Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Still Traveling


I'm traveling overseas for a week. Postings will suffer.

But while I have you, isn't it surprising--or not--how the Iraqi government (and the Bush administration) managed to botch the hanging of a brutal tyrant despised throughout his own land and the world? First, the Iraqis flout human rights and legal norms in rushing the execution. Then they cannot manage this simple act in a straightforward and dignified manner--not that state-sponsored killing is ever really dignified. Whether or not you support capital punishment (I don't), you have to ask whether this gang in Baghdad (which also runs a government that supports or turns a blind eye to death squads) is worth the lives of American soldiers?

And as George W. Bush talks about the need to help Iraqis, it turns out his administration is doing almost nothing to assist Iraqi refugees--even those who have to flee their country because they have cooperated with Americans and, consequently, have been threatened with death. The New York Times has the low-down on this symbol of policy failure and hypocrisy. Maybe John Edwards has a point: if Bush's national security team is one of experience, perhaps experience is overrated. I'm being facetious. But one should keep in mind that experience and judgment are the not the same thing.

Something else. Today, Bush met with his Cabinet and afterward gave a statement in the Rose Garden. He said:

I want to thank my Cabinet officers for joining me here. We discussed our priorities for the next two years, and how we plan to achieve them. The Congress has changed; our obligations to the country haven't changed.

Bush then mentioned the various priorities discussed: Social Security, Medicare, "tax relief," the use of earmarks in congressional appropriations. He said nothing about Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at January 3, 2007 04:53 PM

21 comments:

Saladin said...

So the MSM is blaming the Iraqis for the execution? That's odd, I've read the blame, like always, belongs to bushco. Now you know why I gave them up, they are sucky!

capt said...

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;Mark Twain - The War Prayer - http://tinyurl.com/c8bak

=
"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual." : Frank Herbert

=
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.": William Fulbright

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

O'Reilly said...

Bush then mentioned the various priorities discussed: Social Security, Medicare, "tax relief," the use of earmarks in congressional appropriations. He said nothing about Iraq.

Not a priority?

What's Corn doing abroad? Probably visiting his in laws in scandanvaia. Erling, check with customs!

O'Reilly said...

Group: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public
January 3, 2007

WASHINGTON --ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in an effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

[...]

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or emphasizing only selected facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

The company said its financial support doesn't mean control over any group's views.

Of course not (straw dog) but (1) ExxonMobil was getting something, which in its opinion was worth $16,000,000,000.00 and (2) ExxonMobil wouldn;t have donated it to any group that offered scientific or pseudo-scientific opinions that would harm ExxonMobils martkets.

ExxonMobil can be expected to create a climate (pardon the pun) that helps sell its products but profit at the expense of mankind is irresponsible, greed and probably immoral.

capt said...

Bush set to announce 20K troop surge in Iraq



NBC: Announcement expected next week in effort to reduce sectarianism


WASHINGTON - Although nothing is final until President Bush puts his stamp on it, administration officials tell NBC News the president has all but decided on a temporary surge of additional American forces into Iraq in an effort to bring sectarian violence in Baghdad under control.

While no one is talking specific numbers, military officials believe it would involve some 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines.

Most of the increase would be achieved by extending the deployments of those troops already in Iraq by 90 days and accelerating the deployments for troops scheduled to deploy by sending them into Iraq sooner.



More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Even Heather Wilson opposes more troops in Iraq but watch her go into a meeting with Bush and come out in favor of a temporary troop increase. That is her usual M.O.



capt

capt said...

Will a Democratic majority in congress say "NO" to the troop increase?

They hold the purse strings and that is the only thing they can do - STOP FUNDING THE OCCUPATION.

Will the 36 newbies bring enough spine to share with the incumbents?

We will know soon enough.



capt

Saladin said...

Capt, I think you already know, new boss, same as the old boss, gotta support those troops dontcha know? Shovel more money in to a lost cause, that's what government does, the M.O. never changes, it just costs more, in cash and blood.

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."

- Albert Einstein

Thanks FMNN

Gerald said...

Let us work for creative non-violence

GOD MUST BE AT THE CENTER OF OUR LIVES!!!

Gerald said...

I think Gandhi was right: the only solution to our personal, national and global violence is creative loving non-violence. The greatest challenge facing us as individuals and as a race is to become people of creative non-violence, which means from now on, we need to be non-violent to our spouses, children, parents, relatives, neighbors and everyone we meet, as well as non-violent to ourselves, non-violent in our work, non-violent in our language, non-violent in our politics and policies and attitudes toward humanity and creation itself.

This commitment requires daily meditation, ongoing study, Gospel-reading, community building, periodic training, and public action. Somehow, it means placing the God of peace at the center of our lives, as the goal of our common life journey, as the measure of all we do. If we can surrender ourselves completely, over and over again to the God of peace, we may find ourselves walking the path of non-violence and becoming instruments of peace. Non-violence, then, becomes a way of life, a journey of peace to the God of peace.

WE MUST SURRENDER OURSELVES TO THE GOD OF PEACE!!!

Gerald said...

A Death Threat

Gerald said...

Is this what we mean by the glory of war?

Gerald said...

According to documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 25 percent of veterans of the "global war on terror" have filed disability compensation and pension benefit claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Gerald said...

January 4, 2007
US Hypocrisy Reaches
All-Time High

by Paul Craig Roberts
One of the lessons of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of Germans after Germany's defeat in World War II was that obeying orders is no excuse for war crimes. U.S. prosecutors took the position that the German military should have refused to obey Hitler's orders.

Chief U.S. prosecutor Robert Jackson established that military aggression was a war crime.

U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada took the Nuremberg lesson to heart. He refused to deploy to Iraq on the solid grounds that the war is illegal, which it is under the Nuremberg standard, and that he cannot order troops under his command to commit illegal actions.

Watada is correct. If the U.S. general staff had the integrity of Lt. Watada, America and Iraq would have been spared the pointless and bloody conflict. Bush was able to illegally initiate the conflict because the American military behaved exactly as the German military and followed the orders of a criminal commander in chief. Watada must be court-martialed in order to protect Bush and his obedient commanders from war crimes charges.

By prosecuting Lt. Watada, the U.S. military has demeaned the Nuremberg trials and demoted them to merely the revenge of the victorious. Watada's prosecution demolishes the illusion that the Nuremberg trials established a civilized principle of international law. All it did was to reaffirm that might is right. Germany's ideology of domination was a war crime, but America's ideology of domination is not.

Gerald said...

US Military Receives Its Death Notice

Gerald said...

Another issue the military will face is the upgrade and supply of more equipment, particularly armored vehicles and body armor, said Hammes. "You have got to get serious about equipping the U.S. forces and the Iraqis," he said. "We're still using peacetime procurement."

SINCE THE RICH HAVE ALL THE TAX BREAKS, LET THEM PAY FOR OUR ENDLESS WARS THAT PROTECT THEIR WIDE-BOTTOMS.

Gerald said...

American Leaders Promise More Pain

Gerald said...

An Expensive Trophy

Gerald said...

Do the Dems Have the Guts?

Gerald said...

Same Shit, Different Political Party!!!!!

Saladin said...

World Press network

Evidence from Prosecutor: Americans allowed the mobile video of the hanging
Evidence from a senior Iraqi court official provides compelling evidence that Americans took all mobiles except two used openly by "high-ranking government officials". This confirms that the mobile phone video was not recorded secretly, but was done openly and with government approval, and that the Americans controlled who was allowed in with any mobile phone. This reinforces the belief that both the making, and the leaking of the video, was deliberate black propaganda to further inflame the civil war.
==========
Does anyone still believe the civil war, yes, that's what it is, currently raging in Iraq is the result of incompetence rather than design? Does the phrase "divide and conquer" ring any bells? Some people like to say bushco is in complete denial, I say they are celebrating their achievements.

capt said...

New Thread!