skippy
Sailor
Steve Gilliard at FireDogLake .
we have often maintained that the military is not the problem; it's the politicians who make the wars. the military are the ones that clean up the mess the politicians make.
please take a moment to think of those who had died fighting for this country. take a moment to think of those who, unless a miracle of miracle happens, will die on the sands of iraq at politician's behest.
I also used this piece from Sir Herbert Read titled "Bombing Casualties in Spain":Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Dolls' faces are rosier but these were children
their eyes not glass but gleaming gristle
dark lenses in whose quicksilvery glances
the sunlight quivered. These blenched lips
were warm once and bright with blood
but blood
held in a moist bleb of flesh
not spilt and spatter'd in touseled hair.In these shadowy tresses
red petals did not always
thus clot and blacken to a scar.These are dead faces:
They are laid out in ranks
wasps' nests are not more wanly waxen
wood embers not so grely ashen.
like paper lanterns that have fallen
after a night of riot
extinct in the dry morning air.
THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE past six years has been the White House’s ongoing inability to express the rationale for the so-called war on terror. For most of you reading this site, the rationale is obvious and well known: There exists an enormous segment of the Muslim world that seeks our destruction. Either we transform our malefactors, or the world’s fate will be unimaginably horrific.
This is a long war, and yet leading Republicans including the one in the White House have yet to articulate why it’s necessary. On the campaign trail, only Rick Santorum embraced the challenges that our country faces. Our other candidates and especially the Liddy Dole-led RSCC weren’t worthy of the era.
In the war of ideas, the White House has also been a disappointment. The president has never clearly acknowledged the stakes or even who our enemy is. At no point has President Bush called for sacrifice, or even encouraged more young people to join the military.
Jeebus. I know life in a bubble can be isolated, even constrained, but where has Dean been the last 4 years?
Bush said if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, insurgents would "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against nonradical Muslim governments."
Bush: Our agenda, in contrast, is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. And by removing a source of terrorist violence and instability in the Middle East, we also make our own country more secure.
Invoking the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush on Tuesday cast the war in Iraq as the modern-day moral equivalent of the struggle against Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism in World War II, arguing that the United States cannot retreat without disastrous consequences.
President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
Was it out and out hubris that kept the President from firing Rumsfeld before the election? Wouldn’t firing him have signaled a “change in course” and knocked the chocks from underneath the Democratic critique of “stay the course?” Did the President’s stubbornness and overweening pride prevent him from appearing to give in to his political opponents before an election?I may be very tired and not reading this correctly but what this says to me is that Bush cared more about his personal standing than he did the party. The fact that he said a week ago that Rumsfeld would be his Secretary of Defense till the end of his term probably played a role in waiting until after the election. But firing Rumsfeld now rather than last week (or last month for that matter) just doesn’t make any sense to me.
No, of course it wouldn't. Because it would be totally impossible for Bush to care about THE FREAKIN' COUNTRY instead of either the Party or his standing.
And yet, somehow, Rick seems to be based, at least this time, in reality:
One could go on and on asking questions about the disastrous decisions Rumsfeld has made in the three plus years of this war. But it was his relentless, upbeat, assessments of “progress” in Iraq that called into question the man’s ultimate fitness for the office. Admitting no mistakes. Allowing for no bad news. The constant “glass is half full” press briefings got so wearing that I simply stopped watching and listening when he came on.
I am not calling into question his integrity. I am criticizing his competence. And given the situation in Iraq and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, his failures are there for the whole world to see.
Gates, a CIA vet and card carrying member of the military industrial complex (a joke my friends. He’s a Washington defense/foreign policy insider) is a fair choice but I would have preferred a Sam Nunn or some other old, wise man who could have ridden herd on both the Generals and the bureaucracy by virtue of their reputation. And naming a Democrat would not have been a bad move by the President following the election results yesterday.
We’ll see. In the meantime, Iraq continues to bleed. Our soldiers continue to die. And whatever would constitute a “victory” in Iraq seems to be slipping away.
Thing is, dude, this is again, full strength, your war. The one you wanted, prayed for, burned incense and waved a dead chicken for:
You said you'd never compromiseIdiot.
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
. . .Senator Santorum is now available for a seat on the SCOTUS should one become available.
In the last two days of reported contributions, we find several of the usual suspects, belatedly giving the maximum of $22,300 to Arnold's campaign. It's in their corporate interest to go with the winner. But who's this humble self-described housewife, Paulette Delgado, also forking over $22,300?Big Contributions Hypocrisy:
It takes a little digging, but a cross-check of addresses indicates she's Paulette Delgado Matich, wife of Stephen Matich, president of the family-owned Matich construction and development corporation. It's one of the companies that stands to profit handsomely from the governor's multi-billion-dollar package of transportation, water and housing bonds on Tuesday's ballot. Arnold also named Mr. Matich this year to the state Contractor's License Board.
The special interest cash keeps rolling in to Arnold's campaign committees... He has now taken $103,994,221, which is part of the reason more than half of Californians believe, according to Wednesday's Field Poll, that the Gov has not reduced special interest influence in the Capitol. Remember this Arnold quote from his Recall campaign?
"Any of those kinds of real big, powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something."
Millions of entertainment industry dollars are flowing in from Hollywood ($6 million total and over $150K in the last two weeks), and the financial industry ($12.5 million), and the construction, real estate & development industries (over $16 million combined) continue to lavish Arnold with cash. No doubt they all want the Gov to lavish them with fat infrastructure bond contracts in return for their political investment.
And, as if the almost $104 million in special interest money that Arnold has acknowledged accepting wasn't enough, the LA Times and Sacramento Bee report that there is still more corporate cash coming in under the radar through the Gov's affiliated nonprofit groups.
(State Senator Sheila Kuehl:) The reasoning behind the Governor’s opposition to universal health care is truly innacurate, which is no surprise considering he has refused to meet to discuss the issue. If the Governor took a thoughtful look at SB 840 he would see that delivery of health care would remain exactly as it now is, public or private. The main difference is that under SB 840 every Californian would have been able to choose their own doctors and hospitals and there would have been no unreimbursed care.
Today, the National Stonewall Democrats (NSD) condemned Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his decision to veto California Assembly Bill 849, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act.Paid-for-Legislation:The Office of the Governor issued a statement detailing the Governor’s planned veto. Schwarzenegger becomes the first Governor in American history to veto equal rights legislation that would have granted marriage equality to same-sex couples.
. . .
In March of 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger promised Californians that he would enact legislation granting marriage equality to same-sex couples if it was passed by the California legislature.
One of these contributors, according to an investigation conducted by the FTCR is Roland Arnall, co-chair of the board at Ameriquest Capital Corporation, a company that is being investigated for a range of corporate crimes from fraud to bait-and-switch sales tactics in 25 states. Arnall and his company, says FTCR, have alone given over $1.2 million.
For now, California law enforcement officials are still deciding whether or not to investigate Arnall and Ameriquest "for predatory lending practices." Ameriquest also donated $250,000 to President Bush's inaugural celebrations fund.
Another major individual contributor to Arnold's campaign is real estate and development mogul, David Murdock, who is owner of Castle & Cook and CEO of Dole Foods. Together, Murdock and his companies have handed over $352,000 to the governor hoping to get him to block changes to state property tax rules that would require corporate landowners to pay their fair share of property taxes.
Consumer advocates estimate that closing such corporate property tax loopholes could add an estimated $5 billion to a state treasury overburdened by deficits.
Meanwhile, supporters of Proposition 89, the campaign-finance initiative on the November ballot, attempted to capitalize on the situation by purchasing advertising time during the show. They have produced a 30-second ad that suggests that Schwarzenegger broke his promise to clean out special interests from Sacramento, and scheduled it to run in Monterey, Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara during the show.
Schwarzenegger is setting two dangerous precedents for education in California. He struck a deal with the California Teacher's Association (CTA) to suspend constitutionally guaranteed K--12 school funding. And he proposed suspending the promise, for the first time in forty years, that every eligible California high school graduate would have a place at the University of California or a California State University. This from the governor who pledged to "work to expand the dream of college."And here's a Slate article from '05:
But with his defiantly immoderate State of the State speech in early January, when he proposed to drastically cut back education and social services in lieu of taxing the rich, Schwarzenegger blindsided liberal Californians with his nakedly Republican agenda.
Saddam Hussein and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim were sentenced Sunday to death by hanging for war crimes in the 1982 killings of 148 people in the town of Dujail.So this is the culmination of the Iraq War: death to the dreaded Saddam.
Dujail was the site of an unsuccessful assassination attempt against then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, on July 8, 1982. The town was a stronghold of the Shiite Daawa party, a group strongly opposed to Saddam Hussein and his war with Iran. Saddam Hussein was visiting the town to make a speech praising those who had served Iraq in the fight against Iran. While driving through the village centre, his motorcade was attacked by one or more members of the Daawa party. The president was unharmed in the three hour firefight which ensued.
Saddam Hussein allegedly ordered his special security and military forces to carry out a reprisal attack against the town. His orders were obeyed. A total 150 of the town's men were killed in the attack or executed later, a number of which were boys 13 years of age. 1,500 people were also incarcerated and tortured, while other residents, many of them women and children, were sent to desert camps. Saddam's regime destroyed the town and then rebuilt it shortly after. In addition to these punishments, 1,000 square kilometres (250,000 acres) of farmland was destroyed; replanting was only permitted 10 years later.
A resident of Dujail recalled the incident at Hussein's trial in December 2005, stating that he had witnessed Baathist torture and murder in the government reprisal, including the murders of 7 of his 10 brothers.
The U.S. and its allies preferred to turn a blind eye and use Saddam's "services" against Iran, which became a bitter rival in 1979, under Khomeini's regime. The Americans even claimed that the Shiite Daawa people were agents of the Iranian intelligence, and accused them of bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait a year after the Dujail massacre.
Right. And consider this history:
In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces. He rapidly became the strongman of the government. At the time Saddam was considered an enemy of communism and radical Islamism. Saddam was integral to U.S. policy in the region, a policy which sought to weaken the influence of Iran and the Soviet Union. As Iraq's weak and elderly President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became increasingly unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto ruler of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon gained a powerful circle of support within the party.
And this bit of history:
Iraq invaded Iran by attacking Mehrabad Airport of Tehran and entering the oil-rich Iranian land of Khuzestan, which also has a sizeable Arab minority, on September 22, 1980 and declared it a new province of Iraq. The United Nations and the United States supported him with artillery and medical supplies during this time due to the enmity and distrust caused by the Iran hostage crisis.
Don't get me wrong, the Dujail massacre was horrible thing. But is this the event which led to this rhetoric:
In the past few years, I have written often about whether the figure of Saddam Hussein is—or was—a model taken from Hitler, from Stalin, or from some combination of the two. It has occurred to me recently that it can all be put more simply. He is—or was—a reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer. Look in his kitchen drawer, and you will find instruments of torture. Look in his bathroom cabinet, and you will find poisons. Look under his floorboards, and you will find bones and skulls. Look in his flowerbed, and you will stumble over body parts. Look in the rest of the garden, and you will find a substantial piece of a nuclear centrifuge, employed to make weapons of mass destruction.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey warns that Saddam Hussein "poses the same kind of threat to the United States that Hitler posed in Germany in the mid 1930s when the British and the French kept postponing dealing with him in the way that some people are advocating dealing with Saddam how."
Interviewed on the CBS News Early Show, Woolsey added that Saddam is "working hard" to obtain nuclear weapons to go along with Iraq's chemical stockpiles.
For this crime, we sent the country into chaos, civil war, and caused the deaths of 3000+ American soldiers? I want a refund.
