of these was primarily focused on Iran, but the President used each of them to warn of the extraordinary dangers that country poses to the United States and to hint at severe U.S. reprisals if the Iranians did not desist from "harming U.S. troops." In each, moreover, he laid out various parts of the overall argument he will certainly use to justify an attack on Iran. String these together in one place and you can almost anticipate what Bush's speechwriters will concoct before he addresses the American people from the Oval Office sometime later this year. Think of them as talking points for the next war.
The first of these revealing statements was Bush's January 10th televised address on Iraq. This speech was supposedly intended to rally public and Congressional support behind his plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops into the Iraqi capital and al-Anbar Province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. But his presentation that night was so uninspired, so lacking in conviction, that -- according to media commentary and polling data -- few, if any, Americans were persuaded by his arguments. Only once that evening did Bush visibly come alive: When he spoke about the threat to Iraq supposedly posed by Iran.
"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges," he declared, which meant, he assured his audience, addressing the problem of Iran. That country, he asserted, "is providing material support for attacks on American troops." (This support was later identified as advanced improvised explosive devices -- IEDs or roadside bombs -- given to anti-American Shiite militias.) Then followed an unambiguous warning: "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces... And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
Consider this item one in his casus belli: Because Iran is aiding and abetting our enemies in Iraq, we are justified in attacking Iran as a matter of self-defense.
Bush put it this way in an interview with Juan Williams of National Public Radio on January 29: "If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly… It makes common sense for the commander-in-chief to say to our troops and the Iraqi people -- and the Iraqi government -- that we will help you defend yourself from people that want to sow discord and harm."
In his January 10 address, the President went on to fill in a second item in any future casus belli: Iran is seeking nuclear weapons in order to dominate the Middle East to the detriment of our friends in the region -- a goal that it simply cannot be allowed to achieve.
In response to such a possibility, the President declared, "We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East." These included deploying a second U.S. aircraft carrier battle group to the Gulf region, consisting of the USS John C. Stennis and a flotilla of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines (presumably to provide additional air and missile assets for strikes on Iran), along with additional Patriot anti-missile batteries (presumably to shoot down any Iranian missiles that might be fired in retaliation for an air attack on the country and its nuclear facilities). "And," Bush added, "we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."
Bush added a third item to the casus belli in his State of the Union Address on January 23. After years of describing Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as the greatest threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East, he now introduced a new menace: the resurgent Shia branch of Islam led by Iran.
Aside from al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists, he explained, "it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East." Many of these extremists, he noted, "are known to take direction from the regime in Iran," including the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
As if to nail down this point, he offered some hair-raising imagery right out of the Left Behind bestselling book series so beloved of Christian evangelicals and their neoconservative allies: "If American forces step back [from Iraq] before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists backed by Al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill across the country, and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective."
As refined by Bush speechwriters, this, then, is the third item in his casus belli for attacking Iran: to prevent a "nightmare scenario" in which the Shia leaders of Iran might emerge as the grandmasters of regional instability, using proxies like Hezbollah to imperil Israel and pro-American regimes in Jordan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia -- with potentially catastrophic consequences for the safety of Middle Eastern oil supplies. You can be sure of what Bush will say to this in his future address: No American president would ever allow such a scenario to come to pass.
Many of these themes were reiterated in the president's White House Valentine's Day press conference. Once again, Iraq was meant to be the main story, but Iran captured all the headlines.
Bush's most widely cited comments on Iran focused on claims of Iranian involvement in the delivery of sophisticated versions of the roadside IEDs that have been responsible for many of the U.S. casualties in recent months. Just a few days earlier, unidentified American military officials in Baghdad had declared that elements of the Iranian military -- specifically, the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- were supplying the deadly devices to Shiite militias in Iraq, and that high-ranking Iranian government officials were aware of the deliveries. These claims were contested by other U.S. officials and members of Congress who expressed doubt about the reliability of the evidence and the intelligence work behind it, but Bush evinced no such uncertainty:
"What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known."
What is not known, he continued, is just how high up in the Iranian government went the decision-making that led such IEDs to be delivered to the Shia militias in Iraq. But that doesn't matter, he explained. "What matters is, is that they're there... [W]e know they're there, and we're going to protect our troops." As Commander-in-Chief, he insisted, he would "do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way."
He then went on to indicate that "the biggest problem I see is the Iranians' desire to have a nuclear weapon." He expressed his wish that this problem can be "dealt with" in a peaceful way -- by the Iranians voluntarily agreeing to cease their program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. But he also made it clear that the onus was purely on Tehran to take the necessary action to avoid unspecified harm: "I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people."
No reporters at the press conference asked him to explain this odd twist of phrase, delivered in the past tense, about his regret that he was unable to explain to the Iranian people why he had meant them no harm -- presumably after the fact. However, if you view this as the Bush version of a Freudian slip, one obvious conclusion can be drawn: that the President has already made the decision to begin the countdown for an attack on Iran, and only total capitulation by the Iranians could possibly bring the process to a halt.
Further evidence for this conclusion is provided by Bush's repeated reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. On three separate occasions during the press conference he praised Russia, China, and the "EU3" -- Britain, France, and Germany -- for framing the December 23 Security Council resolution condemning Iran's nuclear activities and imposing economic sanctions on Iran in the context of Chapter 7 -- that is, of "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression."
This sets the stage for the international community, under UN leadership, to take such steps as may be deemed necessary "to maintain or restore international peace and stability," ranging from mild economic sanctions to full-scale war (steps that are described in Articles 39 to 51). But the December 23 resolution was specifically framed under Article 41, which entails "measures not involving the use of armed force," a stipulation demanded by China and Russia, which have categorically ruled out the use of military force to resolve the nuclear dispute with Iran.
One suspects that President Bush has Chapter 7 on the brain because he now intends to ask for a new resolution under Article 42, which allows the use of military force to restore international peace and stability. But it is nearly inconceivable that Russia and China would approve such a resolution. Such approval would also be tantamount to acknowledging American hegemony worldwide, and this is something they are simply unwilling to do.
So we can expect several months of fruitless diplomacy at the United Nations in which the United States may achieve slightly more severe economic sanctions under Chapter 41 but not approval for military action under Chapter 42. Bush knows that this is the inevitable outcome, and so I am convinced that, in his various speeches and meetings with reporters, he is already preparing the way for a future address to the nation. In it, he will speak somberly of a tireless American effort to secure a meaningful resolution from the United Nations on Iran with real teeth in it and his deep disappointment that no such resolution has been not forthcoming. He will also point out that, despite the heroic efforts of American diplomats as well as military commanders in Iraq, Iran continues to pose a vital and unchecked threat to American security in Iraq, in the region, and even -- via its nuclear program -- in the wider world.
Further diplomacy, he will insist, appears futile and yet Iran must be stopped. Hence, he will say, "I have made the unavoidable decision to eliminate this vital threat through direct military action," and will announce -- in language eerily reminiscent of his address to the nation on March 19, 2003 -- that a massive air offensive against Iran has already been underway for several hours.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the defense correspondent of the Nation magazine. He is the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books).
Copyright 2007 Michael T. Klare
Friday, March 09, 2007
Reading proof that my Fellow Americans are stupid zombies does not make me feel sanguine
Deaths in Iraq poll (link).
I give up on you all.
Go watch this link. This is Tehran, Iran, the place, the people, you want to "nuke".
To paraphrase JFK, Ich bin ein Tehranian.
Those people are not my enemy.
Why do you want to nuke them?
For God?
For your religion is general?
For GOP politics, advertised on FOX?
For an economic system?
What did an economic system ever do for you?
Or maybe...
For oil?
Not YOUR oil, mind you, but some rich S.O.B.'s oil?
Because the sovereign state of Iran is following the provisions of signed international nuclear treaties (that we don't follow because we are too good or some such thing) to make cheaper energy (because they need electricity) so they can sell their OWN natural resource, oil, at it's high price instead of burning it?
Why do we expect them to do something we wouldn't, as loyal capitalists, do?
I hope they come for your resources some day, my fellow self-righteous a-holes.
I give up on you all.
Go watch this link. This is Tehran, Iran, the place, the people, you want to "nuke".
To paraphrase JFK, Ich bin ein Tehranian.
Those people are not my enemy.
Why do you want to nuke them?
For God?
For your religion is general?
For GOP politics, advertised on FOX?
For an economic system?
What did an economic system ever do for you?
Or maybe...
For oil?
Not YOUR oil, mind you, but some rich S.O.B.'s oil?
Because the sovereign state of Iran is following the provisions of signed international nuclear treaties (that we don't follow because we are too good or some such thing) to make cheaper energy (because they need electricity) so they can sell their OWN natural resource, oil, at it's high price instead of burning it?
Why do we expect them to do something we wouldn't, as loyal capitalists, do?
I hope they come for your resources some day, my fellow self-righteous a-holes.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Dubya plans to have a whole lotta collateral damage in Iran
This weekend Iran called for the Mideast to become a nuclear-free region. All of its neighbors have missiles. Israel has hundreds of nukes. Two countries on its borders have Imperial American Armies poised to strike. There are three battle groups waiting in the gulf. There are over 700 targets selected, something like 50 of them will include bunker busters, and only God and his son Dubya know what else.
The pretext for war has been catapulted over and over.
Even if the MSM doesn't believe it, they repeat it repeat it repeat it as if it had merit. A false pretext become part of the context.
Mercury is in retrograde.
The full moon is on March 3.
The Blond has been sacrificed. (Did anyone else notice how much dead Princess Diana is in the news again?)
The God is propitiated. (Why do I associate Superbowl ads with Viagra? The subliminal imagery of the yearly family viewing spectacular Superbowl gets us rockin' for SOMETHIN', doesn't it...)
Bread and circuses.
Please don't passively watch the Iranian fireworks on television if offered the chance. it's not the 4th of July over Disneyworld. The rocket's red glare doesn't make us right. That red is blood. Join me in boycotting the Bush Dynasty's newest conquest.
Seriously, the questions we should be debating:
Is Iran a sovereign nation?
Does any nation other than America and Israel have the right to defend itself from predation, invasion, incursion?
Why don't the multi-national corporations pay the going rate for protection, instead of forcing the American taxpayers to subsidize their profits with our life blood and the vitality of our economy? Or is our militarism all we have left to support our economy?
US 'Iran attack plans' revealed
BBC
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.
But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.
That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.
Two triggers
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran. (Editorial Note: Which Can Be Arranged, wink wink nod nod)
Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.
The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.
Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says.
Deadline
Earlier this month US officers in Iraq said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. However the most senior US military officer later cast doubt on this, saying that they only had proof that weapons "made in Iran" were being used in Iraq.
Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he did not know that the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in this.
At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq.
Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran.
Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.
Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.
Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.
The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.
If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.
The pretext for war has been catapulted over and over.
Even if the MSM doesn't believe it, they repeat it repeat it repeat it as if it had merit. A false pretext become part of the context.
Mercury is in retrograde.
The full moon is on March 3.
The Blond has been sacrificed. (Did anyone else notice how much dead Princess Diana is in the news again?)
The God is propitiated. (Why do I associate Superbowl ads with Viagra? The subliminal imagery of the yearly family viewing spectacular Superbowl gets us rockin' for SOMETHIN', doesn't it...)
Bread and circuses.
Please don't passively watch the Iranian fireworks on television if offered the chance. it's not the 4th of July over Disneyworld. The rocket's red glare doesn't make us right. That red is blood. Join me in boycotting the Bush Dynasty's newest conquest.
Seriously, the questions we should be debating:
Is Iran a sovereign nation?
Does any nation other than America and Israel have the right to defend itself from predation, invasion, incursion?
Why don't the multi-national corporations pay the going rate for protection, instead of forcing the American taxpayers to subsidize their profits with our life blood and the vitality of our economy? Or is our militarism all we have left to support our economy?
US 'Iran attack plans' revealed
BBC
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.
But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.
That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.
Two triggers
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran. (Editorial Note: Which Can Be Arranged, wink wink nod nod)
Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.
The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.
Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says.
Deadline
Earlier this month US officers in Iraq said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. However the most senior US military officer later cast doubt on this, saying that they only had proof that weapons "made in Iran" were being used in Iraq.
Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he did not know that the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in this.
At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq.
Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran.
Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.
Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.
Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.
The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February.
If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Dubya direct quote: Money Trumps Peace
Money Trumps Peace...Sometimes
02/15/2007
Guest ContributionBUZZFLASH
by Cindy Sheehan
It is always painful to watch George stumble his way through press conferences. He can't get through a sentence without at least two-three "uhs," his eyelids flutter up and down in what my daughter Carly calls the "liar's blink." It is painful that a human like that is ostensibly the leader of the free world. There is always a plethora of things that he says, does, or screws up on to write about but this time what caught my attention happened during the Q&A. George was asked if he thought the economic sanctions on Iran would work because so many European nations trade with that country.
He stopped to collect his thoughts with what he thought must've looked like a studied and careful demeanor, but more like someone with a sour tummy, and said: "well, let's put it this way...money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world."
It is always interesting with people who frequently play fast and loose with the truth, such as the liars in BushCo, once in a while if they talk long enough, they tell a truth.
"Money trumps peace" is the fundamental reason for the invasions and subsequent gory and violent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Richard Behan's excellent article "From Iraq to Afghanistan: Connecting the Dots with Oil," he brilliantly follows the history of the oil-money trail in these countries that are 1) rich in oil, and 2) well placed for the transportation and delivery of oil.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, or their leaders or governments had anything to do with 9-11, but they were in the way of oil and other industries that profit from oil, so they had to go. Money trumped peace in those countries and they are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, and Americans have been slaughtered because they were blocking American imperialistic profiteering.
"Money trumps peace" is the underlying reason for all wars as two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and highly decorated Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote in his reflective, prophetic work, "War is a Racket":
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
During the short booklet that every prospective parent, current parent, and every teen should read thoroughly and often, he keeps referring to World War I as the "World War" because he was writing directly after the "Great War" -- the "war to end all wars." There was no World War II...yet.
General Butler was no unwashed, hippie peace-nik. He was a warrior who, as often times happens when men face the horrors of war ("War is hell" -- General Sherman), saw the futility of killing as a diplomatic tool that kills and maims our young people for "the benefit of the very few."
"Money trumps peace" should be the rallying call of all the Democrats and Republicans who are exploiting our tired and wounded soldiers in the field to justify handing BushCo more money to complete his mission of totally decimating the Middle East for the oil companies, construction contractors, and defense industries.
How many times have we heard: "We have to vote for the emergency funding for the troops."
That money is not for the troops, never has been for the troops, and the troops in the field wouldn't need any support if they used the money that was already in the pipeline to bring our soldiers and Marines home from the killing deserts.
I talked to a young lady at a university in Minnesota whose good friend was a Marine in Iraq who just got home and one of the only things that he shared with her was that he had to eat ants. If you don't believe me, just ask Mr. "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." Our troops have never been supported in this monstrous mistake of a war and they have never received the tools they need to survive, let alone be successful in their so-called mission.
The money goes to one thousand dollar a day mercenaries -- not our two thousand dollar a month grunts.
"Money trumps peace" when while asking for tens of billions of more dollars for war, George is balancing the budget off of the backs of vets who have served this country honorably by cutting back on VA benefits.
Many times I am asked: "What would you say to Bush if you were to meet with him now?" I think my first question would be: "How the hell do you look at yourself in the mirror?"
How dare he?
"Money trumps peace" is one of the reasons why true peace won't be possible when our country is misgoverned by people who are beholden to and entrenched in the military industrial complex. K-Street palm greasers have an easier passage in the Halls of Congress than do activists with petitions, or a Gold Star Mother wearing a "protest shirt" do.
"Money trumps peace" is the problem when some leaders of Congress, who should be working day and night to bring our troops home to save Iraq and the lives and souls of our brave soldiers and Marines, are out raising money for presidential campaigns that are still a year away.
Sometime between now and the first primaries in 2008, we will be holding vigils for the 4,000th troop killed in Iraq and thousands of Iraqi families will be overcome with grief and pain while the talking head shows are already consumed by election fever.
"Money will always trump peace" unless BushCo are impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned for leading our military like lambs to the slaughter to die for Raytheon, Halliburton, and Blackwater Security.
"Money will always trump peace" until we the people demand that our tax dollars remain in our communities, schools, and families and not directly funneled from the Treasury Department to the Pentagon, so that our children do not have to offer themselves up as these human sacrificial lambs.
Peace can and should trump money, but only if we are willing to stand up and challenge the continuing and immoral perception that "Money trumps peace."
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute.
She is the author of three books, the most recent is: Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism.
02/15/2007
Guest ContributionBUZZFLASH
by Cindy Sheehan
It is always painful to watch George stumble his way through press conferences. He can't get through a sentence without at least two-three "uhs," his eyelids flutter up and down in what my daughter Carly calls the "liar's blink." It is painful that a human like that is ostensibly the leader of the free world. There is always a plethora of things that he says, does, or screws up on to write about but this time what caught my attention happened during the Q&A. George was asked if he thought the economic sanctions on Iran would work because so many European nations trade with that country.
He stopped to collect his thoughts with what he thought must've looked like a studied and careful demeanor, but more like someone with a sour tummy, and said: "well, let's put it this way...money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world."
It is always interesting with people who frequently play fast and loose with the truth, such as the liars in BushCo, once in a while if they talk long enough, they tell a truth.
"Money trumps peace" is the fundamental reason for the invasions and subsequent gory and violent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Richard Behan's excellent article "From Iraq to Afghanistan: Connecting the Dots with Oil," he brilliantly follows the history of the oil-money trail in these countries that are 1) rich in oil, and 2) well placed for the transportation and delivery of oil.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, or their leaders or governments had anything to do with 9-11, but they were in the way of oil and other industries that profit from oil, so they had to go. Money trumped peace in those countries and they are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, and Americans have been slaughtered because they were blocking American imperialistic profiteering.
"Money trumps peace" is the underlying reason for all wars as two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and highly decorated Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote in his reflective, prophetic work, "War is a Racket":
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
During the short booklet that every prospective parent, current parent, and every teen should read thoroughly and often, he keeps referring to World War I as the "World War" because he was writing directly after the "Great War" -- the "war to end all wars." There was no World War II...yet.
General Butler was no unwashed, hippie peace-nik. He was a warrior who, as often times happens when men face the horrors of war ("War is hell" -- General Sherman), saw the futility of killing as a diplomatic tool that kills and maims our young people for "the benefit of the very few."
"Money trumps peace" should be the rallying call of all the Democrats and Republicans who are exploiting our tired and wounded soldiers in the field to justify handing BushCo more money to complete his mission of totally decimating the Middle East for the oil companies, construction contractors, and defense industries.
How many times have we heard: "We have to vote for the emergency funding for the troops."
That money is not for the troops, never has been for the troops, and the troops in the field wouldn't need any support if they used the money that was already in the pipeline to bring our soldiers and Marines home from the killing deserts.
I talked to a young lady at a university in Minnesota whose good friend was a Marine in Iraq who just got home and one of the only things that he shared with her was that he had to eat ants. If you don't believe me, just ask Mr. "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." Our troops have never been supported in this monstrous mistake of a war and they have never received the tools they need to survive, let alone be successful in their so-called mission.
The money goes to one thousand dollar a day mercenaries -- not our two thousand dollar a month grunts.
"Money trumps peace" when while asking for tens of billions of more dollars for war, George is balancing the budget off of the backs of vets who have served this country honorably by cutting back on VA benefits.
Many times I am asked: "What would you say to Bush if you were to meet with him now?" I think my first question would be: "How the hell do you look at yourself in the mirror?"
How dare he?
"Money trumps peace" is one of the reasons why true peace won't be possible when our country is misgoverned by people who are beholden to and entrenched in the military industrial complex. K-Street palm greasers have an easier passage in the Halls of Congress than do activists with petitions, or a Gold Star Mother wearing a "protest shirt" do.
"Money trumps peace" is the problem when some leaders of Congress, who should be working day and night to bring our troops home to save Iraq and the lives and souls of our brave soldiers and Marines, are out raising money for presidential campaigns that are still a year away.
Sometime between now and the first primaries in 2008, we will be holding vigils for the 4,000th troop killed in Iraq and thousands of Iraqi families will be overcome with grief and pain while the talking head shows are already consumed by election fever.
"Money will always trump peace" unless BushCo are impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned for leading our military like lambs to the slaughter to die for Raytheon, Halliburton, and Blackwater Security.
"Money will always trump peace" until we the people demand that our tax dollars remain in our communities, schools, and families and not directly funneled from the Treasury Department to the Pentagon, so that our children do not have to offer themselves up as these human sacrificial lambs.
Peace can and should trump money, but only if we are willing to stand up and challenge the continuing and immoral perception that "Money trumps peace."
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute.
She is the author of three books, the most recent is: Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
pretty transparent, National Propaganda Radio
I'm just a f*&ing average midwestern housewife but I was ironically laughing out loud this morning at the transparency of NPR's reportage this morning, detailing the past support for Bush's War by leading (but not all) Democrat__ contenders (did you wonder too why are they contending sooo soon when there is so much more important stuff to do?) who are positioning themselves against Bush's War.
Then they juxtapositioned a short sweet puff piece about the clown Guliani, never mentioning his stand on Iraq (? what is it, nukes, tasers all around?) or how much no bid or otherwise crony money his companies are making off post 9-11 security and war.
Keep warm.
Then they juxtapositioned a short sweet puff piece about the clown Guliani, never mentioning his stand on Iraq (? what is it, nukes, tasers all around?) or how much no bid or otherwise crony money his companies are making off post 9-11 security and war.
Keep warm.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Is Captain Brian Freeman the new Jessica Lynch?
I just read the new spin on his story... they are blaming Iran.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Thoughts on Ben Bernacke once again attacking our beloved social programs
Remember my Humpty-Dumpty analogy for the Bush Wars? Seems a lot of people started thinking along the same lines lately... and Dubya responded. Did anyone else hear his comment that he "doesn't think of Iraq as a broken egg", he "thinks it's more of a cracked egg"? (Duh? What's the difference, George? Exactly what planet are you from?)
I heard the sound clip one morning on NPR and didn't hear it again all day.
I think it says everything about our nation and what we have become.
You actually voted for this guy TWICE!
Remember when Bush's Invasion of Iraq was a *soldier a day* and a $ billion a week?
You knew it escalated to more blood and carnage a day, but did you know Bush's off-budget carte-blanche war is now costing your tax-sponsored credit card over two billion a week?
Couldn't we better spend that money here? On homeland security and shoring up successful social programs?
What is it about "fighting over there so we don't have to fight them here" that keeps "them" over "there"? Logically, "they" can do two things at the same time. We are not safer by invading other countries. We don't spread democracy, we spread hatred which will encourage someone sometime to act on that thought. Blowback is heck. Expect more blowback, and it will be heck. We are spending our life's blood on militarism for nothing...
Okay, so they have filled The Grover Noquist-described Bathtub to drown our government in.
We have been convinced by free traders and Madison Avenue to sell our birthright to the Godless Communist Chinese for cheaply made Walmart goods...
We have been lyed into spending over half of our wealth on militarism...
We have been sold on ignoring Peak Oil and Global Climate Change in favore of faith based armageddonist SUV driving...
We have been scared by scarey commercials about men in turbans, and wolves in the woods to the reactionary gutting of our Constitutional rights...
So folks, are you going to believe these proven to be lying bastards when they begin to proceed to dismantle your Social Security?
Ben Bernacke and George W. Bush are carrying Great Big Scissors to cut holes in your safety nets!
The Republic is dying okay you don't care about that, but are you going to bring Granny in to sleep in your spare room, or leave her on the side of the road?
----
*The now-shit-canned "An Army of One" advertising campaign took on new meaning with Bush's War, didn't it, when it became the blood price of conquest.
IU've marvelled at how the Righties seem to revel in ironic language... Federalist Society is exquisite, Crusade and Islamo-fascism, the short lived Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) changed to OIF, the code talking to the militant Christian Right, the litany of anti-environmental program names Blue Skies and Healthy Forests Initiatives, the evil No Child Left Behind... Is there a complete list online of this endless Luntz-speak I wonder?
I heard the sound clip one morning on NPR and didn't hear it again all day.
I think it says everything about our nation and what we have become.
You actually voted for this guy TWICE!
Remember when Bush's Invasion of Iraq was a *soldier a day* and a $ billion a week?
You knew it escalated to more blood and carnage a day, but did you know Bush's off-budget carte-blanche war is now costing your tax-sponsored credit card over two billion a week?
Couldn't we better spend that money here? On homeland security and shoring up successful social programs?
What is it about "fighting over there so we don't have to fight them here" that keeps "them" over "there"? Logically, "they" can do two things at the same time. We are not safer by invading other countries. We don't spread democracy, we spread hatred which will encourage someone sometime to act on that thought. Blowback is heck. Expect more blowback, and it will be heck. We are spending our life's blood on militarism for nothing...
Okay, so they have filled The Grover Noquist-described Bathtub to drown our government in.
We have been convinced by free traders and Madison Avenue to sell our birthright to the Godless Communist Chinese for cheaply made Walmart goods...
We have been lyed into spending over half of our wealth on militarism...
We have been sold on ignoring Peak Oil and Global Climate Change in favore of faith based armageddonist SUV driving...
We have been scared by scarey commercials about men in turbans, and wolves in the woods to the reactionary gutting of our Constitutional rights...
So folks, are you going to believe these proven to be lying bastards when they begin to proceed to dismantle your Social Security?
Ben Bernacke and George W. Bush are carrying Great Big Scissors to cut holes in your safety nets!
The Republic is dying okay you don't care about that, but are you going to bring Granny in to sleep in your spare room, or leave her on the side of the road?
----
*The now-shit-canned "An Army of One" advertising campaign took on new meaning with Bush's War, didn't it, when it became the blood price of conquest.
IU've marvelled at how the Righties seem to revel in ironic language... Federalist Society is exquisite, Crusade and Islamo-fascism, the short lived Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) changed to OIF, the code talking to the militant Christian Right, the litany of anti-environmental program names Blue Skies and Healthy Forests Initiatives, the evil No Child Left Behind... Is there a complete list online of this endless Luntz-speak I wonder?
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