CMoore.com » War

No Surge

Chris — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:55:37 +0000

Though We, the People, are essentially powerless to stop this insane escalation of an idiotic war as perpetuated by an unaccountable authoritarian/Caligula-liite, I cannot stand idly by as the AWOL preznit sends more of your sons and daughters to die in the sands of Iraq.

No Surge.

No McCain/Lieberman magic pony plan.

No Surge.

No Bush/Cheney oedipal dreams of imperial grandeur.

No more.

If you can call your congresscritters to register your opposition to this latest infernal idiocy (which, by the way, is also a precursor to the likely upcoming naval and air strikes on Iran – this is America, how?). You are not alone and maybe, just maybe, enough voices working together can stop this insanity.

The new Ecumenical Liberation Army Hour

Chris — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:30:50 +0000

The death of Zarqawi, while not a time for celebration, is certainly in the camp of Good Things. We must remember, however, that he was but a prop used by the Bush administration to increase domestic fear, distract the public (Osama!) from the real bad guys they couldn’t get, a justification for their own failures, and as a straw man for their delusions. I haven’t blogged on Zarqawi’s death because there’s not much to say; he was a criminal figurehead, had few ties with al Qaeda, was not all that powerful in Iraq, did not work well with others, and was no good in the field. He’s a bit player puffed up by the Bushies to be a big thing.

Unlike, you know, Osama bin Laden.

Anyway, I didn’t feel I had anything to add on the issue that wasn’t already covered by other bloggers. But The Atlantic just published a wonderful article titled The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that is well worth a look. Even if much of the information is old, it never hurts to repeat the truth when combatting the propaganda.

Of note is not only his background precis:

Everyone I spoke with readily acknowledged that as a teenager al-Zarqawi had been a bully and a thug, a bootlegger and a heavy drinker, and even, allegedly, a pimp in Zarqaâ€™s underworld. He was disruptive, constantly involved in brawls. When he was fifteen (according to his police record, about which I had been briefed in Amman), he participated in a robbery of a relativeâ€™s home, during which the relative was killed. Two years later, a year shy of graduation, he had dropped out of school. Then, in 1989, at the age of twenty-three, he traveled to Afghanistan.

What the Jordanians think

â€œIf you want to understand who Zarqawi is,â€ a former Jordanian intelligence official had told me earlier, â€œyouâ€™ve got to understand the four major turning points in his life: his first trip to Afghanistan; then the prison years [from 1993 to 1999]; then his return to Afghanistan, when he really came into his own; and then Iraq.â€ He thought for a moment. â€œAnd, of course, the creativity of the Americans.â€

And, finally, how he was a useful prop for Bush, first as a justification for the illegal, elective war he wanted, then as a bogeyman, and finally as a last, desperate attempt to boost his 33% approval rating (I’m editorializing and rephrasing, of course. Ms. Weaver does not say so directly and in any event it would be outside the scope of the article).

During my time in Jordan, I asked a number of officials what they considered to be the most curious aspect of the relationship between the U.S. and al-Zarqawi, other than the fact that the Bush administration had inflated him.

One of them said, â€œThe six times you could have killed Zarqawi, and you didnâ€™t.â€

When Powell addressed the United Nations, he discussed the Ansar al-Islam camp near Khurmal, in northern Kurdistan, which he claimed was producing ricin and where al-Zarqawi was then based. On at least three occasions, between mid-2002 and the invasion of Iraq the following March, the Pentagon presented plans to the White House to destroy the Khurmal camp, according to a report published by TheWall Street Journal in October 2004. The White House either declined or simply ignored the request.

More recently, three times during the past year, the Jordanian intelligence service, which has a close liaison relationship with the CIA, provided the United States with information on al-Zarqawiâ€™s whereaboutsâ€”first in Mosul, then in Ramadi. Each time, the Americans arrived too late.

As Wolcott says, the Jordanians were practically tearing their rotator cuffs trying to point out where Zarqawi was, and we would not listen.

So the 3rd season of the Al-Zarqawi Show ended with the protagonist being offed, and all I can wonder is … who’s going to be the star of the new show (just don’t mention Osama!)

Iran Badge Fabricator Goes to Washington

Chris — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:12:49 +0000

No, it totally wasn’t a propaganda ploy by the bloodthirsty chickenhawk neocons. At all.

Two weeks ago, Amir Taheri had an Op-Ed article in the Canadian National Post claiming that the Iranians have a law requiring Jews to wear yellow badges. It turned out to be a complete fabrication and has been the subject of much contempt among bloggers. So Tuesday, Taheri was invited to the White House along with other “experts” to give the president their “honest opinions.” With advice like that, our war in Iran will be a slam-dunk.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse

Chris — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:25:29 +0000

Here’s the new MyLai

A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines “killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”

On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps’ own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

I thought Abu Ghraib would be the My Lai of Iraq. Turns out, it’s probably more along the lines of the mining of Haiphong or bombing Cambodia. I don’t know if there was a Tet offensive that shattered public opinion against the war (we seem to have dripped over the line rather than jumped). Turns out, I didn’t need to search for a metaphorical My Lai in Iraq because we had a direct replication. The hooded-on-a-box guy will be the image that remains, like the screaming naked Vietnamese girl running from the napalm.

“This one is ugly,” one official told NBC News.

Ugly? No. Abominable. Inhuman. Unforgiveable. Executing a woman who is leaning over in prayer is not ugly, it is depraved. It may be a symptom of people stretched past their breaking point, given impossible tasks in impossible conditions, and I hold everyone from the soldiers who did it up to the C-in-C responsible. These soldiers, unlike the loser rabble that went on a rampage at My Lai, were considered the best of the best. Hand picked volunteers. And they snapped.

I’m sure the 101st Fighting Keyboarders will accentuate the “rogue unit” angle and the small number of executed. Even so, they will be accepting the un

exceptional nature of the United States (it’s a paradox for their worldview, and I predict they will ignore it rather than go insane trying to reconcile our unexceptional exceptionalism). In any event, this is a war crime. Something you see in Darfur or Serbia or … Iraq.

From the Truth Hurts Department

Chris — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:28:17 +0000

US – Iran locked into spiral conflict

Both the Bush administration and the Iranian clerical regime are reeling from historic low support figures from their constituent populations. United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire political winner with the American public. Iran has become America’s all-purpose bogeyman. Foolish declarations, such as the State Department assertion that Iran is America’s “greatest security threat” are received uncritically by voters throughout the nation. Similarly in Iran, the United States can be freely demonized without serious question. The leaders of the Islamic republic regularly blame the United States for their own failings in managing economic development, border control and corruption.

It makes no sense for either nation, but a war between Iran and the US makes sense for both rulers of both countries as a way to shore up domestic support (caveat: the real rulers of Iran are the mullahs, not Ahmadinejad). And usually, when two power mad dictators want a fight, they get one. War? What’s it good for? The GOP’s domestic agenda and midterm elections, that’s who. Also, the mullahs, American and Iranian.

That Bush hears voices and has a messianic complex is just icing on the cake. Practical meets the wishful in one bow-wrapped Iranian nuking. In his warped menagerie of dusty cobweb-filled corners and coke-burnt passageways of a mind, that is.

This is madness. Sheer madness. And it’s probably going to happen anyway. What an interesting time in which to live.

He hears voices

Chris — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:13:21 +0000

Bush on keeping Rummy

Bush: I say I listen to all voices but mine’s the final decision and Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He’s not only transforming the military, he’s fighting a war on terror – He’s helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation but I’m the decider and I decide what is best and what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of defense.

These same voices are the one that tell him to wear a tutu, smear peanut butter all over his chest, and try to copulate with a Civil War era spitoon, but they are voices nonetheless. And they are speaking to him. Slowly. Using simple words.

Bush values loyalty above all things. Bubble boy can’t abide criticism and the entire Cheney administration is filled with yes persons and Cheney and Rummy. Cheney and Rummy aren’t yes men, but they’re sociopaths with the attendant self-preserving ability to shamelessly lie and fawn when needed. Well, it looks like Rummy’s rusty trombone job worked. Bush, you see, thinks that Cheney and Rummy are loyal… that is, when he’s not thinking about the pretty birds that go tweet.

And the megalomaniac sez…

Chris — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:32:02 +0000

war dissenters are the dupes and tools of Zarqawi and al Qaeda

There have always been people who have opposed wars…I think we just have to accept it, that people have a right to say what they want to say, and to have an acceptance of that and recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees.

They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it.

I would write more, but right now Zarqawi is making me pound my head into my desk for living in a country ruled by such morons.

Remember when we were the good guys?

Chris — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:13:04 +0000

Sy Hersh continues with his great reporting. US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran

The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

This makes the bushevik propaganda’s, what, #4 neo Hitler? The fact of the matter is that we are run by a bloodthirsty chickenhawk junta, drunk on mad visions of glory.

If we use nuclear weapons in yet another illegal war of aggression, make no mistake about it – it will only be a matter of time before New York City becomes an ash-filled charnel house.

If it’s any consolation, Hersh also reports that many of the Joint Chiefs and the planning staff will resign if the Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney band of megalomaniacal messianic fucktards goes forward with this plan.

You want the Joementum?

Chris — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 05:01:15 +0000

You can’t handle the Joementum!

McEnroe: You probably know that I wrote in the Currant last Sunday that if I had to vote in the primary right now I would, with some sorrow vote for Ned Lamont simply because you have kind of drifted so far towards the Bush Administration whose policies I don’t approve of very much. Tell me why I’m wrong, tell me why I should vote for you.

Lieberman: Well I…I think that your statement just then was as ridiculous and unfair as your column was. I was really upset by it. I don’t get to hear you a lot because I’m in Washington but if you’re saying that on the air really I hope your listeners are taking it with a grain of salt.

First off let me go to something that really bothered me. You have this line saying that I’ve come to a point where I’m saying that those who do not parrot my support of the war are unpatriotic and then you take TOTALLY out of context something that I said in a speech that I gave last December when I came back from Iraq and I urge you to go back and look at that whole speech.

McEnroe: Okay, tell me why…

Lieberman: Let me just finish this!

There’s more. Lieberman’s cracking and Ned Lamont’s going to beat him in the primary. Good. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving prick. The audio, for now, can be found on the WTIC site.

Holding them accountable

Chris — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:35:54 +0000

FAIR recently did some yeoman work in collecting the quotes of the chickenhawk brigade and busheviks regarding the invasion of Iraq. You know, those cheeto-stained basement bloggers, pundits, and drunken catholigayhiv+ fucktards who classified everyone, such as yours truly, who opposed the war for any reason. They even went so far as to call anti-Iraq war opponents as traitors, a fifth column, cowards, appeasers, and idiots.

Am I angry? Oh… a tad.

Well, bitches, you reap what you sow. I was right, for all the right reasons, and everything I predicted has come to pass. Quagmire, civil war, making us weaker, making us a pariah nation, strengthening the terrorists, and making us more vulnerable. It’s actually been worse than I predicted, since I never countenanced that we would have a government that actively supports torture and the destruction of the Constitution. My bad.

The blood of thousands upon thousands of people is at least partially on the hand of people like the entire Faux “news” staff, Andrew Sullivan, the knuckledraggers at the Corner, the NYT, the Washington Post, and the rest of the high-income punditocracy.

Here are a few choice quotes:

“The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war.”
(Fox News Channel’s Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)

“Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we had become inured to everything that we’d seen of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking.”
(Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation–Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04)

“The war winds down, politics heats up…. Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific.”
(PBS’s Gwen Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech)

“Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?”
(Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)

“I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks.”
(MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)

“This will be no war — there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention…. The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling…. It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on.”
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate– cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)

“Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb and the desperate could ignore it.”
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)

Mmmm… I love the smell of crow in the morning.

No weapons of Mass Destruction….3 months before invasion

KeithS — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:59:43 +0000

According to an article published in the New York Times , Saddam Hussein took steps to avoid war with the United States, including divesting himself of WMDs and scrubbing the country clean of all evidence of past production so that it would not be found and thought to be current.

The article says that Iraq’s senior military leaders told their U.S. captors that they were stunned when Saddam called them together 3 months before the war and told them not to base their military planning on the use of any unconventional weapons, such as nuclear, biological or chemical weapons because Iraq did not possess them. The overall strategy was to convince the United Nations that they had complied but to leave some doubt so that neighbors such as Iran would still be detered by the possibility that Iraq had nonconvential weapons to use in case of an invasion.

It appears that in the final analysis that the very steps the Iraqi government took to comply with Bush’s demands were ironically the things that the Bush administration used to jusify the war. Hussein’s efforts to sanitize his old weapon production sites were presented as evidence that he was attempting to hide the evidence. As it turns out, it was the Bush administration’s need to rush into hostilities, that caused mistakes to made. Had he listened to the team of inspectors and allowed them to do their job to determine if an invasion was actually necessary, we wouldn’t be bogged down in Iraq now.

Cheney the felon

Chris — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 02:33:13 +0000

Word has it that Libby is saying that Cheney ‘authorized’ him to leak classified intelligence during the run-up to the preemptive war. Now, absent an executive order declassifying material – read: explicit Bush authorization, in writing, with records of this decision – Cheney is committing treason.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been “authorized” by Cheney and other White House “superiors” in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

If there’s some exception in the US Code that allows for this declassification at the whim of ~~a zombie~~ the Vice President or an unelected troll named Rove can someone please explain to me how Cheney is not in jail at this moment? Because the Vice President under Article II of the Constitution… is not the President. You’ll have to excuse the tautology here.

I suppose it’s probable that Cheney is on the list of people with Original Classification Authority, but if so, there has to be a written record of this declassification. Why would loyal lapdog Libby try to use this as a defense tactic if it weren’t true? He’s implicating his boss here, when all he has to do is stonewall until Bush gives him a pardon in 2 years.

How, exactly, were the GOP able to message themselves as the party concerned about national security again?

Corruption in Iraqi Government fueling insurgents

Chris — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 02:14:38 +0000

You don’t say?

Iraqi and American officials say they are seeing a troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq’s struggling economy.

You know who’s in charge of the Iraqi oil ministry, right? Ahmed fuckin Chalabi, that’s who.

Heckuva a job you’re doing there, Bushie.

Pentagon now attempting to stifle US Press

Chris — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:48:53 +0000

In this case, a Tom Toles cartoon

Tom Toles editorial cartoon published in The Washington Post on Monday and on its Web site has drawn a very rare and very strong protest letter to the editors from all six members of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, E&P has learned.

The letter, not yet published by the Post, charges that the six military leaders “believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper’s reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds. … As the Joint Chiefs, it is rare that we all put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this reprehensible cartoon go unanswered.”

Right, why should we be worried about a military promoting “freedom” abroad while attempting to stifle free speech at home? An institution that funds and organizes fake pro-war marches, plans to wage war on the information sharing system it created, and illegally spies on war protestors, peace activists, and vegans in the United States? I don’t see the danger in this at all.

Here’s the cartoon they don’t want you to see:

Remember when we were the good guys? pt. 2

Chris — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:40:39 +0000

Jill Carroll, in case you haven’t been following the story, was a reporter in Iraq. She was kidnapped not long ago (and her interpreter was killed), with the kidnappers demanding that the US release Iraqi women in exchange for Ms. Carroll. This seemed bizarre on its face, but, hey, who knows what lurks in the mind of these kidnappers, huh?

Well, it turns out, that there is more to the story. You see, the reason why Ms. Carroll was kidnapped and why they asked for the release of women in US custody is because we have been kidnapping suspected guerilla leaders’ wives when we cannot get to the man.

U.S. forces in Iraq, in two instances described in military documents, took custody of the wives of men believed to be insurgents in an apparent attempt to pressure the suspects into giving themselves up.

Both incidents occurred in 2004. In one, members of a shadowy military task force seized a mother who had three young children, still nursing the youngest, “in order to leverage” her husband’s surrender, according to an account by a civilian Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer.

In the other, an e-mail exchange includes a U.S. military officer asking “have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?”

The documents were among thousands obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union from the government under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.
…
t described the actions of Task Force 6-26, which has been mentioned in other documents in connection with allegations of detainee abuse, and stated that on May 9, 2004, task force personnel detained the wife of “a suspected terrorist” in Tarmiya, Iraq.

“The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing. Her husband was the primary target of the raid, with other suspect personnel subject to detainment as well,” the memo stated.

“During the pre-operational brief, it was recommended by TF (task force) personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target’s surrender,” the memo stated. Its author said that “I objected to the detainment of the young mother to the raid team leader” and “I believed it was a dead issue.”

This is abominable on many levels. This also happens to be a violation of the Geneva conventions, Article 34.

Art. 34. The taking of hostages is prohibited.

I am really tired of living in a country run by an administration that does not respect the rule of law or anything other than their own twisted, narcissistic fantasies. That we are violating the Geneva conventions (again), is the direct result of an illegal, illegitimate, preemptive war and for which the miserable failure bears full responsibility.

Impeach George Bush. Impeach him now.

Update: on the day that scAlito’s nomination was just sent to the floor, I thouhgt I’d give a taste of the kind of discourse we are going to have when the American Taliban takes over.

Why should she be upset — She’s among friends…

I have NO sympathy for her — sorry
3 posted on 01/30/2006 6:08:01 PM PST by conservativehusker (GO BIG RED!!!!)

…

I’m sorry, but for some reason I’m not convinced she’s not faking it.

I’ve seen both videos. In the first, I did not see any fear in her eyes.

In the second, she seemed to me to be acting.

I base all this in the context of having watched other hostage videos and saw plenty of fear in the eyes of the captives.
10 posted on 01/30/2006 6:21:38 PM PST by FReepaholic (Proud participant in FR mass hysteria since 1998)

…

The radical Ialamic mouthpiece, Aljazera, did not air the audio from this tape or from her previous tape. I have a strong feeling that her tears were not for herself. She just does not seem like the type of person who would have this type of fear for herself. I think she is crying in empathy from a different sort of threat.

I would love to see a lip reader’s transcript of her tapes.
14 posted on 01/30/2006 6:23:17 PM PST by Jeff Gordon (Is tractus pro pensio.)

…

Regardless of her political inclinations, were the Islamofascists to execute her, it would confirm the need to invade their countries and kill their leaders – lets not make the same mistake we made in the 20′s and 30′s.

22 posted on 01/30/2006 7:11:14 PM PST by spanalot

If I hear anyone in my presence say one more time how it is the left bringing incivility to our culture, I’m going to kick them in their nether regions.

Still haven’t found anything funny this morning

Chris — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:20:20 +0000

How about profound, then? From George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. The P.S.U.C. militiamen whom I knew in the line, the Communists from the International Brigade whom I met from time to time, never called me a Trotskyist or a traitor; they left that kind of thing to the journalists in the rear. The people who wrote pamphlets against us and vilified us in the newspapers all remained safe at home, or at worst in the newspaper offices of Valencia, hundreds of miles from the bullets and the mud. And apart from the libels of the inter-party feud, all the usual war-stuff, the tub-thumping, the heroics, the vilification of the enemy—all these were done, as usual, by people who were not fighting and who in many cases would have run a hundred miles sooner than fight.

The Bush Eavesdropping Plan……or how to keep the FBI occupied.

KeithS — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:28:00 +0000

In today’s NYT, Lowelll Bergman et al, give Americans a look at the total ineffectiveness of the Bush illegal wiretap campaign as well as some insight into how it has tied up the FBI by having them chase after innocent Americans.

You remember how Bush Boy went after the Taliban in Afghanistan and then somehow got distracted and fixated on Saddam, who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and absolutely no connection to Al Queada? Well, the Idiot-in-Chief not only encouraged the military to look for Al-Quaeda in all the wrong places but has managed to keep the FBI tied up with lots and lots of false leads generated by the National Security Agency and his “VITAL TOOL” in the war on terrorism.

According to FBI spokesmen, the illegal wiretaps have generated thousands of false leads and identified laughably few bad guys that the FBI didn’t already know about from other sources. Its also apparent that most of the success stories that the Administration is trumpeting are the usual half truth’s that we get from the administration. Terrorists plots were caught up in the wide wiretapping but in most cases, the information obtained via wiretap was not critical to breaking and making the case.

What the Bush administration is doing is the equivalent of a mass screening test program for a disease. If you are foolish enough to apply a disease screening test to the enitre population, you would end up with lots of false positives that would require massive manpower and testing resources to follow up with in order to verify the test result. A test that screens an entire population has what we call poor “Positive Predictive Value” because you end up with more positives that are false than positives that are true. In a good public health plan, screening tests are administered to populations that are high risk for the disease being screened for. The positive predictive value of the test goes up becasue false positives are reduced and you don’t scare the hell out of as many patients who don’t have the disease, or waste you medical manpower chasing ghosts. The Bush administration screens all international calls, resulting in massive numbers of false positives, and requiring inordinate amounts of manpower to disprove the false positives. God, I’m praying that the Avian flu doesn’t hit the U.S. under a Bush adminstration.

Don’t you feel safer knowing that the FBI is using its time to chase down calls to Pizza Hut instead of doing investigative work?

Mark your calendars, the Iranapalooza approaches!

Chris — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:12:45 +0000

The full-on bloodthirsty pro-Iranian war drumbeats picked up noticeably in volume today. Watch as the chickenhawk drumbeats get louder and louder.

What planet do these people live on? The current invasion plan involves, get this, 25,000 marines in a ship off the coast of Iran. This will, according the plan, lead to a popular uprising amongst the people of Iran because they love our 25,000 dudes in a boat. Or something. Then, the post-invasion plan says we can hold a country more than twice the size of Iraq with a bit over 1/3rd the number of troops we have in Iraq.

Oh, and the plan also considers acceptable the preemptive use of tactical nuclear strikes.

Seymour Hersh, of course, has been on this story from the beginning. I wonder if he thinks he should have been named Cassandra?

There is no doubt that Our Dear Leader and his despotic regime of neocon fantasists, aided and abetted by the sycophantic lap dogs of the right wing echo chamber of course, are trying to lead us in the direction of an Iranian war. Listen to the news; do you ever see a single piece showing anything good in Iran? It’s like the war on drugs in that way.

I sincerely hope and actually do believe that this sturm und drang will turn into nothing in the sands of time. I highly doubt we are going to invade Iran. Besides the impossibility of it all, I refuse to believe that we are such sheeple led by such evil. Also, it reeks of a domestic electioneering ploy.

I predict this will be highly analogous to the Reagan/Nicauragua situation in the 80s where the right was screaming for invasion to get rid of the evil, evil socialist Noriega and the lefties were certain we were heading towards Vietnam part 2. The difference, of course, was that back then we had adult morons in the administration rather than childish morons, and children through tantrums when they don’t get what they want. Don’t they, Little Boots?

Update: Atrios totally copies me one day later. Of course, he’s limited to a maximum of 50 words per post, so I’ve not only got him on timeliness, I’ve got him on length. Booya! That Hersh beats us means noth… hey! Look over there! A beautiful butterfly!

Remember when duhbya’s stupidity was shocking?

Chris — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 07:17:13 +0000

Those were the days. Our Dear Leader may have set a new low today. Yes indeedy, a new low in the style, coherence, authoritarianism, inappropriateness, and whathefu? categories. It was a remarkable performance, even if the Russian judge only gave him a 5.4.

A 7-year-old boy’s question — “How can people help on the war on terror?” — gave Bush an opening to score some political points against his critics and try to keep Democrats from using Iraq as an issue in this year’s midterm elections.

“It’s one thing to have a philosophical difference — and I can understand people being abhorrent about war. War is terrible,” Bush said. “But one way people can help as we’re coming down the pike in the 2006 elections is remember the effect that rhetoric can have on our troops in harm’s way, and the effect that rhetoric can have in emboldening or weakening an enemy.”

A 7 year old boy asked the question! 7 years old! And to this ~~plant~~ kid, Bush said… uh…. hmm. Wait. I can’t figure out what he said because my massive IQ is not infinite and thus does not loop into the negative value territories required to parse this fucktard’s “engrish.” I think he’s trying to say clap! Clap louder! Dissent is treason! Shut up! You just shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! I am the King and I say we invade England! Call me Little Boots! Mars, bitches!

… I should really quit posting when I’m fatigued. Next, time I’m likely to start talking about Bush’s well-known-in-whisper-circuits unquenchable fetish for sea mammals and rice cookers.

Let me try again. Shorter Bush: you really have to keep your eye on the ball, or the ball may attack!

Anyway, let’s just say that, Like a Virgin, Bush’s stupidity hurt me just like the very first time today.

Also, in case anyone still cares at this point, he never answered the question.

Scott Ritter kicks ass

Chris — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:19:53 +0000

Scott Ritter on Alternative Radio right now talking about Iraq. Ritter is a former marine, a traditional conservative republican, and former weapons inspector. He’s been screaming about the Iraq WMD bullshit since day one. During the Bush leadup to war, he was smeared by the Rove machine and painted to be a crazy, bitter, vindictive bitch.

The problem for Rove is that Ritter doesn’t stop. He’s aggressive, active, and charismatic. And he will. not. stop.

Richard Clarke and Scott Ritter are the darlings of the progressives even though they are conservatives for one simple reason: they speak the truth. I have not-insignificant disagreements with both, but they are a remarkable fresh breath of air: traditional conservative straight talkers. They aren’t the slimy, mendacious neocons with apocalyptic visions of martyrdom. They are realpolitikers with a penchant for speaking truth to power.

And for that, I salute them.

So I’m listening to Scott Ritter right now. Ritter’s opening points: the Iraq war is not Bush’s war, it is America’s war. Because we, the People, the sheep let them take us by the nose and lead us into this idiotic adventure. He knows what we are against, but what are we for? Then he goes into the history of the region, propaganda, and politics. The elephant in the room whose culpability and complicity he ignores: the media.

More Ritter:
In 1992, the CIA knew there were no missiles in Iraq.
In 1992, the CIA knew there were no WMDs

They knew mathematically. The entire Iraq imbroglio can be traced back to GHWBush comparing Saddam to Hitler. The rest flows from that.

War is coming with Iran. If we don’t change Congress, it is likely in 2007. If we don’t change Congress and the administration, the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack will likely lead to us dropping nuclear bombs on Iran.

Also, he really, really dislikes both Clintons… but not as much as he hates Shrub. And he also dislikes Bush41.

Good times. Like any other zealot, he is a whirlwind of energy that is fresh when first encountered. I doubt I could take him very frequently, but on occassion? Not bad. Give him a listen if you are able. The CDs are too expensive for my tastes, but it’s a good speech. Maybe he’ll come to your town.

If you can’t win fair and square.. cheat!

Chris — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:40:28 +0000

We’re doing all we can to get Iranian agent/convicted embezzler/neocon love stud Ahmed Chalabi a seat in the Iraqi government. Seriously, this is ludicrous, y’all. The administration is trying to create another Thieu, but even if Chalabi got to power, I think it’s obvious he would be far more of a Diem.

As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq, the government replaced its oil minister with controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15 elections was a setback in his recent attempt at political rehabilitation.

The oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Uloom, was put on a mandatory, month-long leave. He had previously threatened to resign over the government’s recent decision to increase gasoline prices sharply, a move that has outraged motorists and sparked attacks on gas stations and fuel convoys.

Tell me if you’ve heard this before – man of the people doing the people’s work, is principled, and righteous. Man is backstabbed by duplicitous foreign power and replaced by foreign power’s chosen boy.

“He has proven himself quite capable and experienced in dealing with all aspects of Iraq’s energy sector and is well-qualified for this position,” a U.S. official said on the condition that he not be named because he was commenting on an Iraqi government decision.

There may only be 14 stories in this world, but I, for one, am getting tired of this one. And enough with the bullshit anonymous sources that just happen to always be spinning the administration line. Hi Karl!

Finally, check out Chalabi’s “support.”

Based on preliminary results from the December elections, Chalabi received 8,645 votes in Baghdad, well below the threshold a top U.N. official suggested this week would be required to win a seat.

Moussawi said Friday that Chalabi could still end up in the parliament, depending on how officials interpret a technical detail of election rules relating to how remaining seats are allocated after each party meeting a specific threshold is awarded its seats.

“There is still confusion, even today at the election commission, about this, but we are hearing the party will have at least one seat,” Moussawi said.

In a city of nearly 6 million, Chalabi was only able to get less than 9,000 votes. That’s amazing, and speaks to great length about the neocons’ and administration’s divorce from reality.

Have no fear, Chalabi, I’m sure Moussawi will magically find your seat in parliament for you.

I’m with Alterman

Chris — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 22:12:40 +0000

This post is possibly the greates blog entry, ever. I linked to Alterman’s second fav – Larry David’s middle of the night thoughts – back in June. It’s still funny.

OBL’s niece is hawt!

Chris — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 19:17:15 +0000

Osama’s Niece Poses in Racy Photo Shoot. Maybe this’ll get him off his dialysis machine and flush him out of Pakistan. Naaaah

Osama bin Laden’s niece, in an interview with GQ magazine in which she appears scantily clad, says she has nothing in common with the al-Qaida leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans.

“Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him,” Wafah Dufour, the daughter of bin Laden’s half brother, Yeslam Binladin, says in the January edition of the magazine, referring to the al-Qaida leader.

I may be setting myself up for a fatwah here, but what the hell. Who wants to live forever?

being a bin Laden, she is, of course, uber rich. A quick search shows that she’s big on the socialite scene in NY. Probably good friends with Paris. Nothing like an obscene infidel socialite trying to push her vanity album to bring the whole family together at Ramadan, eh Osama?

Iraqi election

Chris — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:44:50 +0000

I was wrong with my comments about the fundies not winning earlier. Turns out, the Shiite fundamentalists are pWning the secularists. They would have dominated even more if not for the voting irregularities. That’s my ~~new~~ story, I’m sticking to it.

These results suggest a very strong position for the United Iraqi Alliance. There were [59]* seats at issue in Baghdad province, the largest single lot. If the UIA got 35-40 of them, that is a huge victory. Add those 35 to the likely 70 or so the UIA got in the solidly Shiite provinces, and you have 105. Another 8 in Babil and it is 113. A similar number in Diyala and you’d have 121. Then they may get some of the reserved seats when the reapportionment is done. They will be very close to having the 138 it needs to form a government. They can certainly pick up a few small allies and do it, perhaps without needing either the Sunnis or the Kurds (though they will need an initial coalition to gain the 2/3s needed to elect a president to appoint the prime minister).

In other words, the Shiite fundamentalist parties have won again. The secularists lost badly. Allawi and Chalabi are out of the game. The question is only whether the Shiites align with the Sunnis or the Kurds, or both. See Andrew Arato’s guest editorial if you want the details.

Funny, you don’t see the conservatives trumpeting the victory of the fundamentalist theocrats in Iraq, now do you?

Failure isn’t a part of the American Nature?

KeithS — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 18:06:54 +0000

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said “Failure is not a part of the American nature nor of our moral fiber. ”

mmmm…..Ergo, Chimp Boy is not an Amercan?

Please Google Miserable Failure. Failure is apparently part of HIS nature and moral fiber.

Bush’s Greatest Failures:

Ran for congress and lost.

Worked as an adviser on his father’s re-election campaign in 1992 and Lost.

Drove an oil company into bankruptcy

Ran for President in 2000. Actually lost the election to Al Gore

Turned 2 trillion dollar surplus into a one trillion dollar deficit in less than one term

Despite slam dunk status, could not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

Presided over attacks on U.S. by Terrorist Network. Unable to bring head of newwork to justice.

Greatest Successes:

Successfully avoided the Selective Service Draft.

Succssfully expunged driving records from Texas DMV

Successfully kept Karl Rove out of prison for treason