Friday, November 11, 2005

I know it's early, but

I gotta tell ya, if the race for president is between Clinton and McCain, I'm gonna blow up the 154 bridge over Cold Springs Canyon, the 101 north and south of SB, and lead the movement to secede from the US. Why not? We'll have plenty of offshore oil, plenty of fish and veggies--avocados, lemons, walnuts in massive amounts--and, of course, wonderful weather. Hell, SB even has a desalinization plant, so they can't cut off our water supply.

The only economic source we'll have to go without is tourism, to which I say...oh well.

Ya gotta love it

"Early November is a beautiful time in Wisconsin." So begins a letter to Bush asking him to visit that state on the eve of the election in 2006 to campaign for Republican candidates.

The rub: the letter (pdf) was authored by the head of the Wisconsin Democratic party.

A million monkeys

at a million typewriters may have made these changes between the classified intelligence report and the unclassified version that was given by the President to Congress to justify the invasion of Iraq, but I doubt it. In the first place, it would require that the monkeys come up with the "corrections" in just a few days; in the second place, the monkeys would have to add a clause--actually add words to a complete sentence--to make the case for war more alarming, as is apparent by the second example by which the prospect of delivery of biological agents by air--says the unclassified report--includes, potentially, the United States. Now how would a monkey know to type these words and add such a clause? And how come it appeared in the unclassified version, not in the classified version? Wouldn't you think the classified version would have more detail, more alarming prospects, than the unclassified version?

Recall the "dodgy dossier" in the UK? Well, we've got our own version in the US.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Overwhelm

The wheels are coming off Bush's maniacal reign so fast and so consistently that I find myself unable to keep track. I'm giggling at the trainwreck so hard that I'm not blogging. So--I'll post when I can, when there's a slight break in the debacle.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Telling it like it is

Riverbend has posted again, and I gotta tell ya, it makes for tough reading. And for a description of the reality of "Operation Steel Curtain," read this.

Our little Saturday protest group has begun this chant, which isn't original, but sure feels right--and righteous. "The world can't wait! Impeach George Bush!" He and his cabal have the power to wreck the world, and they're doing it, quickly and surely. With three years left in his second term, we could be back in the Stone Age by inauguration-time, 2009.

They lied

If you need more convincing, read this.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Am I the only one who recalls this?

There are countless recountings of the timeline that shows that Bush lied to the American people in his State of the Union Address in January 2003, and that Colin Powell did just about the same thing in his address to the UN Security Council a month or so later, and that Bush lied in his declaration to Congress before the actual invasion in March, 2003. Here's an example.

But nowhere have I seen reference to a hugely significant piece of evidence that the administration was going to invade Iraq regardless of the state of its possession of WMDs, and that's this: In the winter of 2002-03, the UN inspectors--Blix and al Barradei--were pleading with the US authorities to share with them any information in their possession about WMDs so that they, with unrestricted access to inspection (recall their white SUV's racing around Iraq in response to tips?) could track down WMDs--or not. But the US didn't, for months, lend a hand--not a whisper of information--and then finally, on the eve of Powell's UN speech, the US gave Blix a verbal report of WMD whereabouts ("unprecedented" that such a report wouldn't be in writing, said Blix), which the UN inspectors then chased down and found to be false. Not just once, but several times. "Garbage on garbage," was one UN inspector's evaluation of the US evidence.

I've never seen a single essay that calls these events to mind--the above-linked report makes a brief reference to US intransigence, but doesn't stress it--as telling as they are that the US had faulty information--and had learned it was faulty "on the ground." What more proof could there be that when Bush told the Congress, in his declaration before the invasion, that Iraq had WMD's, he lied, knowingly and intentionally?

In case you're not following this

The Guardian (British paper) is publishing a serial written by Blair's ambassador to the U.S. during the 2000-2004 period, chronicling the tragedy by which the U.K. and the U.S. got into the mess we're in in Iraq. Sad reading, indeed. And, unlike most American accounts (except those of Col. Wilkerson, Scott Ritter and a few others--which I know you're following) this Brit pulls no punches.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Impeach!

For months--exactly a year, actually, since Bush/Cheney's "re-election"--I've been carrying a sign demanding their impeachment for having "lied U.S. to war," and our little band of weekly protesters has been chanting to the same effect. It's satisfying to have history catch up with us a little, I must admit, although 1000 U.S. troops have died in the process; but I'm not certain how penetrating any Congressional report on the subject of the Bush administration's fabrication of evidence will be. The Republicans control that process, so I'm not holding my breath.

I will point out, however, that a new storm cloud is rising on this score. Compare this item, appearing in 2004, but citing evidence dating back to many months before the war, with the NYT article today that cites a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency about the lack of credibility of one of the sources for Bush's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Result: A main source of Bush/Cheney's claims (as well as Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council) about Iraq's threat were made up by a stoolie who was out to please his captors--and the DIA reported this fact months before the invasion.

So--We'll keep chanting, and I'll keep on carrying my sign.