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August 8, 2005
Open Thread 05-80
Comments
Og and Urg in the Land of the Wolves
Og the Young is sitting on a knoll with his older brother Urg,
breaking bones up for their marrow, and watching a young
maiden carry water jugs back and forth from a pond below.
Being Neanderthals, they only speak when truly inspired.
A butterfly swoops and swirls across the field, and lands on
the fresh marrow that Og has just cracked. It’s narrow tongue
uncurls and it dabs at the bits of salty blood it needs to exist.
Og crushes the bug without a second glance.
Urg winces slightly, then massages a migraine.
“Og, did you ever wonder, you know, if we are the highest
form of intelligent life on the planet?” Urg says as he slowly
picks at the glistening wings on the dead butterfly carcass.
Og blinks, eyebrows knotted, then goes back to watching
the water maiden and cracking bones.
“You know, like, uhh, did you ever send a thought to another
creature, and it seemed to respond to you?” Urg asks him.
Og remains mute, stuffing marrow paste into his poihole.
He shrugs, “I dunno.”
“OK, look, let’s play a game,” Urg tries. “Knock, knock.”
“What’s there?” Og replies.
“What if.”
“What if what?”
“What if there’s a thousand buddhas walking the earth
at any particular moment!” says Urg, laughing in case
Og decides to pound him. “And what if all it takes for one
of them to awaken from their 60-cycle hum somnolence,
is a single momentary connection with another life form?”
Og is spellbound, his finger swirling the marrow into poi,
as he stares hard after the water maiden’s swaying hips.
“What if these thousand buddhas are trapped inside goat-
herd societies worshipping dead idols, or some cargo cult
that sacrifices victims hearts, so the sun will rise on them?
What if the salvation of the world is only one whisper away?”
“What’s buddha?” Og asks.
[Being Neanderthals, they’ll have to wait another 10,000 years.]
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Kidd of Speed
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/SleepDisorders/tb/1414
Brain studies of the ordinary green bottle fly find varying levels of
consciousness, from “asleep”, where the two halves of the fly
brain are disconnected and there is no related motor activity,
to “alert” and so on, to “flight” and finally “hyperactivity”, where
there is no mediated buffer delay between thought and action.
Restless leg syndrome, if you will.
Sleep deprivation tests of these fly brain studies shows that, given
a system shock prior to loss of sleep, the flies can recover. In other
words, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Otherwise,
deprived of sleep, half of them eventually die, and the rest will take
weeks of reduced or retarded activity to recover their sleep balance.
When asked if this proves that all beings are conscious, research
biologists will shrug and say, that all depends on what you mean
by conscious. In other words, to military satellites circling the earth
looking down on all of US, we must seem to be just sleepwalking.
Something to think about, as the world lurches towards a Starbucks
on every corner, and a meth lab on every block, and a US President
refinancing the Sandia Labs, “New Paradigm in Atomic Weaponry,”
at the same time he’s telling Iran and PRNK to dismantle there own.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/
Chernoble, the largest of many radioactive deserts on the earth,
the first, of course, being Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bikini Islands,
the Alamagordo Test Site, and now downtown Baghdad, said to
have so much spent uranium dust in the air, it’s like having a full
chest x-ray, three times a day, 365 days a year, glow in the dark.
Read the Energy Policy Act. Six new nuclear power plants for US,
this time, paid for by the US taxpayer, run by Department of Energy.
The nuclear waste from these new plants, like n-waste from most
of the nuclear plants in the Western World, will end up in the US in
some leaking repository, on the US taxpayer dole, for 20,000 years.
http://www.gracelinks.org/nuke/nuclearwaste/
Hey, maybe one of those buddhas will wake up soon!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
‘Weh Down Souf
I still say our best moment on national TV was when George Bush
and Condi Rice were speaking about renewing aid to Africa, after
Bush reneged on the $10B he promised Kofi Annan for his buy-in
on the ‘fixed-up’ war in Iraq.
Says George, “Africa and Africans have always been an important
country (sic) in my foreign policy. Look, I have one in my Cabinet!”
Whereupon, he gestures to a Condi Rice, whose shame and total
humiliation is swirling like a sack full of cats upon her striken face,
until she regains her composure and smiles to Der YassSuhBoss.
I’m telling you, Dave Chapell showed a Jim Crow America with his
successful ‘SteppinFetchit’ routines. If you’re too young to remember
Whites Only and Black-Face Minstrelsy, Chapell showed US what a
true genius he is by taking the series signing bonus monies and
booking for SA, where at least the Afrikaners are honest about it.
http://library.beau.org/gutenberg/1/1/9/8/11986/11986-8.txt
Posted by: tante aime | Aug 8 2005 5:50 utc | 1
Krugman thinks the US housing bubble is over it´s peak: That Hissing Sound
“Homes that a year or two ago sold virtually overnight – in many cases triggering bidding wars – are on the market for weeks,” reports The Los Angeles Times. The same thing is happening in other formerly hot markets.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has become deeply dependent on the housing bubble. The economic recovery since 2001 has been disappointing in many ways, but it wouldn’t have happened at all without soaring spending on residential construction, plus a surge in consumer spending largely based on mortgage refinancing. Did I mention that the personal savings rate has fallen to zero?
Now we’re starting to hear a hissing sound, as the air begins to leak out of the bubble. And everyone – not just those who own Zoned Zone real estate – should be worried.
He is a bit late – the main indicator some used was the price of lumber futures. They started to break down nearly a year ago. House price deflation is sloooow.
How convenient:
Aug. 15, 2005 issue – The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s leak investigation.
Wonder who arranged Comey’s new job offer. L. Cheney was on the Board til ’01 – but this was clearly arranged. Did Dick chat w/a friend? Bets? So much less clumsy than Nixon’s firing.
Posted by: jj | Aug 8 2005 6:04 utc | 4
When you remove deficit war spending from the GDP, and 3 to 5 cycles those borrowed monies pump into the economy and Federal treasury, and then ignore financial institution chicanery, charging 28% credit card interest, plus penalties, while barraging people dozens of times a day to sign up for their new business credit card, and when you disconnect the rising price of crude oil’s effect on overinflated US energy resources, the GDP has been tanking ever since Bush first took office.
Straight on down like the Titanic.
It was a very desparate meeting between Bankers Bush and the Bin Laden family, pursuing Cheney’s “Start a Little War” strategy to turn the market around. Which it did, just long enough for the banks and brokers to bail, and shuffle American’s declining savings into a wholely fraudulent real estate bubble, from which they can now flip book and ride it on down, baby, while we end up on the sidewalk with our furniture, and a For Sale sign.
American Apartheid moving into its Third Century.
I wist sum magic w’u’d ellow,
(By charm or craf’–doan mattah how)
You stay jes lak you is right now,
Mah ‘ittle Touzle Head. (Ray G. Dandridge)
Posted by: tante aime | Aug 8 2005 6:07 utc | 5
Now that’s an interesting coincidence. The Koizumi government in Japan has just fallen, with the Diet’s rejection of an effort to privatize the national postal and postal savings systems. Iraq will be an issue, since the competing Democratic Party of Japan has committed to pull out its small Self Defense Force contingent from Samawa if elected (upon the expiration of Japan’s standing commitment in December).
The snap elections have been set for September 11, 2005.
Trivia, but odd.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 6:32 utc | 6
Just a wispy cloud in the burning August sky of West Texas, or the beginning of a citizens’ siege of the treasonous presidency? Cindy Sheehan and her rag-tag group of anti-war campers currently trying to ruin a record setting presidential vacation have all the qualities needed for a perfect counter-image
to the slick manipulators and phony patriots of the presidential flack squad. Not an intellectual or
pol in sight, thank God!
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 6:41 utc | 7
Let’s hope they fare better than the Bonus Army, Hannah.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 6:47 utc | 8
@ Jass J Yes, that’s an excellent parallel. I’d like to think that we don’t have a Douglas MacArthur ready to burn the protesters tents, a presumably depleted uranium won’t be considered appropriate
so close to the Bush movie set.
Probably this won’t amount to anything more than an occasion for further hypocrisy and continuing smouldering outrage, but maybe enough people will decide to share their vacation time with Cindy to change
the parameters of “reasonable discussion”. Could this be a political Woodstock-at-Crawford?
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 6:59 utc | 9
Correction:
“protesters’ tents, and presumably …”
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 7:00 utc | 10
She certainly writes a compelling essay. (HTML)
Go Cindy Sheehan!
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 7:24 utc | 11
Thom Hartmann reviews a book on last 2 decades of econ. policy for those of us who glaze over when subj. of econ. comes up. Greenspan’s Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy
Posted by: jj | Aug 8 2005 7:45 utc | 12
At A Critical Moment In Human History So Bizarre As To Be Beyond Belief
Mel Hurtig’s Keynote Address to the 2005 Association of World Citizens Conference
Vive le Canada
While all of us in this room are fully aware of the dismaying failure of the crucial Seventh Review Conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty which took place in New York in May, I very much doubt if one in a thousand around the world paid attention to the month-long deliberations or have any even vague idea of their importance, or the inevitable tragic consequences of the enormously disappointing Conference results.
Not only was no progress made on the vitally important issues of nuclear disarmament, proliferation, abolishing testing and the continuing upgrading and refinement of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, but in a shocking betrayal to the world’s aspirations for peace, disarmament and redirecting arms funding to badly-needed humanitarian use, clear-cut widely agreed-to commitments made in the previous 1995 and 2000 Reviews were either ignored or repudiated.
It’s impossible not to single out the administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for the Conference failure. Time and again the U.S. blocked crucial references to earlier commitments and continued to stubbornly refuse to join the widely-supported Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
While most countries wanted a strengthened Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. clearly wanted it weakened….
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 8 2005 7:59 utc | 13
Billmon mentioned Cindy Sheehan in yesterday’s post.
Here’s a modest prediction: Cindy Sheehan is about to get trashed soundly, thoroughly, and brutally, first by the usual rightwing blog suspects, then by Tierney, Krauthammer et al, finally by Brooks, Matthews et al. It will be uglier than SwiftVets.
Posted by: BC | Aug 8 2005 8:15 utc | 14
@ BC
A perfectly reasonable prediction, but I am still beting that she will be a tougher nut to crack than Kerry was. I have the feeling (just from looking at
this photo) that she doesn’t give a shit about anything except doing what she thinks is right. That’s a face that could bring down the whole administration.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 8:25 utc | 15
The link above is flawed, but the photo still seems
available (about 7 from the last photo, just before Cpt. Vanek)
at
The Texas Iconoclast.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 8:31 utc | 16
I don’t think it will work, BC. They say that executing a fraud requires two people with criminal intent. Smearing works in a similar way. It’s easy against politicians and anyone else with economic, political or ideological ambitions; but the usual levers may not find much traction here.
Ms. Sheehan has to be treated with considerable care because she is, by herself, a single-issue lobby with a simple, sincere and compelling message. Karl Rove has spent his career shoring up the Republican machine with such, and he knows how dangerous they can be.
You may be right, but the alternative of quietly waiting her out might prove itself more appealing.
(I see now that I will simply be reiterating the point that Hannah makes, but in more pompous language. But for what it’s worth.)
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 8:35 utc | 17
My interest is piqued by Cindy Sheehan while an increasing failure of the current political cast of bad actors to hold my attention mounts.
I think she is in a transcendental state. Singular and simple. She is a grieving mother. Not a phony self serving ego damaged lying asshole politician, pop star, or hanger on. She’s not trying to argue any fucking stupid infinitessimally brained ideology or smash the guts out of another human being. She’s not stealing nor begging for money. She’s not dressed in costume, plastered with makeup, and stiffly repeating her lines for the director. She is probably immune to what anyone’s opinion of her might be. She is exhibiting the classic signs of a spiritual mission in this nauseating endless desecration of grace in this so called holy war. She’s the odd man out. With a fascinating combination of pride and humility.
Somehow this might touch the conscience of the society, and Bush’s failure to respond is perfect. It’s rather difficult to hate her which is all the actors seem able to express.
And she’s not cowering in fear.
She’s asking for an answer to her question.
It’s interesting.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 8:55 utc | 18
And I just reiterated what you said, Jassalasca since we were posting together. They can’t smear her. She’s playing her own game.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 9:02 utc | 19
Plus she is showing the whole country how a citizen exercises her right and responsibility in confronting and questioning her elected official. If we all individually stood up for ourselves, who can say what could happen.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 9:21 utc | 20
Opposing for the Wrong Reasons:
A lot of people around the world are beginning to think that Americans “can dish it out, but they cannot take it.” Americans who did not oppose the war when it seemed to be going well, now oppose it because the war has turned into a “tough slog” as Donald Rumsfeld said many months ago, but hardly believed himself. Imagine what the public mood would be right now if the Iraq resistance had not emerged and gasoline prices in the States had dropped to under $1.00 per gallon! Americans would be delirious with joy and have no regret over the invasion and occupation and destruction of a sovereign nation. Americans are still not concerned over damage to Iraqi lives and Iraqi babies and Iraqi families, but only for their own losses.
This lack of empathy by Americans is a terrible motivator for terrorists around the world. It teaches victims of American aggression that there is value in resistance. It teaches terrorists that American tolerance of pain is limited, and that inflicting pain on Americans gets results.
Americans need to find some empathy for victims of American injustice and violence, before pleading for relief from our own pain. America has inflicted infinitely more pain that she has received. Like the fiscal balance of payments, America’s accounting in pain infliction runs an enormous deficit.
There was a time not long ago when the Israelis and the American military operated on the assumption that Iraqis and other Arabs were fearful, unmotivated, unskilled, cowardly weaklings who would be pushed aside like loose soil to a mighty bulldozer when military operations began. Arabs may have been that way fifty years ago, but survival is on the line now as never before. Arabs are now the underdogs, just as the ragtag American militias were two hundred fifty years ago in comparison with the British Imperial Army.
Americans need an attitude adjustment. Americans need an injection of morality and empathy and humility and remorse. America cannot rule the entire world. The ability to destroy the world does not equate to the ability to rule the world. America can bomb the world to pieces, but it cannot bomb the world to peace. To bring peace and security, America must learn the art of peace and learn to reject the art of war. To get the process started, Americans need to feel empathy for the pain they have caused, which far exceeds the pain they have received.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 8 2005 9:59 utc | 21
Ha. If you want to tune in on the unsophisticated side of Republican strategy-ifying, here’s what they’re trying to make of Cindy Sheehan’s camping trip over on the Free Republic (one of several threads, but there’s not much to choose between them).
They’re scribbling what you would expect them to scribble. She should be in therapy. She is dishonoring the memory of her son. She has already had one meeting with President Bush (!). She is being exploited by anti-American crazies (FIFTY of them!). Mothers in WWII were better (and they lost 400,000 sons, not just one!). She appeared at an anti-administration event with Joseph Wilson (and she was PHOTOGRAPHED!). And (in a spectacular own goal) one poster has juxtaposed a photo of her with one of Jim Varney.
However, even here on FR, many comments are tempered by “I understand, but …” And there are even a few that say, “She is a grieving mother, leave her alone.” I’d say that the Kool Aid, or the red meat or the testosterone or the steroids or whatever it is that people who are willing to support Bush “whatever it takes” need to feed their imaginations on, isn’t working too good.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 10:03 utc | 22
Stimulated by BC and Jassalasca Jape, I would like to “get a pebble out of my shoe” with regard to the
Republican slime machine, and more generally to the
role of Gatekeepers and paid propagandists, as well as witting and unwitting media tools of the shadow government.
First let me clarify the term “shadow government”, by which I refer to both the dark panoply of intelligence
organizations funded by the U.S. taxpayer (NSC, CIA, DIA, NRO, NSA, DEA, etc.) and to the elite financial and economic groups which they serve. To be even more specific, let’s count only those intelligence agencies
whose budgets (even mere yearly totals) are not available to the public at large, and let us count only those financial institutions and law firms who have had members sitting in appointive governmental positions, most definitely including supervisory boards and advisory commissions to such agencies.
A reading of Kevin Phillips American Dynasty
gives a historical survey of many such establishment bastions, but is surely not comprehensive.
I take it (influenced by Slothrop and others) as
highly probable, if not indeed axiomatic, that the former agencies act almost exclusively on behalf of the latter clients, although such subservience is invariably decked with the usual patriotic camouflage. Exactly how that “patriotic marketing” is
carried out in practice is what interests me. Clearly there are historical and economic facts which are the objects of conscious and coordinated suppression: one might mention the true effects of nuclear weapons, the facts about the U.S.S. Liberty, the sordid connections between arms trafficking, drug dealing and intelligence agencies, or many other “inconvenient facts”. But perhaps even more important is the definition of the permissible bounds of “reasonable discourse”: for 50 years all political discourse in the U.S. had to be framed within an anti-communist matrix, and at present “anti-terrorism” is being
used in the same limitative way. Fair enough: the
interested parties have good reason to try to rig the game before the bets are down. Knowing that the “roulette wheel is fixed” should encourage us to assure that it is NOT the only game in town.
Control of permissible opinion, or better “definition of respectable opinion” is at the heart
of the problem facing the shadow government, and never more so than now that Internet has made real diversity of opinion available to anyone with sufficient curiosity to desire it. Presumably the problem is addressed via an array of methods and tools. In the extreme case, as in Iraq, independent reporters can be
(and have been) intimidated or eliminated. In normal
gatekeeper administration one expects the use of shills, trolls, and “contaminated” journalists.
It is precisely the last category that I find most interesting. Memoirs of intelligence operatives and journalists have brought to light such scandals as “Operation Mockingbird”, and the “loophole” in the law prohibiting CIA use of journalists as agents. It seems not unreasonable to suppose that dozens or, more likely, hundreds of American journalists have been involved in disseminating disinformation. What interests me is greater detail here. There must be
a scale corruption ranging from the quite unwitting journalistic victim of disinformation, to the completely conscious mouthpiece for blatant propaganda; similarly there must be paid journalistic
front men, as well as those who are only paid by the prestige of a “scoop” or the esteem of their colleagues. Seymour Hersh, Judith Miller and Jeff Gannon are surely all tied up in some way with the shadow government, but equally surely they represent
visibly different hues on this spectrum. I would be very interesting in a “classification” of the Washington journalist caste along the lines of such
a spectrum: who is explicitly taking money under the table, who is a witting accomplice to disinformation,
who is merely being exploited by virtue of his or her
ambition, who is working for foreign interests, and so on. Naturally, the spelling out in detail of similar relationships are equally relevant at the editorial and ownership level.
I am not trying to promote a witch-hunt, especially in view
of the dangers of uncorroborated accusations.
It is highly likely that most journalists, even those
receiving “extra-journalistic” incentives, believe themselves to be working honestly for a just cause. Nevertheless, the notion of “full disclosure” should be elevated from its present status as ritualistic sham to a documented (as far as possible) and freely available profile pointing out possible conflicts of interest, or past transgressions. Presumably it’s more important to know that Wolf Blitzer was formerly employed by the Jerusalem Post that to know that he
roots for the Buffalo Bills, or that Tony Blankley’s
paper is linked to the Korean CIA and Reverend Moon
rather than his British background. But these are
truly minor points, merely illustrative of the fact
that we know very little about those who “keep us informed”.
Presumably there are some resources (probably not
up to date) available telling us more about “who the journalistic spooks are”. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 10:10 utc | 23
@CP
I agree completely, but must admit that I will happily accept even “opposition for the wrong reasons”. The first priority has to be to stop the killing: major reparations are definitely in order but for now any help that comes along in ending this crime is welcome.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 8 2005 10:23 utc | 25
These testosterone disadvantaged ersatz keyboard pecking bullies are in murky territory with Cindy. deep in their little psyches is the message that a fallen soldier is a hero and is sacrosanct. Very difficult position for them. A little too much partiotic duty here to mess with. A duty that probably most of them would never consider. It’s tough.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 10:36 utc | 26
I know of loss of a child. It pulls out all the stops. Nothing will touch Cindy Sheehan, I don’t think. Her limit will be determined by her own health, as loss of a child is an extreme blow to the immune system. I hope she takes very good care of herself and that those around her help her in this, for years.
Posted by: emereton | Aug 8 2005 15:26 utc | 27
Fuel Cell Motorbike [ENV] available now
$6000 to $8000 buys a nearly silent emission free vehicle.
Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 8 2005 17:06 utc | 28
re Cindy Sheehan.
1. God[dess] bless her in her grief.
2. Grieving families do become targets of the wurlitzer. They are lied to, publicly glorified in service of the lie, and if they dare oppose the machine, they are instead vilified. Remember OReilly’s outrageous treatment of a 911 family victim who would not play FOX’s propaganda game: “Cut off his mike! Out of respect for your father, …” etc.
3. She has asked a question why. If they answer the question, they will answer it with the same old talking points ie the “defending our liberties” mythology. What will she do if they lie to her? Will she catch the lie? Will she expose the lie? Will she accept the lie?
If they do not answer the question [more likely], what will she do then? Stand forever outside Crawford Texas?
4. If so, she will then need a rotation of other greiving moms to keep the vigil going throughout the war. They will be vilified in the press. Like similar protest vigils of the suffragists, they could make history too.
Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 8 2005 17:51 utc | 29
HKOL- it may be easier to start w/ a list of who’s not on the payroll! 🙂
two items related to sibel edmonds’ case:
* edmonds’ supreme court petition includes a narco news article on former DEA agent/whistleblower richard horn.
* john stanton’s speculation from march 2005 seems more on-the-mark after the recent vanity fair article. maybe that denny boy is playing patsy for dick. also see stanton’s turkey, drugs, faustian alliances & sibel edmonds from summer 2004.
and in-a-similar vein
Chávez: DEA “Supports Narco-Trafficking” in Venezuela
“The DEA was using the fight against narco-trafficking as a mask to, among other things, support narco-trafficking, in order to conduct intelligence operations against the government.”
Posted by: b real | Aug 8 2005 19:10 utc | 31
For those so inclined, Tom Flocco’s story has not been denied by the US Attorney’s office. Here is an interesting analysis of things we can only wish for. For it is nice to dream.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 8 2005 19:44 utc | 32
@gylangirl
Cindy Sheehan has said she will wait in Crawford for a month (i.e. until the current President leaves the ranch).
If the current President does not meet with her, she will take the experience, and go home to continue with her life and her work in the campaign to bring troops home.
According to the email that she sent out immediately before her trip to Texas, she wants the President to clarify an issue that one of his speeches raised for her. He spoke of a “noble cause”, which must be fulfilled in honour of those who have already died in its service. She wants to ask him what the noble cause is, because it is not clear to her from the talking points what it might be.
If she gets an audience with the current President, she will take the experience, and go home to continue with her life and her work in the campaign to bring troops home.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 20:29 utc | 33
@ Jassalasca Jape,
Then it seems not well-planned to me. Another protest down the memory hole.
Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 8 2005 20:43 utc | 34
Something very important is going on around this woman and as usual people are missing it. This is not about group rage, screaming bullying, protesting, whining, crying , and bemoaning a victim’s fate.
This a simple question from a woman stated with equanimity and grace. Absolutely straightforward. And it is throwing a curve into the usual viscious proceedings. People are at a loss. The authorities are threatening arrest and other fools are expecting people to go down into the Texas heat and be uncomfortable. Or for politicians to pipe up so close to an election. And she is doing what she stated and what she’s been doing all along in her work with Veteran’s for Peace.
She doesn’t need them. She is in the midst of an original act. The idiots everywhere have a hard time witnessing a protest that doesn’t involve group hysteria. Witnessing a self contained women going about her work.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 20:49 utc | 35
Planning is irrelevant, beyond shopping runs and maybe arranging for a beach parasol. She is there for personal reasons that connect directly to issues of national import. The biblical simplicity of what she is seeking and her way of seeking it have an appeal that are harder to stuff down the memory hole than a professionally orchestrated theme event. Give it some time.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 21:02 utc | 36
Yes. Normally they shout in unison and sell hot dogs at these events. They are so predictable, no wonder they are forgotten.
We always demand so much of everyone and everything. As if we knew better how to really accomplish political change. As if protest were simply a theatrical event.
The hysteria invites violent reaction and we seem to get nowhere. Group activity is suspect from the start anyway.
Here we have a woman alone with a quiet voice, centered in herself in a violently swirling world. Dealing with monumental loss in a way that has ramifications for the collective. I will be the last to tell her how to proceed as I am learning so much by just witnessing her.
My greatest reassurance in this life would be that the soft spoken could be heard as well. But that takes mastery and the ultimate in confidence.
Posted by: jm | Aug 8 2005 21:20 utc | 37
Hmm. Does anyone here reside in NZ? I’m curious about this billboard.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 22:04 utc | 38
I’m in Wellington but haven’t seen the billboard. Hell is a local pizza chain: see http://www.hell.co.nz . They started as one shop near Victoria University, here in Wellington, and now have franchises all over the country. Their marketing is based on devil-caricature stuff, black cars etc. and aimed at irreverent youths, or wannabe irreverent youths. They use funny/faux-shocking slogans: “Your mother called. She said ‘Go to Hell!'” “See you in Hell”, have phone numbers including 666 etc.
Calling Bush an evil bastard is fairly consistent with all of this, and will go down well with their target demographic, including me; not that I’d buy their pizza, I’m too cheap!
Posted by: Cog in the machine | Aug 8 2005 22:45 utc | 39
Yes, what is interesting is that this is commercial speech, calculated to be within bounds, unlikely to cause a backlash. If you come across a digital photo, let me know (but don’t go out of your way, I’m just idly curious).
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 8 2005 23:28 utc | 40
Curious too, I found this picture of the billboard.
Posted by: Cog in the machine | Aug 9 2005 1:12 utc | 41
Frank- that sounds like a powerful play. the soldiers really are caught in the middle of something horrible.
It is too bad that we invaded in the first place. What a disasterous mess.
Unkka- I read your link and, color me skeptical, but the person who spoke on the phone could have meant many things, and her comment was totally inconclusive, and, with an inclination to think otherwise, could be taken as a denial that any indictments were in the works.
We’ll see. The idea of a Runaway Jury is interesting. Wouldn’t that be great, especially since just about every African-American I know was totally familiar with the voter fraud issue in Florida in 2000. It was probably the biggest insult to blacks as a group since segregation…like an attempt to resurrect Jim Crow.
If that son of a bitch in the white house were responsible for the death of my child (and, yes, Bush is responsible for every one of those deaths, whether American or Iraqi, since the invasion) –I would want to make him pay for his hubris…make him have to face me and lie to my face and expect me not to spit on him, or expect that the office of the prez excuses war crimes and lies and treason and looting the treasury.
Posted by: fauxreal | Aug 9 2005 1:56 utc | 44
Og and Urg – A Story of Political Human Sacrifice
Og the Young is sitting on a knoll with his older brother Urg,
breaking bones up for their marrow, and watching a young
maiden carry water jugs back and forth from a pond below.
Being Neanderthals, they only speak when truly inspired.
Unlike Og, who is unemployable, Urg learned his trade and
is busy knapping away at a new translucent flint spearpoint,
on a leather knappkin he tanned himself, using deer brains.
“Og, how about if I trade you this fine spearpoint for a buck?”
Urg says, as he slowly flakes away the razor sharp spear tip.
A buck in those days meant a giant, prehistoric Megaloceras
deer, with antlers 12 feet wide. Urg was no slouch at barter.
Og blinks, eyebrows knotted, then goes back to watching
the water maiden and cracking bones. “Og get ten those
points for buck at Rock-Mart.” He snuffles at his cleverness.
“Got more points you ever make!”
Urg sighs. “But, you know, Og, did you ever think if everyone
gets their points at Rock-Mart, pretty soon nobody will know
how to make their own points, or have any trade to work for
the buck to pay for them, and then we’ll all starve?”
Og remains mute, staring after the water maiden.
“Og like set of points on that one. She not starve.”
Urg wipes his sweating face with a leathery palm.
“OK, look, let’s play a game,” he tries. “Knock, knock.”
“What’s there?” Og replies.
“Free Trade.”
“What Free Trade?”
“Exactly Og, now you get it!” says Urg, laughing in case
Og decides to push his teeth in. “There is no such thing as
Free Trade, or Darwinian Survival of the Fittest. It’s a fraud!
There is only a community of families and local ecologies,
vers a corporate business model of forest fire and typhoon.”
Og is spellbound, his fingers swirling the air at shiny bugs.
“What Darwin?” He smacks a handful of them into the dirt.
Urg winces as another paleolithic species bites the dust.
“You know,” Urg sighs, talking to himself now. “Darwin is
like millions of coexisting species, all mutually benefitting
each other. Rock-Mart is the tar pool that swallows them.”
“Let see tar pool!” Og beams. “Og feel like go swim.”
[Being Neanderthals, they’ll miss out on the Big Show.]
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Parallel Data Mining
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/DefHor/DH11/DH11.pdf
Computational research is being conducted in the social
sciences as it relates to military systems modeling, using
demographic analyses of rural social and economic trends.
You can, for a mere $999, buy a GIS map of the United
States, showing right down to the block and street level
the age group, race and voting preference of every tax
payer and registered voter in the United States. Nice if
you’re Delay, jerrymandering Texas into a Republican
majority of new precincts and districts. A simple IT task.
Suddenly, Og is King.
Combined with push-polling, saturation marketing and
just plain payola and financial institutional apartheid, it’s
quite possible, ala ‘Trading Places’, to subjugate fully half
of any heterogenous group of people, into a group of the
haves and wanna-haves, versus their vassals and serfs.
Warren warns, “We’re heading to a sharecropper society.”
Cheney caa-caaws in reply, “Loose the carpetbaggers!”
Nothing Darwinian about it. A Political Human Sacrifice.
Mammon’s demi-gods are thirsty for their ration of blood.
http://www.learndev.org/dl/SpaceAgeScienceStoneAgePolitics-Avery.pdf
Much that was beautiful and valuable has now been lost.
Learn, or go swim in the tar pools with the corporatistas.
Posted by: tante aime | Aug 9 2005 5:05 utc | 45
@ b real
Thanks for the links, and the pessimistic but
all too realistic evaluation of the state of journalistic virginity.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 9 2005 6:59 utc | 46
Cog, jj, thanks for the links. Looks like someone in Wellington thought Hell Pizza could have pushed the envelope a little further!
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 9 2005 7:24 utc | 47
Here’s one Billmon may be interested in:
CIA asked us to let nuclear spy go, Ruud Lubbers claims it also seems to dove tail nicely w/my other post on Mel Hurtig’s Keynote Address to the 2005 Association of World Citizens Conference While most countries wanted a strengthened Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. clearly wanted it weakened….
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 9 2005 17:02 utc | 49
Sacked, why?
Recruitment numbers?
As TRADOC Commander, General Byrnes is responsible for recruiting, training and educating the Army’s Soldiers; developing its leaders; supporting training in units; developing doctrine; establishing standards; and building the future Army. TRADOC is comprised of more than 50,000 Soldiers and Department of the Army civilians operating in 33 Army schools across 16 installations
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 9 2005 17:14 utc | 50
Reinforcements on the way.
Starting today, Gold Star families from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arkansas and other states whose loved ones have died as a result of the war in Iraq will be joining one of their members, Cindy Sheehan, at the protest.
-Shakespeare’s Sister
Posted by: beq | Aug 9 2005 19:10 utc | 51
Going by U.S. claims of kills and arrests, Iraqi resistance fighters have been dealt so many crippling blows that they’re now probably reduced to just two men and a small boy. And yet……
Analysis: Iraq statistics tell grim story
Posted by: Nugget | Aug 9 2005 20:08 utc | 52
As allied forces (pushed) forward in both the European and Pacific theaters in World War II, the enemy’s tactics, such as the cult of death among SS forces and the kamikazes in the Pacific, led to some of these bloodiest fighting of that war,” Rumsfeld said.
“But those deadly acts, and they were deadly, proved not to be harbingers of victory.”
Rumsfeld cautioned that observers should not “draw the wrong conclusion” over any spike in violence : “as long as the Iraqi people persevere, the terrorists cannot win,” he said.
Well, we might also compare the insurgents in Iraq to the brave allied fighting-forces prevailing in Europe and the Pacific in ’44-’45, for this, too, would be plausible, would it not? But also rather vacuous, I suppose…. And that’s the point about dear old Don Rumsfeld: nature, it seems, forgot to endow him with a mind that could reach beyond the plausible and the vacuous, and so he prattles on, as it were, with the blind deafness of white noise.
Posted by: alabama | Aug 9 2005 21:03 utc | 53
despite repeated prodding today, rumsfeld wouldn’t say how many u.s./british/italian/german/israeli/russian weapons have been found in iraq.
Posted by: b real | Aug 9 2005 22:16 utc | 54
Yes, it would be helpful of him to indicate what proportion of Iraq’s arsenal of mayhem comes from Iranian sources, wouldn’t it. Perhaps his pocket calculator does not have enough decimal places on it. I can almost imagine him babbling his way into giving that as a reason for not answering. Another of those known unknowns. (Laughter)
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 9 2005 22:52 utc | 55
Magnificent – artist declares:He condemned the [Israeli] wall but described it as “the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers”. Check out his amusing Wall Paintings
Posted by: jj | Aug 10 2005 1:27 utc | 56
President Bush has bypassed the Senate to fill the number three job at the Department of Defense.
Eric Edelman
neo-Con hardliner and Dick Cheney’s former national security /senior foreign-policy adviser
“Word came that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. Aides frantically called the White House to find out whether a military jet had shot it down.
“The vice president was a little bit ahead of us,” said Eric Edelman, Cheney’s national security advisor.’
I bet he was…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 10 2005 3:03 utc | 57
Is this the way Cindy Sheehan’s pilgrimage ends?
Most of the protesters left the area after about a half hour, leaving Sheehan and a few others settled in a shallow ditch next to a one-lane highway, surrounded by scraggly brush and a few cacti.
(From article by MICHAEL HEDGES
in Houston Chronicle August 7, 4:05 PM)
Strangely, the most hopeful sign I see is that this
is being treated as a non-event by the major media (i.e. today’s NYTimes and Washington Post, for example). It’s not yet clear whether that wispy
cloud is going to be airbrushed out of existence or grow into a thunderhead.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 10 2005 5:03 utc | 58
I really hope that this vigil remains off the radar
for the mainstream media and the ambitious two-faced pols who would like to use it for personal advantage,
but that it grows with the non-partisan participation of America’s who have decided that they can’t remain
indifferent to what is at stake.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 10 2005 5:08 utc | 59
Every effort will be made to make it partisan. Matt Drudge has apparently accused her of changing her mind, because she said some nice-ish things about Bush after she met him following her son’s death. That just won’t stick; this whole thing is about the messiness of grief and real experience. Fox Television apparently carried an interview with her yesterday, which someone who saw it characterized as “respectful”. To smear or not to smear? It’s a tough call for the loyalists.
As for staying off the radar of the mainstream press, Maureen Dowd has chimed in via the NYT, essentially calling Bush a coward for not walking down the driveway and giving Cindy Sheehan a bit of his time. It’s such a nice, juicy, tempting topic, chances are that other columnists will try their hand with it sooner or later.
I think I know GW Bush’s personality type pretty well (which is to say too well), and I’d say that his handlers are concerned to keep him as far away from her as possible. He might, himself, be perfectly willing to walk out and confront (oops) talk with her; but she has publicly questioned his authority, and I think that is one thing that drives him well and truly around the bend. The real power that is behind him can’t afford a public relations debacle over this. If he does show, I think they’ll have to drug him. (I write that in jest, but you never know …)
As jm said before, this is interesting.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Aug 10 2005 6:09 utc | 60
Iraqi minister – Reports of arms smuggling from Iran exaggerated
Posted by: Nugget | Aug 10 2005 13:42 utc | 61
Oh, Jass, don’t you mean that they will have to drug him more? Remember the white spittle on his mouth in the last debate? Classic sign of drugged dry mouth.
I really don’t understand them. Showing up would end it. So easy. A few pat lines, a phony hug, some of his crocodile tears, and it would be over, with great PR. Such an understanding leader.
But now it’s too late. Are they that afraid of her? Her soft, inquisitive voice? Or maybe she has some sort of cosmic protection, a real cause for fear.
Posted by: jm | Aug 10 2005 23:50 utc | 62
@jm, it’s not that easy. She’s emotionally functional, he’s a sociopath & she’s not a paid apologist. Last time she saw him, she spoke about what he was really like. His eyes are dead…
Posted by: jj | Aug 11 2005 0:10 utc | 63
Yep. Bush, I think, believes that he is king of the world. Putting him in the same room with someone who has openly challenged his authority would be a PR disaster; if he displays any emotion at all, it will be spite, and everyone around him knows it. The guys and gals are in a real jam on this one.
It will be interesting to see if the stalemate continues until Karl Rove takes his turn at Crawford duty. I wonder whether he will be able to restrain himself from taking a crack at Cindy, with all that time on his hands to sit around and listen to GW pontificate.
I remember that comment about his eyes, jj. It still haunts me. Maybe she does have power. This should empower all of us. She’s almost obliterating his whole image and exposing his cowardice clearly.
Posted by: jm | Aug 11 2005 0:35 utc | 65
Vacant eyes…He has no soul. Nor does Rove. These beings are incapable of empathy and one hopes that will bring them down – but then some of them are very smart and cunning.
Posted by: rapt | Aug 11 2005 2:49 utc | 66
WaPo
President Bush’s approval ratings have fallen as U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi allies struggle to make a dent against an insurgency composed of foreign fighters and disaffected Iraqis. U.S. deaths in combat hit one of their highest marks of the war last week, led by a bombing that killed 14 Marines and their Iraqi interpreter. Killings of Iraqi forces and civilians have surged since Jafari’s government took office in late April, as insurgents try to wreck the government-building process.
“As we go along, everything we do has that motive: leave it so they can sustain it after we’re gone,” the official said. “Everything we do with the military we do so they can sustain it after we’re gone. Just so we’re all thinking the same thing, this is not going to be someone flips a switch and all of a sudden we go from 138,000 to nothing. This is going to be gradual.”
Ah, now I get it. The nickle finally drops! Funny how it takes a while to catch on to things now and then. What the guy really means is something like this: “This really isn’t Viet Nam on speed, it’s Viet Nam in slow-mo. A longer, slower, and more obscene screening of the same tape. Because we don’t learn anything, and don’t know how to do anything else, and we also have these careers at stake. You know about careers, don’t you? How could you possibly get through life (or death) without a career? Careers take time. A real career takes a whole lifetime. Anyone’s lifetime…. Everyone’s lifetime…”
Posted by: alabama | Aug 11 2005 4:15 utc | 67
@alabama
It will be interesting to see how Bush reacts in the lead-up to the next US elections. The Party will want substantial withdrawals covered by positive spin in the press. Some elements in Iraq and elsewhere will want to keep the US mired down longer. Bush wanted this war, as a grudge match. He took a very personal interest in the capture of Saddam Hussein. He ordered the attack on Fallujah. He quashed his staff’s effort to segue from “War” to “Struggle”. I wonder if he wouldn’t override a Party call for withdrawals if confronted with another highly visible operational disaster in what I am sure he sees, and proudly, as his war. I can almost hear him saying it, “I want you to stay in there until we get that son-of-a-bitch”.
I think Bush has the war itch bad, and I wonder if his handlers can control him.
It’s looking like these rethugs, repugs, neo-cons whatever you wanna call em couldn’t run the proverbial brothel on a troop ship.
Years of watching others take the risks and reap the reward have taught them the basics of how to fool some of the people some of the time and steal an election but they have spent so much time on that they didn’t bother to learn how to use power effectively once you get your mitts on the levers.
Ennui drove me to TomDispatch which is always pretty spot on but can become a bit disheartening if taken straight too regularly.
This one is about the Iranian nuclear ambitions. Michael Schwartz discusses how it is that the Iranians have gotten to the stage where they can thumb their nose at the rest of the world.
“The chief beneficiary of the occupation and the chaos it produced has not been the Bush administration, but Iran, the most populous and powerful member of the “Axis of Evil,” and the chief American competitor for dominance in the oil-rich region. As diplomatic historian Gabriel Kolko commented: “By destroying a united Iraq under [Saddam] Hussein…the U.S. removed the main barrier to Iran’s eventual triumph.”
Read on and you’ll discover that the BushCo strategy has not only enabled Iran to confidently go back to establishing itself as a regional nuclear power but also that this administration’s inept attempt at cornering the oil market has freed up China to sweep up the oil that had been in the US’s hand until it reached for the one in the bush.
These guys are so naive they just can’t comprehend what they are doing. Its as if US foreign policy hasn’t progressed since the Quiet American. I remember seeing the Americo-Germanic Michaevelli Henry Kissinger once saying that he had learnt to be upfront and straightforward with the Chinese because if you try and ‘play’ them they’ve got 5000 years experience of diplomatic mindgames and they’ll get you every time.
Same same for Iran I imagine. Chess originated in Persia didn’t it?
Both China and Iran would have watched US moves against Russia over the last 50 years and they will be familiar with the standard ploys. I wonder if Condy and Co realise that although their moves have been well observed they can’t really say that they know Chinese and Iranian gameplay. Condy’s experience was basically just with Russian diplomacy and although the Russians do love their chess they appear to love a good conspiracy more. The Russians will trade a strong position for a convoluted strategy.
Certainly the Chinese, and probably the Iranians, don’t have a reputation for losing sight of the end in the way the Russians did.
The real danger for the world is that as the penny drops and the Bush/Cheney junta realise how badly they have been conned they’ll adopt an air of injured innocence and explode a bomb in the market.
If the other sides have factored that in which is probable we could be witness to these fools pissing away any US advantage a la England in WW1 and WW2.
In future years they’ll be telling the world that it was their innate honesty and not their innate incompetence that led them to be not as good at cheating and lying as their opponents.
By that time the situation of the average human anywhere on this planet will be far more precarious than it has been since the plagues, floods and famines thing.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 11 2005 6:41 utc | 69
I think Bush has the war itch bad, and I wonder if his handlers can control him.
Handlers? You mean his aiders & abettors? Whose crazy idea was it to put a lifelong impotent sadist failure in the most powerful seat in the country?? Inquiring minds want to know.
Nothing I’m posting here will disprove Jape’s comment.
Here’s a rare Must-Read from Jude Wanniski. He lays out the terms that Tehran agreed to. These were Not Printed anywhere in Am. Media according to Wanniski. It’s not clear to me why this wasn’t sufficient to solve the problem, unless that is, the Fascists are just Hell-bent on nuking Iran. So, Everyone, pls. Check this out. In Defense of the Iranians
If you look closely enough, you will find that Tehran has been bending over backwards in every conceivable way to save the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from the ashcan of history, which is where Bolton and his neo-con puppet masters have wanted it to go for many years âÃÂàbecause it gives its signators the right to develop the peaceful uses of atomic energy. The way the nuclear powers got most of the world to sign the NPT was by giving those rights, as long as they also acceded to the Safeguards Agreement which permitted the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect facilities to make sure they were in no way using nuclear power plants to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. An additional protocol added in recent years gives the IAEA authority to go anywhere, look at anything that seems to be in violation of the NPT. The Clinton administration did everything it could to bolster the NPT, but the neo-cons who inhabit the Bush administration hate it, and despise the IAEA, because they get in the way of their hidden agendas of toppling regimes that are deemed potential threats.
….
On March 23, Iran offered a package of “objective guarantees” that included a voluntary “confinement” of Iran’s nuclear programs, to include:
…
# a “ceiling” on enrichment at reactor fuel level;
# limiting the extent of the enrichment program to that required for Iran’s power reactors;
# the immediate conversion of all enriched uranium to fuel rods to preclude even the technical possibility of further enrichment;
…
The Iranians also proposed that there be an unprecedented “continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities.”
I hope this gets broadcast widely around the net. I’m not a physicist, which is why I only included 3 of the 5 points to which the Iranians agreed. But if they agree to continuous onsite monitoring that should definitely be sufficient to preclude development of nukes. N’est-ce Pas?
Is there anyway around seeing America & the EU as aggressors in this? Anyone read anything on why the EU hasn’t responded?
Then here’s an interesting article in which the increasingly interesting Paul Craig Roberts asks, why is Cheney pushing to give China nuke plants, but threatening war over Iran, which will never be a world power. Good question.
Posted by: jj | Aug 11 2005 7:02 utc | 70
Curious that both Debs & I were simultaneously posting about Iran. Seems to be disagreement there. I’ll read yr. TomDispatch art. tomorrow. I wonder if that’s ‘cuz xAm. media is publishing it w/American spin. From reading conservative articles which outline Iran’s offer, I don’t see how they’re being anything other than cooperative, but it’s late. Maybe other Barflies can sort this out before I get online tomorrow.
Posted by: jj | Aug 11 2005 7:09 utc | 71
Tom’s dispatch is definitely posing situation from US viewpoint and it doesn’t really condemn Iran for the way it is going about what it is doing but it does point out that the US is being played there. Why should Iran bother to follow non-proliferation treaty when the US has given India a free pass on getting access to nuclear technology in breach of the treaty because India does have nuclear weapons.
The real point that Tom’s Dispatch is trying to make is the US doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting any meaningful resolution through the security council when China doesn’t want sanctions against Iran cause it wants Iranian oil.
Russia will ask why Iran when India gets a free pass?
The unrest in Iraq would make unilateral action against Iran difficult to say the least and there’s bugger all chance of multi lateral action through the UN.
Therefore BushCo can do all the pissing and moaning they want but they won’t be able to do jack shit if Iran did bother to go for nuclear weapons.
Something which is by no means certain.
The only motive they would have for doing it would be if Iranian public opinion which deeply resents the US attitude on this co-incides with their government considering that N Korea has made itself pretty much invulnerable to US interference by kitting up with nukes.
It probably won’t even come to that though.
Imagine for a minute what would happen if the US behaved belligerantly toward Iran. Lets not forget that the new Iraq administration is pretty much in Iran’s back pocket. Iran has more control over them than the US does.
Sure the Kurds may hang back a bit if the Iraqi forces decide to support Iran against the US. The Kurds would need to consider afterwards if both the Shia and the Sunni would be somewhat upset if the Kurds sided with the US. The US may be agreeing to some sort of Kurdistan at the moment but no one else thinks it a good idea. If the US lost all sway over the Iraqi Shia then bye bye Kurdistan.
The Poms are carrying on today about weapons getting into Iraq from Iran but you get the feeling that its more about distracting the sheeple from yet another heavy body count from an ambush. The incident happened two weeks ago and the Brits are only bringing it up now hours after four American soldiers were killed and six were wounded as a patrol was attacked near Baiji.
They probably wouldn’t have said anything except they had egg on their face after the failure of the “EU Initiative”.
Even when they did they qualified the criticism with “The British official said he thought such smuggling from Iran was infrequent and trivial compared with the weapons going into Iraq from Syria.”
Yeah it is stupid and unjust for BushCo to be sabre rattling at Iran over something that probably isn’t in breach of non-proliferation treaty.
Once again the Bush administration is trading off the US long term advantage for short term domestic political gain.
They won’t attack Iran as they couldn’t even if they wanted to since Iraq appears to big a cookie to swallow.
They will use this issue to crack up a bit of fear in the US to try and keep the sheeple too distracted to notice that things aren’t what they are meant to be.
While they do this the Chinese will stitch up the Iranian oil reserves and since easy access to Iraqi oil is by no means guaranteed; in essence BushCo will have blown their chance for rapprochment with Iran, and probably never get their sticky fingers on the Iraqi oil long term. Particularly when you consider the Iraqi-Iran pipeline that has been proposed.
In the meantime BushCo took their eye off the ball in Venezuela so they are losing a lot of their access there to the Chinese who have also got first dibs on the Darfur fields that are being developed in Sudan.
BushCo’s eyes were just too big for the stomach.
They went after the jackpot and got jack shit. If they had moved to protect the Africans in the Sudan they could have called themselves heroes and got the oil. Now because they didn’t manage to protect Darfur or guarantee southern victory for the other rebels, the Chinese have done a deal with Khartoum for oil and they will make sure that the UN do not pass any measures that hit Sudan too badly.
This whole corner the oil move has been cocked up from beginning to end and the US will be lucky to hang on to Saudi oil for long now that the mid east has become so unstable.
Don’t imagine that I support US hegemony over oil but it must be said that this administration’s attempt at imperialism has not been a resounding success.
So sad when you consider that up until the Iraqi invasion the liberal forces in Iran were looking to the US to change their society. Now they wouldn’t change their jocks with the US around.
If the US had become a major influence in Iran again they would also have ended up being a major player in Iraq without having to fire a shot. Iran was always going to end up with a huge say in Iraq post Saddam. Post Saddam was coming without too much effort. All that was needed? Just a bit of patience.
The slaughter in Sudan could have been prevented and the US would have reaped the reward.
Actually exactly the sort of lightening up of Islamic regimes that the repugs reckoned they were after, would have happened if they hadn’t been overwhelmed by arrogance and greed.
Karma will get you everytime but I don’t suppose the Iraqis and Darfurites feel very karmic about any of this.
If there was any sort of real opposition in the US this would be the ‘talking point’. When an administration is shown to be incompetent no one hears them if they cry the patriot thing.
These ‘patriots’ have not only destroyed the economy with their deficits, they have also blown all the assets with their naive stupidity.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 11 2005 11:42 utc | 72
I still don’t get one thing. Why did they destabilize Iraq knowing that the Shia would take over and be aligned with Iran?
Posted by: jm | Aug 11 2005 20:46 utc | 74
Wagnews claims that Iran is in on the game. Too complicated for me, but some of these folks have been doing business with Iran for a long time. It is apparent that Saddam was taken care of at the beginning. I do feel sorry for his standin, who may not be long for this world.
I’m waiting to see how the Sunni/Shia problem is eventually solved; right now I’d guess that Iran will end up drawing Iraq under its wing, or at least part of it. As for Cheney’s bullshit invasion plans, he is crazy and is likely to be in jail before it all comes down. One can hope.
Posted by: rapt | Aug 11 2005 22:04 utc | 75
jm,
The administration assumed that a popularly elected, US-friendly government could be established relatively easily. GW Bush will have that fact tied around his neck like a dead cat for the rest of his life.
I agree, rapt. I think Iran is in. And I agree that Cheney will soon be down if not out.
Posted by: jm | Aug 12 2005 10:26 utc | 77
rapt, I took a look at Wagnews. It’s certainly original. It would never have occurred to me, working from sense and reason alone, that the fact that information is reported by Seymour Hersh makes it unreliable.
Maybe this fellow FINTAN should look into the North Korea situation as well. Might find some really good news there.
Just took a look at wagnews myself and I have to say I thought I was bad for not substantiating stuff but this guy has no primary sources whatsoever apart from saying if so and so said such and such we know that’s wrong so the opposite may be true.
Sorry but there is no ‘grand’ conspiracy in the middle east. The US has cocked up just the same as Britain, France, Russia, Turkey and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. If they are lucky they may grab a few crumbs but in the end they will suffer the same fate as all the others because their only motivation is greed and that doesn’t even trickle down to the troops so the invaders just aren’t as committed as the locals and will get their head handed to ’em.
My teenage loathing of humourless trotskyists makes me think that Wolfwitz and co brought that abstract centralised planning much loved by Trots who sit at their desks and don’t bother with in situ observation, into US defence and foreign policy. These guys are going to keep pulling ‘levers’ like punter on a fruit machine convinced that with just one more try they must hit the jackpot.
Round the lot of em up hand drop em into a medium sized village that sunnis call home and US troops call the badlands and see how long Rummy, Feith and Wolfie last armed with their anally retentive rhetoric and inability to listen. Heheheh they wouldn’t last a hour.
If people in the US want rid of this mob of no hopers it is vital that they stay ‘on message’ That is oil has nearly tripled in cost since the kiddies started playing with Dad’s tools. BushCo is careless and can’t even add up simple numbers eg They say 1800 odd troops killed in Iraq but the actual figure of those US troops who are dead as a result of the Iraqi invasion is between 7-9000.
Nothing succeeds like making a mob of self righteous egoists like the BushCo boys look like fools who have stupidly stuffed up.
If the Dems or anyone jumps up and down crying ‘they lied to us and only counted the guys whose heart stopped beating in Iraq’ people will just think that BushCo were patriotically keeping the real losses from the ‘enemy’.
But if the oposition says “see these boys too stupid to even count past 18 down there at that WhiteHouse’ it means that BushCo has to say either “yes we did get it wrong” (no chance of that!) or “no we weren’t stupid we were cynically manipulating the numbers of american boys and girls killed”.
The time for standing in awe of these fools is over. They are cock-ups and the voters need to be told.
If W senses that he has lost the respect of the electorate he will crack up the same way that any bluff bully boy does cause his real motivation comes from self loathing and the need to feel that he has beat everyone else. Once he senses that people are laughing and consider him a fool not even Rove will be able to spin W’s hysteria into a message of the day.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 12 2005 11:40 utc | 79
did,
[T]his guy [FINTAN of Wagnews] has no primary sources whatsoever apart from saying if so and so said such and such we know that’s wrong so the opposite may be true.
Breathtaking, isn’t it.
Once [GW Bush] senses that people are laughing and consider him a fool not even Rove will be able to spin W’s hysteria into a message of the day.
Actually, I think he’d start hitting the bottle again. And at this point, I think it might actually serve the national interest better than anything else he can think up. People in other countries might feel a little residual sympathy for us if we were being subjected to the whims of an obvious drunk. Its all this Presidential play-acting and the pretense that his decisions make sense that pisses people off.