Here's something I didn't know

The US is going to turn over to Iraq its "operational control" of Iraq's military force in a day or so. What I didn't know is that the US military has all this time been in control of Iraq's military. I thought we'd turned over to Iraq its "full sovereignty" more than a year ago, didn't you?

Letter to the editor

Herewith is a letter I sent to the SB News-Press this evening. Nothing new in it, just thought I'd shake the readership up a bit. Not easy to do with a 250-word limit. If you stumble across it in the paper, let me know since I rarely read the thing and I'd like to cut it out for my memoirs.

To the editor:

Bush’s "war on terror" has doomed Americans to endless conflict, the continuation of which benefits both the terrorists and the Bush administration. The terrorists of course gain from our ongoing turmoil; but so does Bush, as evidenced by his reliance on repeated chants of fear come midterm-election time, in the hope that Americans will once again vote for his party out of reaction rather than for the opposition through reason.

Indeed, the administration’s chants have lately taken an insidious, demonic twist, with Bush/Cheney/Rummie drawing parallels between this conflict and World War Two and calling those of us who demand our troops’ withdrawal from Iraq "appeasers"; while Condi likens us to those who opposed engaging the South in the Civil War.

Enough.

A handful of crazed men attacked us before 9/11, twenty more on 9/11. A few hundred men trained to do so, perhaps a thousand, five thousand tops. But now, because of Bush’s rampant warmaking, those who aspire to kill Americans number in the hundreds of thousands and are spread around the globe. His policies have ensured that their enmity will last lifetimes: the lifetimes of the children of thousands of the people he’s killed—and the lifetimes of our children, too.

The resultant eternal, world-wide “war on terror” is therefore more the product of Bush’s actions than it is of Osama bin Laden’s; and so it is correct to say, as many Americans—and others—have concluded, George W. Bush is the world’s most dangerous terrorist.

Where Liberals and Libertarians meet

Okay, I know I've linked to Justin Raimondo's Antiwar.com blog before, but his latest essay about fascism is too good. If you're too busy, I present herewith the money quote:

"There is a fascist threat to America, all right, but it isn't coming from overseas. It isn't hiding in the caves of Wahhabistan, but lurking in Washington's corridors of power. The same people who warn us of a "fascist" threat coming from abroad are the main purveyors of authoritarianism on the home front. And that is what life is like in the Bizarro World of America in the year A.D. 2006, where the most militant fascists of all style themselves the leaders of a new "anti-fascist" popular front."

Is state warfare terrorism?

A debate has long raged about the distinction between bombing done by state-owned and directed machines and non-state explosions, and more specifically between bombing that theoretically targets an armed enemy (but incidentally kills innocents) and bombing that targets innocents. Certainly, if the latter is done by a state, it's as much "terrorism" as if done by a nonstate, which is why our bombings of Dresden and Tokyo (not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were clearly acts of terrorism. The targets were not militarily significant, the purpose of the bombings being to break the political will of the people.

So the question is one of intent, right? If one intends to kill civilians for the purpose of changing a nation's course of action, it's terrorism; whereas if one intends to inflict military damage, but incidentally kills civilians, it's not.

So what about bombing that purports to target a military objective (or, even, an objective that has "military significance" such as a roadway or a radio station or a bank or an oil depot). Or for that matter, what about bombing that targets a neighborhood in which both civilians and enemy activists live?

Here's how Howard Zinn sees it.

The repeated excuse, given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli
officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary people live is that terrorists
hide among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in
Lebanon) is called accidental, whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (on
9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are deliberate.
This is a false distinction, quickly refuted with a bit of thought. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a ``suspected terrorist" is inside (note the frequent use of the word suspected as evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets), the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is
``inevitable."

I of course agree, and Zinn's analysis calls to mind a legal principle, under US law, that defines intent as including the notion that one can intend a result--can be held to have intended it--if the result is so likely as to be undeniably predictable. If one shouts fire in a crowded theatre and some is killed in the stampede, one is as guilty of murder as if the victim were shot in the face. You get the drift.

To me, both the Bush/Cheney/Rummie cabal with, inter alia, its "shock and awe" campaign over Baghdad, and , Osama and his buddies with their shock and awe over NYC and DC on 9/11, are terrorists. And so, to me, the "war on terror" includes war on both forces.

Cats in a gunnysack

What's next in this sorry land? If they can't agree on a flag, what can they agree on?

ROTFLMAO

For the uninitiated, that's "Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off."

Which is what happened to me when I read to the end of this article about the handover of Abu Ghraib prison to the Iraqis. At the beginning, I thought, "What bunch of lackeys the Iraqis are--spewing the US party line about how the American abuses have been brought to light through an investigative media." But then I learned what I already knew. The empty structure represented an empty gesture.

No, really?

The keystone cops at their best.

"A much-anticipated ceremony to transfer operational command from U.S-led forces to
Iraq's new army was postponed on Saturday at the last minute amid confusion, a U.S. military spokesman said, citing poor planning. "

My cup of tea

Not. I don't listen to--can't abide a moment of--this recent style of "music" but I gotta tell ya, when I read lyrics like this next to the compelling video, I become a believer. I just wish I could understand the lyrics as they're sung, but I do recall my father having the same complaint about the music I listened to as a kid.

Getting it right

This NYT essay says what I believe about "centrist" Democrats and explains why I left the party for the Green Party ten years ago. I do indeed feel disempowered as a Green, but so long as Clinton Democrats (both Clintons) are thought of as heroes, I'm staying put.

Rocky for President

Watch the speech by Rocky Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City, here, or--because it's quite long (however, it's all good)--read it here.

Returning to the madness

I've been offline for about ten days, touring the State of Maine without access to the Internet. Didn't even watch TV, except to view the endless reporting of the JonBenet matter (won't that case ever die?) and so it was a shock to me to learn that yesterday eight US soldiers were killed in Iraq. Eight in one day!

After I get back to SB, I'd better not leave again for a while because you folks aren't to be trusted with our troops.

Update: Make that eleven soldiers. Eleven!

Willie would be proud

"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Now let's see...

We invaded Iraq in March 2003 and have occupied it for three and a half years. And now, maybe, Bush convenes a group (just a group, not an entirely learned group) to tell him whazzup? And when he doesn't hear good stuff about his policies, he gets "frustrated"?

You gotta read the entire story about the meeting to understand what a rock-head is our president. When you do, you'll learn this: It doesn't mean you're smart or learned if you're president; you're just well-heeled, well-born, and lucky.

Enough is enough

Somebody--not me, I'm chicken--wrestle this guy to the ground, or better yet, run him off the road and into the ditch.

War in space?

The top U.S. Air Force General has predicted future attacks on our satellites in orbit and has called for a program that allows us to guard them by making sure foreign governments' launches aren't threatening. The general's name is Chilton. Where have I heard that name before?

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

Baghdad's population is about half that of Los Angeles. In attacks on a Shiite area of the city yesterday, 62 people were killed and about 140 injured by bombs and rockets launched from somewhere inside the city limits. Can you imagine the headlines in the LA Times, or, for that matter, any US paper if such a thing happened in LA or any major US city? We'd be inundated with reports on CNN and Faux News about the battle, and, believe me, they'd find a phrase for it. If not civil war, it would surely be labeled something catchy. The city wouldn't be called "restive" or "troubled" or "in transition," that's for sure.

It's absolutely clear to me

Based on this AP story about the questions our troops in Iraq are asking their commanders, questions about the legitimacy and efficacy of the US military mission, that what we need to do is to make it crystal clear to our troops that our continued presence there is counterproductive, is enflaming the very people we're supposed to be helping. We need to grow louder in our message to get out of Iraq now. Now! Not one more death at our hands, not one more death of our troops. Not one more!

We must have been getting to them

Our repeated references to the Bush/Cheney regime as fascist has finally caused Rove to preempt the word fascist, inserting it in in the form of "Islamofascists," in Bush's latest speeches. Damn. The MSM has glommed onto the reference now, and so our years of unheeded uses of the word fascist now sound weak and copy-catty. And so it goes.

Unless perhaps we can come up with our own word. "Capitalist-fascist"? Too cumbersome. "Religiofascist"? Better, but it misses the mark. Any ideas?

Okay, I've decided

The ideal ticket, to me, would be Gore/Spitzer in 2008. As to the latter, check out these ads. Powerful stuff. And, I gotta admit, as a fellow windmill-jouster, I've always liked his style as Attorney General of New York.

You can't make this stuff up

American forces busted into a building and arrested five men for alledgedly plotting to kill Iraqi's Prime Minister. Where did this happen, you ask? At the Ministry of Health. And who are these men, you ask? Why, none other than bodyguards for the Minister of Health.