Saturday, November 25, 2006

Iraq: When is the US getting out?

The investment in permanent military bases is massive. I can't quote a$ figure in what has been directly spent by the US Government on these bases, but they are like small US cities, with facilities to match. Similarly re. the new US Embassy in Baghdad: this covers an area larger than the Vatican. We are not about to quit Iraq, leaving these multi $10s of billion facilities to the insurgents. We are staying there, probably permanently. I feel that the length of the war is directly related to the length of the occupation: without the US military occupation as a focal point for all the insurgent groups, they would instead turn increasingly on each other.. with a period of utter chaos (as if what is happening now isn' t just that).. and out the power vacuum would rise a Saddam Hussein-like strongarm (dictator)... and we would all be back to square one. No democracy for Iraq, but at least relative stability.

I wish the US government and media had taken the anti-war movement in 2002 and early 2003 seriously. Their dire predictions were spot on: Everything that they were warning against has taken place, and is taking place as we write....and even worse. The endless parade of Bush Administration officials, defense analysts, high ranking military personnel and (neo)conservative commentators who had a perpetual free lunch with the mainstream US media in the build-up to the war were absolutely pathetic. They got everything wrong; totally and utterly, 100% wrong. Their analyses were pie-in-the-sky fantasies of Lewis Carroll proportions that any 16 year old with half a brain, and a bit of a handle on human nature, could have seen through.....

There is no answer to this conundrum, when all parties are paranoid of being seen as losing. Nobody in power in D.C. is going to be looking for a real answer in the near future. The recent switch-over of power in Congress from GOP to Democrat will tell all. My take is that the GOP will take full advantage of what will be the Congressional Democrats' utter inability to deal with Iraq effectively. The GOP don't/didnt have the will, and the Dems do not have the spine. Sure they will pretend to make it appear as if they are trying to take some responsibility.... and people will be taken in...

The only way this nightmare will end... is when the (largely unrepresented) US public gets aware enough, and so angry with the continuing astronomical waste of taxpayer funds, and human life, that they take matters into their own hands.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Another Lebanese Assassination....

This time, its the turn of Pierre Gemayal, the anti-Syrian Industry minister. Think back to the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Who got the blame for that? Syria. How much evidence was there that Syria was involved? Zero, apart from conspiracy theories spread by enemies of Syria, involving secret tunnels, remote controlled detonators, pre-knowledge by the Syrian authorities etc. etc. none of which in existed in reality. The murder weapon was a car-bomb, and the assassin (or one of them) was Ahmed Adas, a 24-year-old Palestinian refugee living in the poor Beirut neighborhood of Tarik Jadida. and was a member of an unknown jihadist group,"Advocacy and Holy War in the Levant".

Regarding this latest atrocity: Who is getting the blame this time around in Lebanon itself: Hezbollah and Syria. Their rivals in the region will link Gemayel's killing to Damascus, by default, and this will be backed up by Washington, by default. The administration of Bashar al-Assad is a pretty unsavory bunch of thugs, but they are not so stupid and politically naive enough to go pulling cheap stunts like these... being fully aware of the obvious outcome. Logically, the most likely perpetrators, in both cases are enemies of Syria.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Murdoch versus Simpson: Scumbags United!

It really goes without saying that anyone with somewhere near half a brain knows that O. J. Simpson had some part to play in the murder of his ex-wife and her friend, back in the mid 1990s. He might even have been the one who wielded the murder weapon. Now, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, just at the point when one thought that human beings could not descend to greater depths of depravity and bottom feeding, surpasses even his own extraordinary standards of plumbing the abyss, all for the sake of his jungle law standard of ethics and anti-humanity. To sponsor a double murderer in what is seen as a smug "confession", but laced with a "haha...tried me once, can't get me now, suckers..." is really the ultimate example of scouring the bottom of the parrot's cage for the sake of accumulating more almighty dollars.

What does Mr. Murdoch want to prove from this bizarre and perverted exercise? Is he trying to prove to the world that when it comes to the race to be the world's biggest sleazebag, he is the worthy winner of the gold medal? Surely he doesn't need or even want another yacht, mansion or Rolls Royce.. that kinda swag gets old after awhile. Does he just want some extra cash in order to eat up another perfectly decent business in his effort to destroy the essence of free enterprise in media by relentless monopoly building? No, I don't really think it's anything like that: Murdoch can afford to buy a few entire cities if he wanted to, just from the annual interest from his investments. No, for him, this life is a shallow game, borne about by a condition of the mind that renders its sufferer incapable of feeling empathy with ordinary humans, in which he just plays them, like so many inanimate pieces on a board game, manipulating them, moving them, using them and eventually wasting them. To Murdoch, O.J. Simpson is just another chip on his monopoly board, and just this once, he has almost found his match, when it comes to human dregs.

"Almost" being the operative word.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The people spoke. Well, about HALF of them did!

I have to admit to being somewhat relieved. I don't want to gloat, as I remain very skeptical that the Democrats are finally going to grow a spine. However, I am so sick and tired, of being sick and tired, of the sick and tired people who are ruining the country and the world, that just a little hint of a change away from encroaching fascism, is a welcome relief. It's like we are in a hurricane, and one of the fiercer squalls has just eased up; are we to enter a relatively calmer region between rain bands?

The whole world, apart from organized crime networks, corrupt big business and terrorist groups (the main beneficiaries of the Bush Administration's disastrous and destructive policies), is going "phew" right now. However, let is not bank on anything, and lets not get complacent. Yes, Rumsfeld resigned. Big deal. The Neocons, such as Richard Perle, now divorce themselves from their own policy set that brought on the Iraq war and civil rights and liberties restrictions (etc etc) enabled by the 9/11 attacks. But there is so much work to do, in uncovering the solutions to awful crimes and answering some very difficult questions... and I remain skeptical that the Democrats under Speaker Pelosi will have the courage to do what is necessary. America grew up, painfully, on 9/11/2001, and now we must be able to handle the nastier-tasting adult medicine, rather than the fruit flavored kiddy stuff.

(1) Articles of impeachment against President Bush, VP Cheney and others must be enacted. Listen up, Nancy Pelosi! Do it!
(2) A full truly independent inquiry into the 9/11 attacks must be held, with no holds barred.

America's future standing in the world depends upon openness and transparency of government. Are the Democrats, and moderate Republicans, capable of such?

Monday, November 06, 2006

Saddam Death Penalty

So Saddam gets the death penalty. If he deserved his punishment, then so do all the people who enabled his crimes, as accessories both before and after the fact. In many legal systems, accessory before the fact is punishable by a similar sentence as the principal offender. If there was any true justice, Saddam's supporters and enablers would get their day in court as well... but we all know who they are (senior officials in the Reagan, Bush Senior and current Bush administrations), and that they are insulated from the requirements of the law.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Devolution towards fascism in the U.S., (continued)

Good heavens. I don't know how much truth there is in this kind of threat; it does bear watching, with both alarm but also a healthy dose of skepticism.

It does looks odd, on the surface at least. The US makes huge revenue from the tourist industry, and this legislation, if it does exist, given widespread publicity, would make a great many people uneasy about visiting the US. I imagine that the huge majority of Americans would be pissed (royally so), if they were to read about kangaroo court laws of this variety. What sort of people support this sort of legislation? And if so, what would be the justification for that support?

This is a counterproductive type of measure, if it indeed exists. The only way this sort of measure could ever be brought into play, and accepted without vigorous protest by the general public, would be another very large terrorist attack in the US. Dare one suggest that HSA "expects" an incident like this, and the law has already been prewritten to go into effect when the public will accept it? After all, that is exactly what happened with the "Patriot" Act... the bulk of which was drafted several months before the September 11 attacks, but never saw the light of day until a week or afterwards.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

John Kerry: Weasel.

So few people in Congress understand that the insurgency exists largely because of the presence of a hostile, foreign occupying force. There will always be violence in Iraq as long as US troops remain there. Congress just don't seem to understand that the vast majority of the Iraqi people, (as opposed to the puppet government), want US/coalition troops out of Iraq, now or very soon. You can bet that if more Congressmen and Senators had kids who are over there in harm's way, there would be a different take on the Iraq fiasco in DC now. As it happens, out of the 100 Senators and 435 Repesentatives, only 3 have children who are serving there. Senator Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), and Representatives Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) and Duncan Hunter (R-California).

Kerry's comment about "being stuck in Iraq" was a stark warning to all those who do not complete their education. He was referring to the NeoCon's abuse of the US military, who are over there in Iraq, fighting not for America, but as a private security force, paid for by the US taxpayer, for and on behalf of multinational corporations well connected with the Bush Administration. Many are there, getting killed and maimed because they come from poorer, disproportionately black, latino and working class white families, who do not/did not have access to the same standard of education as wealthier folk, and many of whom would be out of work, or working two or three minimum wage jobs just to pay the bills, had they not enlisted in the military.

John Kerry: "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

Senator Kerry was correct. If "you don't complete your education, the only job open to you that pays better than $5-50 per hour will be in the military, as cannon fodder for big business. He wasn't insulting any troops, even though it was cynically spun that way. And now Kerry, in true Election 2004 form, apologized, needlessly. What a wimpy, spineless weasel. He should have used the opportunity to explain to the troops exactly why they are "stuck in Iraq", and blast the insane and counterproductive foreign policy program that put them there in the first place.

Right now, the troops have no clue "why they are in Iraq". >80% say they are there to avenge 9/11, which was perpetrated by Saddam Hussein (!). Why are they so misinformed and ignorant about the campaign in which they are risking their lives and limbs? One reason is that the only television/media they are allowed to receive is Rupert Murdoch's FOX Channel.

Kerry should leave politics now. Not for what he first said, but for appeasing the warmongers.