Speaking out

We are an occupying force in Iraq, licensed by its "government" to roam at will, attack at will, to defeat the "insurgency." Our forces have leveled Fallujah, Tal Afar, Ramadi, many other Sunni-dominated cities. Now, we learn, that as a proximate result of these sieges the residents were starved and, no doubt, suffered from lack of water and medical attention.

Now a national referendum is being held, and the Sunnis are being urged to vote. Really? Will they at least be promised food, water and shelter in their major cities?

What a cruel joke this is, this charade of democracy. I'm ashamed of us for allowing our nation to do this, because we as midlife adults were at the helm when this monstrous regime took over the three branches of our government. It's time, citizens, to take back our nation.

Sickening

I have two reactions to this report by CNN of Bush's teleconference with soldiers in Iraq. First, it sickens me. Frightens me, actually. Reminds me of Hitler chucking the cheeks of Nazi youth before sending them off to war.

Second: Good for CNN, to tell it like it is. Its content, much less its headline of the story, wouldn't have made it onto Goebbel's broadcast of the event.

Worst president ever

Okay, I don't know how bad the U.S. fared under Andrew Johnson or Millard Fillmore or the like, but I gotta tell ya, from my early learning in American history I can't recall any administration that got us into a war and after two and a half years was still urging us to "stay the course" against an insurgency that was killing our troops and wreaking havoc in the country we attacked without threat to our nation, and without apparent end.

Oh yeah. Lyndon Johnson.

But Johnson was also the force behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the War on Poverty. Whereas this Texan, this monster, has done us worldwide harm, as Johnson did, and wrecked our interior as well.

We elected him. We're paying for it now. Fuck him. Fuck those who voted for him. And--I don't mind saying it, really--fuck all those American soldiers who are dying in this battle. They signed on, voluntarily, unlike the poor drafted slobs who, unlike me and Clinton and Bush and Cheney and our ilk, found a way to survive Viet Nam.

Our troops and our "independent contractors" in Iraq signed on for this duty and are being paid for it, many with hefty reinlistment bonuses. They're mercenaries, like the Hessians in 1776. I say, you takes your money, you takes your chance.
Fuck 'em, fuck 'em all.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry

over this report that the detainees in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have been allowed to vote in the upcoming referendum (just think if the detainees in Florida's prisons had been allowed to vote in our 2000 Presidential election). But as to the second line of the story, I'm sure. I'm ROFLOL. (For you cyberunliterati, that's "Rolling on the floor, laughing out loud.")

LOL

I haven't had this much fun since, well, since Bush v. Gore was decided.

I hate when that happens

Imagine enlisting for a military obligation that's served far back from the action, in air-conditioned comfort and then this. Ouch.

Dylan rocks

These lyrics, written before the Christian Right took over American politics, and before radical Islam struck on American soil--decades before each--cut too close. What did he see that we didn't?

Maybe the war in Iraq isn't that important

Maybe nothing is, really, after watching this.

I'm exhausted

reading Juan Cole's line-by-line rebuttal of Bush's rant yesterday about Iraq and terror and stuff. But I'm much edified, too.

Elect a madman, you get madness

These numbers--of the escalating cost of the war in Iraq, of the cost to clean up after two hurricanes, of US borrowing and fiscal imbalances--absolutely insane.

Can't anybody--the Republicans, say--do anything about this?

I love when that happens

When the international community, especially my Scandinavian ancestors, slap the US in the face, especially Bush and Bolton.

This is a democracy?

The Iraqi Parliament has made terrorism a capital offense, and has made similarly punishable the act of assisting or concealing a terrorist. Harsh, but not too bad a reaction to the nation's present state, I suppose.

But how's this for the definition of terrorism?: any criminal act against people, institutions or property that "aims to hurt security, stability and national unity and introduce terror, fear or horror among the people and cause chaos" or any "activity threatening to spark sectarian differences or civil war." Furthermore, a terrorist is defined as including anyone who provokes or enables a terrorist to do such things.

So flag-burners, strikers, demonstrators--are they now subject to the death penalty in our new democracy? What about the person who holds the flag pole, hoists a supportive sign in an anti-government demonstration or shouts encouragement to the demonstrators?

Ambivalence

That's my reaction to this report that the UN has taken exception to the Shiites latest move in the Iraq parliament of changing the requirement for defeat of the constitution from 2/3 of those who vote to 2/3 of eligible voters in three provinces, the latter standard making it virtually impossible for the Sunnis to vote it down on October 15. While I certainly agree with the UN position--what an outrage!--I'm coming to the conclusion that approval of the constitution, under either standard, will simply spark a greater civil war.

Link TV

My landlord (landlady, actually) has blessed my rental unit with Direct TV, which is an astoundingly confusing service, but it does provide me with a powerful benefit: access to LinkTV. This is a viewer-supported channel available on Dish TV and Direct TV and I gotta say, it's bitchin'. Right now I'm watching "Bush's Brain" and next up is a documentary on Paul Wellstone. You get the drift.

Gotta go now, wanna watch.

Read it and weep

Riverbend has posted today on her efforts (her latest efforts, because her earlier posts were heroic) to understand the upcoming vote on the constitution--what the document said and meant in real terms. But now, she has revealed, in a desperately sad post, the reality of the political process in Iraq.

Back in the USSA

In Iraq, as in the US, the people in power create the rules, resulting in Bush's election in 2000 and (probably) in 2004. In Iraq, it's the Shiites who rule and they've just changed them to ensure that the Sunnis can't defeat the referendum on the constitution by interpreting the interim constitution to require that it be defeated by 2/3 of the voters in 3 provinces, that is 2/3 of the registered voters, not 2/3 of those who vote. Imagine the difference: In the U.S., for example, it would be impossible for 2/3 of the registered voters to agree on anything because of the low percentage of those who register who actually vote.

The Iraqi constitution, if it should be adopted, will be entirely bogus, just as the Bushies, through their operative, Tribune Bremer (author of the interim constitution) envisioned.

You can't make this stuff up

Isn't this KBR, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, the same company that just got another huge no-bid contract to repair Katrina's damage to Navy facilities in New Orleans? Where the hell is Congress in all of this?

Neo-Cons vs. Neo-Salafis

Bush, another fine mess you've got us into. Now, a radical Muslim sect that sounds like Islam's version of the Christian Right in the U.S. has taken to bombing Shiites, focusing on Iraqi civilians, seeking civil war for its own sake. Our invasion has apparently swelled their numbers, giving them a cause and breeding discontent among the arab Sunni population.

The Congress should be so diligent

as the Iraq Parliament, which has refused to vote on an annual budget until it learns the details of the squandering of money and corruption of the previously-spent funds.

Ya know, you've gotta feel for those folks, trying to do the right thing under the gun of our occupying forces. Makes you weep for liberty, doesn't it? Makes you ask, Why the hell don't we get out, just leave them alone and maybe they'll survive as a viable nation. Maybe we will too.

Well, duh

The Bushite State Department has decided to delay imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia for its ongoing violations of an international agreement calling for improving religious freedoms within its borders.