From the mouths of babes...

comes a classic line, at the end of a four-page WaPo article detailing the ineffectiveness and frustrations of American troops' efforts to quell the attacks of the various factions who are feuding in Iraq.

"We haven't done anything here. We'll go for 24 hours and we'll see nothing," said Sgt. Josh Claeson, a radio operator, as he waited with nearly 200 soldiers under the glow of an orange moon for helicopters to Khidr. "Our basic mission here is to drive around and get blown up."

That sound you hear

is another shoe dropping. Actually, it's the sound of the dollar dropping.

For those of us who got it (Iraq) right...

here's some fun, fun reading.

In case you missed it at your local theater

watch it here. I mean, of course, What to Do In a Zombie Attack.

Why do they hate us?

For our freedoms.

I don't get it

Given these numbers, where are the bread riots?

Beyond spin

Yesterday, news items trumpeted headlines like, "US casualties lowest since November," and "US death toll in Iraq declines," and so forth.

Well, check out the numbers for July here and you'll see that the 80 dead GI's is one less than the numbers for the months of February and March; and if you add in the number of other "coalition deaths" the total coalition troops killed (89) is higher than those two months.

Talk about media whores. Will the MSM print anything the government wants them to?

What the hell

is "indirect fire"?

Explain this to me

How can the US giving 30 billion dollars to Israel in military aid while selling 20 billion dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia contribute to world peace?

Wait a minute...

Two posts ago I drew the line. No way I'd support Hillary Clinton. Now, after reading this NYT article about her college-days letters to a friend, I'm having second thoughts. As dry and studied as is much of the quoted language, there does seem to me to be a tiny spark, a blastula of a human being, revealed by her missives.
Maybe by now, in her fifties or sixties, the spark is gone. But it was there once, I think, and it may reappear.

No doubt about it

CNN is the most trusted name in news.

So far, I've decided this about the Democratic candidates for President.

A - B - C.

Tell me something I don't know

This article lays out the reality, namely, that all this talk about "withdrawing from Iraq" masks the fact that the US military is in Iraq to stay. There may be shifts from ground to air, from urban and suburban patrols to huge-base presence, from day-to-day occupation to omnipresent power but make no mistake: When we hear talk about getting out of Iraq from any of the contenders for the White House (except maybe Richardson and definitely Kucinich) it's not really removal of forces, it's realigning of force.

In case you're wondering

why I haven't been posting as often lately, it's because I've grown war-weary, and weary in general. The killing and dying goes on in Iraq, America's empire grinds on, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the planet decays, the injustices continue. All while we congratulate ourselves about new technologies for staging presidential candidate debates, debates that don't change anything, except maybe some TV ratings.

Your tax dollars and mine

are funding America's military forces in Iraq so they can protect garbage collectors.

A growing phenomenon

This story about the new craze for oversized houses in suburbia--McMansions--isn't comforting. Its tone seems to be acquiesent in the trend, although there are countermeasures afoot in some communities. My favorite word in the article: "Garage Mahals."

Now I'm getting pissed off

The US military has apparently cut off all electricity to a part of Baghdad to force its residents to turn over insurgents that, says our military, reside in the district. No electricity in the middle of the summer in Baghdad.

This is precisely what the Nazis did to portions of Warsaw and other occupied cities during World War II--except then it was fuel in wintertime--an utterly forbidden act of "collective punishment," an acknowledged war crime.

The last straw...

or the straw that broke the camel's back. Whatever. This may be it.

The air war

Here's a graph that shows that there's more to the surge than additional boots on the ground.

How do you spell, "War crimes"?

No more Mr. Nice Guy

A few months ago, our little Saturday peace marching group decided to stop chanting "Support the troops, bring them home!" Indeed, a few of us wanted to chant, "Fuck the troops. They're the problem!"

Here's why.