There is just one move the British should take at this point in the war, which could help them recover some standing in the world opinion.
This move is quite obvious, actually, and the only sane thing left to do.
Prepare a complete and quick withdrawal of the entire British troops. Prepare this secretly, with the local Shiite militias – mostly Sadr -, with the ones who would be able to keep it secret.
Then withdraw all the guys in a few days. And leave the fucking genocidal US army left to hang up in the middle of Iraq, with the Sunni and Shia guerrillas and militias controlling ALL the raod to the US-occupied area.
Of course, this would seriously compromise the relations between UK and US, but it’s been long overdue and it’s time to cut all friendly relations between Europe and USa once and for all.
Because the US is currently the main enemy of the rest of the world, the main enemy of mankind, and the main enemy of life on Earth. The US is controlled by a fucking death cult that should be put to sleep like any rabid dog – I mean, the sort of ending Koresh, Solar Temple or Aoum cults deserved.
If you don’t believe me, just have a look at the kind of shit their leaders are coming through.
The only good news today is the death of effing Pinochet. And it’s just a marginally good news, the good news would have been that he had died after several days of continuous Abu-Ghraib-worthy torture.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Dec 10 2006 23:55 utc | 3

“The Americans knew Daud was a main British ally,” one official told The IoS, “yet they deliberately undermined him and told Karzai to sack him.” The official said the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, was “tearing his hair out”.

Weird stuff also went down this summer over the London Heathrow alleged bomb-planes-in-midair plot. The UK authorities were apparently on the case, but then the US got the Pakistan govt to arrest a crucial element of the bomb conspiracy, even tho’ it knew what the Brits were up to, therefore leaving the UK auths w/ no choice but to go ahead w/ arrests before they were ready to make them. Or something along those lines. (I woudl find a link, but haven’t the time to wade thro’ the Google rt now, sorry.)
The US govt in its current format very obviously does not give a fuck about Blighty. If only our clueless fucking excuse for a prime minister would wake up and smell the coffee of history being blown by the winds of change…

Posted by: Dismal Science | Dec 11 2006 2:03 utc | 5

How to measure the fluctuating fortunes of “asymmetrical warfare”? This question was never answered clearly in Viet Nam, and I don’t think it’s being answered in Iraq.
U.S. forces are always better armed, and always seem to control the most prominent pressure points (Saigon, say, or Baghdad). The loss of life among local civilians–de facto supporters all, active or passive, of the insurgency, if only by virtue of sharing the mother tongue–looks and feels like an arterial wound, while the loss of life on our side always seems, statistically speaking, more or less manageable.
With measurements like these, the U.S. can always seem to win the reportable battles, without ever “stabilizing” the situation. Then, as the war proceeds, the insurgency seems to grow stronger (the greater its loss of life, the stronger it seems to become). Then, still later–but when?–the insurgency seems to control the tempo of bloodshed on all sides, a sign that we’ve lost control–if we ever had control– at the level of overall “strategy” (whence the great shock, in 1968, of the famous “Tet Offensive”).
And so, without seeming to lose, we end up quitting the fight, without ever grasping the fact that we really lost–that the cost to our side in blood and treasure was not, as they say, “sustainable”.
Since this developing trend is never actually measured, Pace, like Westmoreland, can always claim that we’re winning, until such time as his soldiers “have to” retreat, and the (quite ineffectual) protesters back home “have to” be blamed for sapping popular support (a support which always does, and does not, exist, and is never of any pertinence as to the final outcome). And Cheney and Rumsfeld will always try again.
I miss Pat, and wish she were here to explain these things.

Posted by: alabama | Dec 11 2006 4:34 utc | 7

Karzai is actually poignant; hearting Chief Joseph. Both are leaders in a religious cultural war that will never end until the foreign occupiers leave or the indigenous tribes are placed in reservations, concentration camps, strategic hamlets, or secure villages.
Meanwhile in Iraq the Washington Post has gotten on the 30 year Middle East War bandwagon. Even If We Leave Now, We’ll Be Back. America can’t let Muslims, let alone the Russians or Chinese, control Middle East oil. Besides, oil money will buy nuclear weapons for terrorists.
No matter the outcome, America has a heart breaking future ahead either as a second rate power with insufficient energy reserves or a bloody empire always at war recolonizing the Middle East.

Posted by: Jim S | Dec 11 2006 5:49 utc | 9

Air Force Academy watch: Inquiry Sought Over Evangelical Video

A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.
In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military.
“I found a wonderful opportunity as a director on the joint staff, as I meet the people that come into my directorate,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr. says in the video. “And I tell them right up front who Jack Catton is, and I start with the fact that I’m an old-fashioned American, and my first priority is my faith in God, then my family and then country. I share my faith because it describes who I am.”
Pete Geren, a former acting secretary of the Air Force who oversaw the service’s response in 2005 to accusations that evangelical Christians were pressuring cadets at the Air Force Academy, also appears in the video.

For Gen. Catton, the country comes in third – and these guys have their hands on nukes …

Posted by: b | Dec 11 2006 6:22 utc | 11

I guess the “smooch of (I love you to) death” bestowed on al-Maliki by the decider last week wont wash off. Reports now circulating say talks are underway for a parliamentry re-allignment to oust PM al-Maliki. The re-allignment is being orchestrated through al-Hakim and SCIRI:

A key figure in the proposed alliance, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, left for Washington on Sunday for a meeting with Bush at least three weeks ahead of schedule.
“The failure of the government has forced us into this in the hope that it can provide a solution,” said Omar Abdul-Sattar, a lawmaker from al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party. “The new alliance will form the new government.”
The groups engaged in talks have yet to agree on a leader, said lawmaker Hameed Maalah, a senior official of al-Hakim’s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI.
One likely candidate for prime minister, however, was said to be Iraq’s other vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite who was al-Hakim’s choice for the prime minister’s job before al-Maliki emerged as a compromise candidate and won.

With the Sadr people disenfranchised in this move, its hard to see how this will tamp down the civil war. Quite the contrary, I would think.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 11 2006 7:39 utc | 13

Jim S:
Your link is the latest in the Neocon full-court press :

The economic and political forces that drew the United States into Iraq — quite different from the reasons the Bush administration gave for the invasion — remain powerful, exerting a pull that will be hard to resist. Oil, of course, is foremost among them. But also important are the threats and tensions linked to oil: Washington’s decades-old rivalry with Iran, the growing dangers posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the fear that the Middle East’s simmering conflicts will erupt into a broader, bloodier and far more costly war.

Hard to resist by a politician that’s paid to service them! Yeah, oil was foremost among them. Washington’s “rivalry” with Iran is about two years, not two decades, old. The “rivalry” began when the Neocons decide to have the US whack Iran. The growing dangers of weapons of mass destruction have just been officially sanctioned by the new Secretary of War and they needn’t have been at all! Israel need never have started a nuclear arms race in the region. And the Middle East’s simmering conflicts will erupt when the US/Israel Axis decides to “erupt” them.

There is no getting out of the Middle East. Even if we leave now, we’ll be back.

As long as we’re fools enough to elect these made men and women into our government this absurd statement is probably true.

In fact, given the political shifts that this increasingly unpopular conflict has triggered, it seems quite possible that a Democratic president may be the one compelled to wage the Third Gulf War.

Who is doing the compelling? Israel. Why are we compelled? Because we are allowing ourselves to be ruled by the employees of people who not only do not share our interests but despise us for being such fools that we allow ourselves to be duped, again and again.

The United States’s interests in the Middle East date to the post-World War I years, around the time when the British redrew the Middle East map and created nation-states, such as Iraq, cobbled together from disparate Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish pieces. A rising industrial power, the United States could not ignore the promise of oil identified in the Persian Gulf in the 1920s. With the drilling contracts awarded to Standard Oil of California and Texaco in 1933 and 1936, respectively, the United States in effect committed itself to an ever growing involvement in (and dependence on) this region.

Standard Oil and Texaco are not the United States and the interests of the United States are not the interests of Standard Oil, aka Exxon-Mobil, and Texaco. As long as we sit back and let these fools write things like this, continue to create “facts in our minds”, yes we’ll be stupid enought to buy the rest of this ridiculous argument as well.

Immediately after the war, the Russians refused to leave Iran as they had promised at the Yalta Conference in 1945; it took action by the U.N. Security Council to force their withdrawal. This ultimately led the United States to seek a reliable ally in Tehran, in turn leading presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter to embrace the shah.

There is zero reason for me to accept that the arrogance and greed of Dulles in overthrowing the elected President of Iran and installing the “Shah” in power was due to anything other than the arrogance and greed of John Foster Dulles and that of his cronies.

At the same time, the situation in the region was immeasurably complicated by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and President Harry S. Truman’s support for the new entity. This new U.S.-Israeli bond created an instant tension with the countries upon which the United States depended for oil, thus defining a balancing act that to this day remains the trickiest in U.S. foreign policy.

And just as long as our policy toward the Middle East is based upon defending Israeli injustice we will have “tension” that is “trickiest” there. This policy has nothing to do with the interests of the people of the United States and everything to do with the interests of the people whose outsourced employees pose as our political class.

Over time, this picture grew even more complex, as much the result of the United States’ victories as its fumbles and defeats… Sadly, the invasion of Iraq in this most recent Gulf war has only exacerbated these situations.

Yes. Basing your foreign policy on an injustice means that you get everything wrong from there on out.

What plausible scenarios could draw even a war-weary United States back into the Middle East, into a Gulf War III?

Clearly Israel’s desire to have its stooges in our government bomb Iran is among those at the top of the list. But Israel’s requirement that the United States continue to fund and support its elimination of the Palestinian nation is right up there too.
Or the reactions to the US/Israeli actions might bring it about.
Or if none of that does it, another terrorist attack on the United States itself may have to be allowed to go forward.

After the U.S. election of 1968 confirmed the public’s desire to withdraw from Vietnam, the war dragged on for seven more years and claimed as many lives as it had during the period of escalation. The distinction, however, is that even leaving Vietnam probably will prove much simpler than leaving Iraq or the surrounding region.

The South Vietnamese government did not have anything approaching the machine that Israel has at its disposal to frustrate the will of the American people.

While a long-term U.S. military presence in the region may further stoke anti-American passions, it may also make good and prudent strategic sense.

American troops will be right there to die for Israel itself when they do precipitate the next war.

The United States must also restore its own hollowed-out military and determine how a war such as the one in Iraq could ever have stretched U.S. forces so thin.

Israel is furious that the US Wehrmacht has failed so badly in Iraq, and demands that we pull up our socks and put the Wehrmacht back together… and Mach Schnell!

The United States must contain the complex threats it faces in the region, and at the same time try to limit our vital interests there. On the first score, Hezbollah and Hamas must know that the United States is present and stands ready to take action. Iran must know that it will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, period. Moderates in the region must know that we will stand by them, with economic aid and political support, helping to restore U.S. moral authority in the Middle East. And everyone must know that an attack against Israel will always be considered an attack against America.

If it comes to a choice between using the American Wehrmacht for Israels aims…

On the second score, we must embark on the long-term but critical task of reducing our energy dependence on the Middle East. No strategy in any Gulf war could produce more lasting change in the region than a prolonged fall in oil prices. The only dependable formula for ultimate victory in the Gulf wars will come through innovation and conservation right here at home.

or big Oil’s…. well-l-l.
Israel must come first.
No.
The United States must come first. We must turn these monstrous Neocons out now.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 11 2006 8:30 utc | 15

This guy will enthusiastically sign off on the new oil laws.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 11 2006 8:51 utc | 17

Its probably a good thing Christmas is’nt celebrated in Baghdad, because things are shaping up to get really ugly, this holiday season.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 11 2006 9:07 utc | 19

An interesting Contribution to the discussion:
The new game championed by Shi’a cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, admittedly the most-influential figure in Iraq today, is to break down the Iraqi government and make it illegitimate, just like the Lebanese and the Palestinian governments.
The American forces obtain their occupational legitimacy from Al-Maliki’s government and if it loses support then the occupation would have to end abruptly.
Bush refuses to negotiate with Iran over the Iraq issue. Iran is going to make sure that it carves up a big and visible role in Iraqi politics. Bush will keep denying Iran a role in Iraq until the Maliki government disintegrates and a power vacuum emerges. The U.S. and Iran are probably preparing for the next phase of Iraqi politics and each is grooming his own Iraqi strongman to be the next dictator. link

Posted by: jj | Dec 11 2006 10:40 utc | 21

Crowd shot of demo in Beirut
p.s., is anybody else still having to play the random letter game with typepad?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2006 11:37 utc | 23

@b: I would say your fixation on the Middle East these days is exactly right… please keep writing about it and providing us with this great forum to see “history on steroids” in the making.
Thanks for all that you do.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 11 2006 13:36 utc | 25

Uri Avnery weighs in on Baker vs. “the Lobby” and puts it in historical perspective.

…in all the last 40 years, James Baker was the only leader in America who had the guts to stand up and act against Israel’s malignant disease: the settlements. When he was the Secretary of State, he simply informed the Israeli government that he would deduct the sums expended on the settlements from the money Israel was getting from the US. Threatened and made good on his threat.
Baker thus confronted the “pro-Israeli” lobby in the US, both the Jewish and the Christian. Such courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in Israel…..
“HOWEVER, THIS baker can only offer a recipe for the cake. The question is whether President Bush will use the recipe and bake the cake….”
Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash.
The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office stands up on its hind legs and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot. The Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an anti-Semite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total war.

And he shares this detail, which I was not aware of:

His committee proposes the immediate start of negotiations between Israel and “President Mahmoud Abbas”, in order to implement the two-state solution. The “sustainable negotiations” must address the “key final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return, and the end of conflict….
The use of the title “President” for Abu Mazen and, even more so, the use of the term “right of return” has alarmed the whole political class in Israel. Even in the Oslo agreement, the section dealing with the “final status” issues mentions only “refugees”. Baker, as is his wont, called the spade a spade.

Interesting.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 11 2006 13:57 utc | 27

What to make of these events in Gaza? The efforts to sow chaos, anarchy and desperation there have just taken a significant step forward.

Khalid Abu Hilal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian interior ministry, has described the killing of the children as “ugly and cruel”.
He said: “The only thing we can understand from Monday’s cruel crime, which targeted innocent Palestinian children, is that those who carried it out targeted the internal security and wanted to spark strife, security disorder and chaos in the country.”

Posted by: Bea | Dec 11 2006 14:10 utc | 29

..in all the last 40 years, James Baker was the only leader in America who had the guts to stand up and act against Israel’s malignant disease: the settlements.
…
“Baker thus confronted the “pro-Israeli” lobby in the US, both the Jewish and the Christian. Such courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in Israel…..”
and what does this say about the rest of the establishment ?
one good thing about this is the “cred” it may give him with Iran & Syria. Though the Iranians may feel some resentment still for his “we have no dog in this fight” statement during the Iran-Iraq war.
Baker may be the go-to fixer guy for the moneyed & powerful but overall he is no worse than his Democratic counterparts.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 11 2006 14:35 utc | 31

Tutu criticises Israel’s blockage of his UN mission to Beit Hanun

South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has sharply criticised
Israel’s failure to cooperate with a UN human rights fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip.
ADVERTISEMENT
Tutu, who is leading the inquiry, confirmed that Israeli authorities had effectively thwarted the mission, which was planning to head to Israel and the Gaza Strip on Sunday, by failing to grant travel visas in time.
“It is for all these reasons and more that we find the lack of cooperation by the Israeli government very distressing, as well as its failure to allow the mission timely passage to Israel,” Tutu said in joint statement with British law professor Christine Chinkin, the other member of the mission.
“This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering, nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region,” he told a press conference Monday.

Posted by: b | Dec 11 2006 14:57 utc | 33

Martin Rowson cartoon in The Guardian on Rummy’s farewell visit to Iraq.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 11 2006 14:58 utc | 35

The Democratic Party is subject to the “pro-Israeli” lobby no less than the Republican Party, and perhaps even more.~ Uri Avnery from bea’s post…
Yep, however, I’d go with, the ‘even more’.
WHO IS THE US CONGRESS LISTENING TO?
IRAQ, Iraq Iraq Iraq, Iraq, Iraqn IRAN, Iran Iran Iran, Iran.
Democrats Slow to Embrace Iraq Study
Anyone brave enough to translate this?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2006 15:32 utc | 37

here’s something else to write about-
Oil producers shun dollar
or this
Two years ago Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, opened its spigots and let supply out-pace demand. The result was a gradual build up in oil inventories in the US, Europe and several Asian oil-consuming countries.
This month Ali Naimi, the country’s influential oil minister, appeared abruptly to reverse that accommodating policy. At a meeting in Cairo he told reporters that the market was “significantly” oversupplied.
or this
Currency traders have become convinced over the past two weeks that something big is afoot in the global economy. They are not convinced by the sanguine noises coming from the Federal Reserve and think the risks of a “hard landing” in the US economy have risen.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 11 2006 16:03 utc | 39

Hmmm… Did the US-led boycott on the Palestinian government backfire?
Iran scores yet another regional goal. US strikes out… yet again.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 11 2006 16:58 utc | 41

@bea 36 – the new Iraqi block
SCIRI has 36 parliament seats, the Kurds have 53, the Iraq Islamic Party (part of the Iraqi Accord Front) has a maximum of 44 – together: 133 – they would need 138 for a majority. I wonder who they will bribe into this …

Posted by: b | Dec 11 2006 17:49 utc | 43

b:
They’re all Clerics. Sadr is a nationalist. I hope they force his hand and that he is able to find enough support from Sunni nationalists and Kurds to save the Iraqi nation from the predations of James Baker and the Oil Patch. He needs to cut off the American expeditionary force in the center of the country. And then to magnanimously offer them safe passage back home.
If Baker has the backbone to stand up to Israel it comes, as did XLI’s and as jj points out, from his brothers in the Saudi American, I mean Arabian, Oil Patch.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 11 2006 23:25 utc | 45

fauxreal:
The collapse of the dollar may save us. I believe that the scum in Washington will continue to borrow and spend on murder and expropriation in the Middle East at the behest of the Israel and the Oil Lobbies until they cannot do it anymore.
Pretty sad state of affairs. Looking forward to the crash of our economy to save us from the further depredations of our traitorous political class.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 11 2006 23:39 utc | 47

Seems some people are still operating under the illusion that Bush Jr., actually wants to avoid a “regional crisis”… His whole internal ideology and standard operating procedure involves the notions that War is Good and such crises are moments of “opportunity”. Of course, that’s spelled opportunity for the wealthy to get wealthier…
Also, I know the following has been posted before, by myself and others, however, this is much easier to listen to as it’s streaming w/the opition to download:
The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

We speak with Antonia Juhasz about her new book, “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.” The book tracks the radical neo-liberal economic program the Bush administration has tried to impose on Iraq, which threatens to leave Iraq’s economy and oil reserves largely in the hands of multinational corporations.

I can’t recommend this program and her work enough, do yourself a favor and listen to this… and get your friends to listen to it…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2006 23:53 utc | 49

General Pinochet at the Bookstore

MARTIN ESPADA: In July 2004, I was invited to participate in a celebration of the Pablo Neruda centenary in Chile, as part of the US delegation invited to that country. About a week before we arrived, there was an incident that took place that caused quite a stir, involving General Pinochet. And the following poem came out of it. This poem was actually from a book called The Republic of Poetry. The poem itself is called “General Pinochet at the Bookstore, Santiago, Chile, July 2004.”
The general’s limo parked at the corner of San Diego street
and his bodyguards escorted him to the bookstore
called La Oportunidad, so he could browse
for rare works of history.
There were no bloody fingerprints left on the pages.
No books turned to ash at his touch.
He did not track the soil of mass graves on his shoes,
nor did his eyes glow red with a demon’s heat.
Worse: His hands were scrubbed, and his eyes were blue,
and the dementia that raged in his head like a demon,
making the general’s trial impossible, had disappeared.
Desaparecido: like thousands dead but not dead,
as the crowd reminded the general,
gathered outside the bookstore to jeer
when he scurried away with his bodyguards,
so much smaller in person.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 0:55 utc | 51

That’s a great poem. thank you.
I saw this from Amy Goodman at the Democracy Now! link:
General Augusto Pinochet died on International Human Rights Day yesterday.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 12 2006 1:09 utc | 53

jj:
hmmmm… Yes I’m referring to everyone who lives in America. It is better for this profligate, amoral spree to come to an end sooner rather than later.
As far as having it coming… there is a distinction to be made between accepting the consequences of one’s actions and deserving them.
The chorus that greeted Susan Sontage, for instance, after her comments promted by 9/11, Or the chorus that emanates from Israel whenever a suicide bombing erupts there, is a chorus that seeks to blur this distinction.
No one deserves to be murdered. No deserves to be hurt economically. But our actions have consequences. If we don’t like the consequences then we must modify our actions.
The problem is that we come to believe the obfuscations we hurl up to protect ourselves from the truth.
The Republicrat Party is the party of fiscal responsibility… No. The Republicrat Party has destroyed the United States fiscal balance sheet since the Coming of Ronald, the great Communicator in 1980.
The Palestinian terrorists are responsible for the unprovoked slaughter of innocents in the Middle East… Not unprovoked. The far-right wing in Israel has consistently been driving the Palestinians into a corner for decades and now must bear the consequences of those decades of murder and expropriation there. Or change their ways.
They hate us for our freedom… No. They rise up against us because they choose not to die disposessed at the hands of our Israeli mentors in Palestine or at our own hands in Iraq.
If we continue to borrow and to spend, to literally burn our money in the deserts of the Middle East then we will suffer the consequences.
The longer we continue to do so the worse the fall when it comes.
I am an American, just as you are. I will suffer just as you will.
The collapse of the dollar may save us, may wrench us from this monstrous spiral to oblivion. We cannot avoid the consequences of our previous, poor choices. We can stop making those same poor choices on a daily basis.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 4:05 utc | 55

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,
¡el pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
De pie, cantad, que vamos a triunfar.
Avanzan ya banderas de unidad,
y tú vendrás marchando junto a mí
y así verás tu canto y tu bandera florecer.
La luz de un rojo amanecer
anuncia ya la vida que vendrá.
De pie, luchad,
el pueblo va a triunfar.
Será mejor la vida que vendrá
a conquistar nuestra felicidad,
y en un clamor mil voces de combate
se alzarán, dirán,
canción de libertad,
con decisión la patria vencerá.
Y ahora el pueblo que se alza en la lucha
con voz de gigante gritando: ¡Adelante!
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,
¡el pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
La patria está forjando la unidad.
De norte a sur se movilizará,
desde el Salar ardiente y mineral
al Bosque Austral,
unidos en la lucha y el trabajo irán
la patria cubrirán.
Su paso ya anuncia el porvenir.
De pie, cantad que el pueblo va a triunfar
millones ya imponen la verdad.
De acero son ardiente batallón.
Sus manos van llevando la justicia
y la razón, mujer,
con fuego y con valor,
ya estás aquí junto al trabajador.
Y ahora el pueblo que se alza en la lucha
con voz de gigante gritando: ¡Adelante!
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,
¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
La la la la la la la…

Posted by: catlady | Dec 12 2006 6:03 utc | 57

We cannot avoid the consequences of our previous, poor choices.
i approach my resolve thru convoluted meanderings. it is twofold, threefold, ten fold. do i deserve the outcome, i have always promoted peace. i am a wealthy (relatively) woman. if i go down it will be in good company. will it be worth it. to wake the masses? a little starvation? my parents lived thru the depression. do we, as a society deserve some humiliation. it will sweep us all up if it comes, the good the bad the ugly. what will it take to contain the monster that america has become. 1/2 million deaths in iraq hasn’t changed anyones lifestyle here. sure we rant against it, but do we pay a price? yet? i million deaths? 4 million deaths for the ladies in scottsdale in their mansions? what if total mayhem breaks out in the middle east and we watch it from our tv’s. what will it take for america to FEEL the pain it inflicts? no pain, no gain. if what is required is personal sacrifice, i am not willing to give my son. no way. but i am willing to see foreclosures, food rations, stock crashes, long lines, maybe america needs to get angry. so far i see so much passivity. if it takes some suffering to stop our empire from the course it is on, i will be in good company. it is a small price to pay compared to what we have inflicted on the world. it may be our only hope. i wish this price could be paid by the red states alone. we don’t have that luxury. whatever it takes. our alternative could be living w/exploding buses. i would rather starve. maybe we would start talking to out neighbors if the electricity were only available 4 hrs a day.

Posted by: annie | Dec 12 2006 7:26 utc | 59

I’d guess that they’re forming new govt. w/minimal Sunni role – or in some way Sunnis are getting too marginalized.
yep. undoubtably. something tells me there won’t be a replacement any time soon.

Posted by: annie | Dec 12 2006 8:04 utc | 61

Please understand. I’m not rooting for the collapse of the US and/or the world economy. And the US/World economy doesn’t know or care whether I’m rooting for it or against it in any case. Saying it does not make it so, contrary to what the Neocons encouraged XLIII to believe.
What I’m saying is that according to my dimlights the US is headed for a fall. Because it has spent more than it made for lo these many years. It has not fallen because… its the USA. It’s big and at the nexus of the world economy.
But the series of choices our government has made over the past six years do not make sense. Perhaps people worldwide were holding their breath, waiting for the rabbit to come out of the hat… but now they no longer believe in magic.
In fact they just remembered they never did. Who wants to be the last one to horde a pile of American dollars. Once that starts… it’s over.
But its not over, of course. Life goes on even after you go broke, or your pet rabbit, or your mother, or your father, or as fourteen year-old Islam realized last week in Beit Hanoun after your mother, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather, your aunts, your uncles, your older bothers and sisters… everyone but your little sister and three year old brother who no longer has his legs just died.
Life goes on. If you lose your money pray don’t you lose your mind.
My point was that we are going to have to pay the piper someday, the reasons for that are behind us, and hey… it might be as soon as next week, or next month, or in the spring.
Our government is doing nothing to end the war in Iraq, so perhaps the economic bill will come due before the politicians in Washington get “focused”… do ya think?
And in that case our inattentiveness to our financial undoing will preclude our further moral self-degradation. Not to mention the murder of innocent people in the Middle East.
And I’m ok with that. Since I see the bill coming due someday, I hope it comes due before the US/Israeli Axis does something really, really dark in the Middle East.
Something much worse than going broke.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 8:18 utc | 63

I hope it comes due before the US/Israeli Axis does something really, really dark in the Middle East.
hell yes
Something much worse than going broke.
starve us please.if it’s that or extinction.

Posted by: annie | Dec 12 2006 8:38 utc | 65

jj:
I live in Thailand. What money I have is in dollars. When I moved here four years ago I got 40฿ for a dollar. Now it’s 35฿.
I tried to point out that I am not rooting for the dollars decline. I see it as inevitable. Due to the way we’ve been living for the past twenty years. I might be wrong. What do I know about economics? Not much.
You want to blame me for the dollars decline? Be my guest. No problem 🙂

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 9:11 utc | 67

It’s official – I’m not sure the reason given is right: Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, flew out of Washington yesterday after informing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his staff that he would be leaving the post after only 15 months on the job, according to U.S. officials and foreign envoys. There has been no formal announcement from the kingdom.
…
Turki, a long-serving former intelligence chief, told his staff yesterday afternoon that he wanted to spend more time with his family, according to Arab diplomats. Colleagues said they were shocked at the decision.
The exit — without the fanfare, parties and tributes that normally accompany a leading envoy’s departure, much less a public statement — comes as his brother, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the highly influential Saudi foreign minister, is ailing.
…
As Saud’s health has declined, Turki has increasingly been rumored as a possible replacement for his older brother. He would symbolize continuity in Saudi foreign policy at a moment of tension over Iraq between Riyadh and Washington, two long-standing allies in forging common political and economic policy in the Middle East. King Abdullah summoned Vice President Cheney after Thanksgiving for talks on Iraq and other Middle East flashpoints.

Posted by: b | Dec 12 2006 9:46 utc | 69

Clueless Joe, right on (post. no 3.) It has always been hard to understand the Brit allegiance to the US, beyond the interregnum of the post Fall-of-the-Wall pair, Bliar and Clinton.
Cultural ties, an uneasiness with Europe, tears for lost Empire and a desire to return to old stomping grounds, a clear perception of GB as energy-dependent (North Sea oil provided a glorious binge that is coming to an end; over population), all these provide explanatory threads, but don’t seem convincing. Specially, because it is stupid.
GB would have been much better off throwing its lot in with Europe; I suppose the calculation was, we can play both sides, and can always back-track. Still, I think Tony Blair, his personality, or some unknown unknowns play a role here. All of it resting on what the French call a democratic deficit – OK Blair was elected, but how is he different from oligarchs, a crown prince, and so on? The Democrats won’t impeach Bush and he remains the Decider.
Democracy has become a hollow shell. Mis- and dis- information see to it that people vote as they do on TV to eliminate this or that young man, sexy girl, poor singer, wild card, and so on, a frenzied jamboree of idiocy.

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 12 2006 19:08 utc | 71

oh, uncle scam’s post is #46 on that thread, btw.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 12 2006 19:28 utc | 73