Saturday, February 26, 2005

What have we become?

Up to 30 billion dollars of US tax money is going to pay for private paramilitary companies in Iraq. Our "all volunteer Army" isn't that at all. It's a half-mercenary army, with the private half paid up to $500 a day for the less dangerous work, while our soldiers receive $1200 a month to fight and die.

Isn't this how the British lost the colonies, by hiring out to the Hessians? Isn't this why Rome fell?

I suppose I should be pleased that we're using mercenaries, but I gotta tell ya, it feels really gross. Slimy. UnAmerican.

"Both sides are sharpening their knives."

The insurgents--Sunnis and others--attack the Shiites and Kurds, and others (the US). The latter attack the insurgents. Now, we learn that since the most recent election, which favored the Shiites, the latter are systematically murdering former Baathists, mostly Sunnis, in revenge for years of oppression.

If that's not a civil war, what is it? Chopped liver?

Friday, February 25, 2005

Without the Internet, where would we be?

A few nights ago, quite late, I read this article on the web, wherein Scott Ritter, former US marine and UN weapons inspector--who's been anti-Iraq-war and right-on in his predictions about its outcome for three straight years--told us he'd learned that the US plans to attack Iranian nuclear plants "in June."

Guess what? This morning, I learn from the MMM (that's mainstream media to the cyberincognenti) that the Bushies are issuing an ultimatum-sounding fiat to Europe: Bring Iran to heel by June, or we act.

Brothers and sisters: Take to the streets. Now!

Thursday, February 24, 2005

I hate to say I told you so, but...

the world economy, much too much dependent on the flaccid US economy, is gonna collapse pretty soon, says the Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. America is drunk with buying foreign goods, not producing anything much and is spending wildly on wars and unproductive defense items.

In four more years this drunk in the White House is going to leave America--no, the entire planet--with a hangover even he can't lie and cheat and slime his way out of.

Ya know, I hope so. I want an end to these evildoers that have seized power in the US, and the only way we'll get rid of them, seems to me, is for them to so screw things up that even their monied supporters bail out.

So--spend on, Bush. March on, Bush. Lie and cheat and steal. Do your worst. I've decided to root for you, all the way into oblivion.

Smoking gun

One doesn't often see a murder on videotape, so when a newsman films a US soldier shooting an already-injured Iraqi at point-blank range--and then joking about it--one would think there might be grounds for a court martial. But no, not in this man's army. There's apparently "insufficient evidence."

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Raimondo scores again

with this excellent piece about the NeoCons' march to war against Syria, in particular the baseless drumbeat that Syria was behind the recent bombing of a former Lebanese prime minister.

The most telling part of the essay is his quote from an article by Ron Suskind, recounting his conversation with a Bush admininstration aide on the nature of truth in the American Empire:

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Mourning

No posts today. I'm in mourning. Sandra Dee and Hunter Thompson died. Nobody left to look up to.

Monday, February 21, 2005

The man on the street, a German street, reacts to Bush's imminent visit.

Essentially saying it's a pain in the ass.

Don't hold your breath

waiting for this UN report on the miserable conditions and prospects for Afghanistan to be reported by the mainstream media (hereinafter MSM) in the US.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

"I serve in shame"

Check out this post from an army man serving in Iraq. The cartoon at the bottom is telling too.

Talk about a quagmire

In addition to arming Sunnis, in case the Shiite government turns in the wrong direction in Iraq, a I reported a few posts ago, the US, it turns out, is now negotiating with the Sunnis to end their involvement in the insurgency. Doubtless, they're being promised some position in the new "popularly elected" government. To the chagrin, of course, of those in that government.

What hypocrites the members of the administration are. What liars and frauds.