Should I Stay or Should I go?

GWBush wants 58 permanent military bases in Iraq. I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. If you think so too, go here, sign the petition:

When the Bush Administration launched its attack on Iraq in 2003, it assured the American public that the war would be quick, cheap and easy. More than five years into this disastrous war, both Bush and Iraqi officials are negotiating an agreement that could keep the United States as an occupying power in Iraq for another decade - or even longer.

Withdrawing our military from Iraq, while helping rebuild Iraq and assisting refugees, is the just and honorable solution to an unjust war. We reject the idea of committing the United States to a long-term occupation in Iraq, and ask our elected officials to quickly and safely bring our American troops home.

. . . By keeping the U.S.-Iraq agreement in the headlines, the anti-war movement will raise public awareness about President Bush's long-term objectives, and force Barack Obama and John McCain to speak out on the issue. Since the pact jeopardizes the next President's freedom of action in Iraq, Obama and McCain should vigorously oppose President Bush's aggressive negotiations, which reportedly include seeking 58 permanent bases and control of Iraqi airspace.

Isaacs continued: "Obama would bolster his anti-war credentials by highlighting his previously expressed opposition to the agreement."

"McCain undoubtedly regrets saying that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 100 years, but Bush's pact is a first step in that direction. If McCain spoke out against the agreement, he could begin to distance himself from the 100-years gaffe," explained Isaacs.

They must be stopped. They MUST be stopped.

Now he’s opening the closet (closet, closet, closet)

The wonderful folks at the Courage Campaign are trying to, ahem, expose Rep. David Dreier (R-Closet) and his abject and unwavering fealty to GWBush:

And George W. Bush's rubber stamp is...

Congressman David Dreier.

Help us expose David Dreier's rubber-stamp record. Watch our "Bush Rubber Stamp" ad and contribute to get it up on the air in the 26th congressional district.

Not a lot of people know it, but Congressman David Dreier has voted with George W. Bush approximately 93.6% of the time. On the most important issues of our time, he has been a rubber stamp for the Bush Administration, voting for Dick Cheney's energy bill, Bush's war in Iraq and, inexplicably, against education benefits for the soldiers he sent to fight in it.

No matter where you live in California -- and no matter whether or not you live in his district -- you have the power to hold David Dreier accountable today. That's why we're launching a provocative new TV ad today to get the truth out to as many people as possible.

We have spent a lot of time in this Congressman's district, conducting focus groups and constituent research to understand how citizens view him. The results? Once people find out about their Congressman's consistent, deep support for President Bush, their opinion of him changes significantly.

Of course, they'd like a contribution for their TV ad campaign to help yank this guy out of the closet district he's held since 1981.

Here's a preview of their great new web site: BushRubberStamp.com:

You may be surprised to know that -- according to Congressional Quarterly -- from 2001 to 2007 David Dreier voted with George W. Bush's agenda approximately 93.6% of the time. Not only is this out of step with the values of California's 26th Congressional District, but it is completely contrary to the "moderate, independent" image that Dreier has slickly crafted for the last 28 years.

Go here to see Dreier's awful record.

Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap

Kevin Drum is a smart guy, and I don't disagree with him lightly. (Note: he also always brings beer to the party). That said, he's wrong here:

I agree that the David Broders of the world have been far too sanguine about the abuses of the Bush administration. At the same time, the difference here really is pretty obvious. Nixon broke the law repeatedly for purely political purposes: to help his friends, punish his enemies, and keep tabs on domestic groups he happened to personally dislike. There was no ideological dispute about the value of what Nixon did: once it became clear that he had actually done the stuff he was accused of, liberals and conservatives alike agreed that he had to go.

Obviously that's not the case this time around. So far, anyway, there's no evidence that George Bush has done anything wrong for purely venal purposes. He approved torture of prisoners and violated FISA because he genuinely thought it was necessary for national security reasons after 9/11 . . .

Thing is, he did start unlawful surveillance of Americans before 9/11:

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

GWBushCo's interest in wiretapping was to further a Big Brother agenda, an Orwellian scheme to collect data on everyone, to identify alleged enemies, foreign and domestic. And it started at the beginning of his administration, and was deemed OK by Cheney, and later Gonzales, et al.

That people who call themselves conservative would align themselves to this agenda is unforgivable. Totalitarian, Fascist, take your pick. But not Conservative. I wonder what Barry Goldwater would have thought. Of course, he would be accused by these idiots of having a pre-9/11 mentality.

Is GWBush venal? No, not in the sense that Merriam-Webster says:

• 1: capable of being bought or obtained for money or other valuable consideration : purchasable; especially : open to corrupt influence and especially bribery : mercenary venal legislator>
• 2: originating in, characterized by, or associated with corrupt bribery venal arrangement with the police>

But is he committed to a vision of America that seems pretty awful, maybe even evil?

Of that I'm pretty sure.

Bastard.

I eat alone in the desert, With skulls for my pets

Aw, crap. Sy Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, says that:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.

. . .Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

. . . Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

God dammit to Hell! I'm not going to ask any more what's wrong with GWBushCo and his advisors. Clearly they're hell-bent on attempting regime change and world domination, regardless of whether that's immoral or even feasible.

But what's wrong with the House & Senate Democratic leadership? As Feingold said just the other day, "It is a capitulation".

But it turns out that there is dissent within the administration. Hersh continues:

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.”

I'm not sure what that means, except that it may be Gates telling the Democrats to grow a pair, and stop his idiot boss and his bloodthirsty gang of advisers.

We'll see how that works out. I'm not optimistic. Meanwhile, read the whole article. It's 7 pretty depressing pages.

Shouldve realised you know what I know

I have major issues with lies and liars - All the way from so-called 'little white lies' up to egregious canards, the whole gamut of prevarication sickens me.

There are myriad reasons for this: As a parent, I endeavor to raise my children as I was raised...to be factual and take the narrower high road in order to develop and enhance one's character, avoiding the cheap allure of a convenient fib told out of shame.

As a person who lives by my word and wishes to be deemed worthy of respect among the circles of society which I travel in, the surest route to a perception of facetious dilettantism on my part would be deliberately self-serving misstatements of fact which any thinking person could easily check and disprove at the expense of my reputation.

And as someone who greatly values honesty in my relationships there is nothing more worthless than deceit, whether offhandedly casual or a more studied maliciousness.
My first marriage lies in a mouldering grave over such calumny.

Now, I have known that open candor and factual discourse on the issues has not been a reliable companion of the Bush administration for quite some time, and thus I cannot profess to be too shocked by the latest revelations regarding their batting average with the truth, but I must say I am impressed with their consistent attempts at mendacity.

They never tell the truth if they can help it...A veritable forest of mendacious mirrors, created for the most base reasons and adhered to brazenly and insouciantly with the whole world watching.

Unfortunately for a well-worn excuse, I don't accept the premise that society needs to be protected from the common truth by its leaders.
Too often and too easily, this excuse is used by advocates of the status quo to cover up unpleasant realities and maintain power and a series of fictions at a greater civilization's expense.

And thus, if there is one lesson I can impart to my American friends and to the world at large, one small bit of wisdom to share without an assignation of scorn or belittlement, it is this:

Liars always lie.
Don't believe them.
Never trust them.
And truth is the best disinfectant for the virus they harbor.

Drop your bombs between the minarets

Now confident that Iraq will be a disaster the next administration will have to repair, GWBush has set his sights a little further west, but still in the Middle East:

US President George W. Bush is an optimist. That's why he's visiting the Middle East this week in order to speed up the peace process that he started in Annapolis (more...) at the end of 2007.

He wants to use the 12 months left to him in the White House to solve the 60-year-old Middle East conflict, he says, and he gushes bravely about a two-state solution -- with Israel and Palestine living in harmony, side by side.

But during his visit, which ends Friday, he has achieved exactly the opposite. Instead of bridging the divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he has made it wider. Neither has he accelerated the peace process. Instead, he has merely managed to make it more difficult. On the red carpet that was laid out for him in the Holy Land, he has managed to bury the Palestinian state before it was even born.

Like Custer at The Little Big Horn, he insists on doing it his way, never mind that his was is the way of an idiot:

Speaking at Abbas' side, Bush said that he was confident that "with proper help, the state of Palestine will emerge." Sources close to the negotiations said that Bush had offered to visit the region again if this was required to give the peace process fresh impetus. And the White House also announced on Thursday that Bush had named Lt. Gen. William Fraser as his envoy to monitor the Israeli-Palestinian "road map" peace plan.

. . . By pointing out Abbas' shortcomings in public, Bush has made him even weaker. There were admittedly friendly words when Abbas received Bush in Ramallah on Thursday. In order to avoid offending Bush, Abbas even eschewed the Russian fur hat he usually wears when it is cold.

But Abbas is not in a position to fulfill the great expectations that Bush has placed on his shoulders. Since the summer putsch by Hamas in the Gaza Strip when Abbas lost much of his power, the radical Islamists have been steadily building and securing their power in Gaza. All the important functions -- from the police chief through the teachers and up to the most senior judges -- are now occupied by Hamas. For Abbas, this means there can be no return to Gaza. The division of the Palestinian territories in two is irreversible.

Sad. And yet many feel the same will happen in Iraq: Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish regions, or even states, may be the final result of the meddling there

All things must pass . . .

From the priceless darkblack:

...with such smashes as Backed By The U.S.S.R., Imprudence, Bla-Bla-Bla Bla-Bla Bla, While My Oil Well Gently Seeps, Blackbird (Bombing In The Dead Of Night), Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Shredder...

And many, many more!

Indeed!

Like violence you kill me, forever and after

From today's NYTimes, good news!

American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Except this:

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

So Al Qaeda is gone from Baghdad, except for where it isn't. Sadly, the NYTimes reporters don't question this questionable statement.

So I guess this means the troops can start coming home today. Except for the troops left to fix the 13% of Baghdad let in Al Qaeda's hands. Or something. Since we've been told again and again the the true enemy is Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But a recent article in Washington Monthly begs to differ:

In March 2007, a pair of truck bombs tore through the Shiite marketplace in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing more than 150 people. The blast reduced the ancient city center to rubble, leaving body parts and charred vegetables scattered amid pools of blood. It was among the most lethal attacks to date in the five-year-old Iraq War. Within hours, Iraqi officials in Baghdad had pinned the bombing on al-Qaeda, and news reports from Reuters, the BBC, MSNBC, and others carried those remarks around the world. An Internet posting by the terrorist group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) took credit for the destruction. Within a few days, U.S. Army General David Petraeus publicly blamed AQI for the carnage, accusing the group of trying to foment sectarian violence and ignite a civil war. Back in Washington, pundits latched on to the attack with special interest, as President Bush had previously touted a period of calm in Tal Afar as evidence that the military's retooled counterinsurgency doctrine was working. For days, reporters and bloggers debated whether the attacks signaled a "resurgence" of al-Qaeda in the city.

Yet there's reason to doubt that AQI had any role in the bombing. In the weeks before the attack, sectarian tensions had been simmering after a local Sunni woman told Al Jazeera television that she had been gang-raped by a group of Shiite Iraqi army soldiers. Multiple insurgent groups called for violence to avenge the woman's honor. Immediately after the blast, some in uniform expressed doubts about al-Qaeda's alleged role and suggested that homegrown sectarian strife was more likely at work. "It's really not al-Qaeda who has infiltrated so much as the fact [of] what happened in 2003," said Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the Naval War College who served as an Army political adviser to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar until shortly before the bombing. "The formerly dominant Sunni Turkmen majority there," he told PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer soon after the bombing, "suddenly ... felt themselves having been thrown out of power. And this is essentially their revenge."

Clearly AQI is the current boogeyman, propped up as the poster boys for the Global War On Whateverthehellwe'refighting™, and referred to by GWBush, Condi Rice, Cheney, and all other government mouthpieces. And since Maj. Gen. Fil has declared Baghdad to be somewhat AQI-free, that means the war is over no?

Um, no. And violence isn't really down, either:

First of all, the assertion that US troop deaths have fallen is extremely misleading. In fact, It is only late October and already more US troops were killed in Iraq in 2007 than in all of 2006. Indeed, 2007 will almost certainly hold the record for the year of the most US military deaths since the war began.

According to the Iraq Casualties Site, these are the yearly numbers of death of US military personnel in Iraq:

Year US Deaths
2003 486
2004 849
2005 846
2006 822
2007 832

Damn this damn war. Damn GWBush.

Torture me with sorcery, it's forcin' me so torture me

(image h/t to One Utah)

John Kerry, who was actually in combat and, some say, shot at and wounded, has this to say about "Waterboard" Mukasey:

"Judge Mukasey’s refusal to classify the barbaric practice of waterboarding as torture waves a red flag about his nomination to serve an Administration that has adhered to the Cheney doctrine on executive power and torture. I am not comfortable confirming anyone who cannot see that this method of interrogation is antithetical to American values and traditions – especially not to a position that is charged with representing our entire justice system. We need to reestablish faith in the Department of Justice.

“Many of us wanted to believe that Judge Mukasey could undo the damage of the Gonzales years. Unfortunately his lack of candor and his refusal to acknowledge this abuse of power suggest he is unable or unwilling to do so, and this is why I will be opposing Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States."

Damn straight.

Of course, even though Mukasey is supposed to be the Top Legal Officer in All The Land™, he's really just a beard:

Mukasey is not a free agent. He had been strictly briefed and in his testimony was following orders. He has avoided calling waterboarding torture because that is consistent with the administration's position and past practice. Mukasey's refusal to disavow waterboarding reveals his acceptance of his assignment to a secondary role as attorney general, an inferior agent, not a constitutional officer, to certain political appointees in the White House.

Those who are responsible for waterboarding have defined and dictated Mukasey's evasions. His acquiescence demonstrates that no one in his position could take a contrary view to that of David Addington, Vice President Cheney's former counsel and now chief of staff, who directed and coauthored the infamous memos by former deputy assistant director of the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo justifying torture, and charged the current acting director of OLC, Stephen Bradbury, to issue new memos rationalizing it.

So Mukasey is the public face of the administration's unconstitutional torture policy, appointed to rubber-stamp Addington's and Cheney's evil fantasies of playing Jack Bauer.

Or, as commenter Fluffy writes at Lawyers, Guns, and Money:

TR wasn't masculine for the simple reason that he wasn't a man. He was a boy.

All "national greatness" types are essentially adolescent boys.

That's because they don't really dream of national greatness. They dream of personal greatness, with greatness being defined as being the star of their own comic book. I don't think you can underestimate the impact of the "Buffalo Bill" style popular culture of newspapers and pulp magazines in the second half of the 19th century, and their role in producing Hemingwayesque personalities like TR and, well, like Hemingway himself.

They wanted to grow up and have people write pulp stories about them, like the stories they read about Custer and Wyatt Earp. All of the rest of it is rationalization to that end.

Indeed.

Bastards.

His killing had no purpose, no reason, no rhyme

What with all the attention payed to Britney's child custody issues, an important issue seems to have been forgotten lately:

As of Monday, Oct. 29, 2007, at least 3,840 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 3,129 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

But I guess that's not as important as Hillary's cackle, or . . . whatever.

The Defense Department last week identified the following U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan, Bahrain and Iraq:

Joshua C. Brennan, 22, of Ontario, Ore.; sergeant, Army. Brennan died Friday in Asadabad, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered a day earlier when his unit was attacked with a rocket- propelled grenade and small-arms fire in Korengal Valley, east of Kabul. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.

Anamarie San Nicolas Camacho, 20, of Panama City, Fla.; seaman, Navy. She was one of two sailors shot to death Monday in their barracks in Bahrain, allegedly by a male sailor who apparently also shot himself. The suspect was in critical condition. Camacho was assigned to U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

Adam Chitjian, 39, of Philadelphia; private first class, Army. Chitjian was killed Thursday when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Balad, Iraq, north of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Genesia Mattril Gresham, 19, of Lithonia, Ga.; seaman, Navy. She was one of two sailors shot to death Monday in their barracks in Bahrain, allegedly by a male sailor who apparently also shot himself. The suspect was in critical condition. Gresham was assigned to U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

David E. Lambert, 39, of Cedar Bluff, Va.; specialist, Army National Guard. Lambert was killed Friday when an improvised explosive device detonated near him in Baghdad. He was assigned to the 237th Engineer Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, 91st Troop Command in Blackstone, Va.

Hugo V. Mendoza, 29, of Glendale, Ariz.; specialist, Army. He was killed Thursday when his unit was attacked with a rocket- propelled grenade and small-arms fire in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, east of Kabul. Mendoza was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.

Edward Philpot, 38, of Latta, S.C.; sergeant, Army National Guard. Philpot was killed Tuesday when the Humvee in which he was riding overturned in a noncombat- related accident near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 263rd Armor Regiment in Dillon, S.C.

Larry I. Rougle, 25, of West Jordan, Utah; staff sergeant, Army. Rougle was killed Tuesday when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire near Sawtalo Sar mountain in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.

Robin L. Towns Sr., 52, of Upper Marlboro, Md.; staff sergeant, Army National Guard. Towns was killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee in Baiji, Iraq, north of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 275th Military Police Company, 372nd Military Police Battalion in Washington, D.C.

Know what you have in common with these people? Everything.