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December 31, 2006
| 3000 | Iraq |
US troops killed in Iraq as of today: 3000.
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And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. For what?
December was the deadliest month for US troops in more than two years.
Americans want out — approval for the war is under 30% — but Bush prepares to send more troops.
New Year's resolution: Voting isn't enough. We must act. We need to make the political cost of continuing the war too great for Washington to bear. We must resist.
Posted by Jonathan at 03:54 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 03:23 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
This week President Bush is planning to attend a two-day NATO summit to discuss strategies for the war in Afghanistan. President Bush will be giving a speech called "Strategies, Who's Got One?" — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 03:21 PM
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December 30, 2006
| Huge Ice Shelf Breaks Off In Canadian North | Environment |
Today's global warming story. Reuters:
A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from an ice shelf in Canada's far north and could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, a researcher said on Friday.Global warming could be one cause of the break of the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island, which occurred in the summer of 2005 but was only detected recently by satellite photos, said Luke Copland, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's geography department.
It was the largest such break in nearly three decades, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 square km (25 square miles) adrift in the Arctic Ocean, said Copland, who specializes in the study of glaciers and ice masses. [...]
"The risk is that next summer, as that sea ice melts, this large ice island can then move itself around off the coast and one potential path for it is to make its way westward toward the Beaufort Sea, and the Beaufort Sea is where there is lots of oil and gas exploration, oil rigs and shipping." [...]
The speed of the crack and drift-off shocked scientists.
Satellite images showed the 15-km long (9-mile long) crack, then the ice floating about 1 km (0.6 miles) from the coast within about an hour, Copland said.
"You could stand at one edge and not see the other side, and for something that large to move that quickly is quite amazing," he said.
Copland said the break was likely due to a combination of low accumulations of sea ice around the mass's edges as high winds blew it away, as well as one of the Arctic's warmest temperatures on record. The region was 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees F) above average in the summer of 2005, he said.
Ice shelves in Canada's far north have decreased in size by as much as 90 percent since 1906, and global warming likely played a role in the Ayles break, Copland said.
"It's hard to tie one event to climate change, but when you look at the longer-term trend, the bigger picture, we've lost a lot of ice shelves on northern Ellesmere in the past century and this is that continuing," he said. "And this is the biggest one in the last 25 years." [Emphasis added]
No anecdote, taken in isolation, confirms global warming. But when we get one of these anecdotes practically every day...
Meanwhile, here in Madison, you used to be able to park your car on the big lakes this time of year. Today, they're open water. I'm just saying.
[Thanks, Jeff]
Posted by Jonathan at 11:40 AM
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| Your Liberal Media | Media |
Scroll down here and find the interview with John Edwards. Imagine CNN hounding a Republican in the same way. John McCain, say. Never happen.
[Via Atrios]
Posted by Jonathan at 11:25 AM
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:59 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Big changes in Washington. Earlier today, new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates flew to Iraq to get a first-hand look of the situation over there. After surveying the situation, Gates was quoted as saying, "Uh oh." — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 10:54 AM
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December 29, 2006
| Widening The War | Iran Iraq Palestine/Middle East |
Two important items from Swoop. First, regarding the White House's Middle East counteroffensive following the November elections and the Iraq Study Group recommendations. Swoop:
During his current consultations on the new strategy for Iraq, President Bush has told those advising him that he is not interested in any proposals that do not involve "success." "Anyone who does not believe in victory should leave the room right now," was how he began one consultation session. Top National Security Council officials are describing the Iraq Study Group as "discredited" and "dead and buried." Instead a new policy is taking shape. Based on recent discussions between former Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan and NSC Middle East Director Elliott Abrams, this policy foresees a central role for Saudi Arabia as a supplier of money and weapons to local conflicts involving Iranian surrogates. This is already happening in Lebanon, where anti-Hezbollah groups are receiving substantial Saudi help. Israeli intelligence officials are also encouraging these moves. "What we are seeing here," a second NSC official commented, "is the Administration's counter-attack to the ISG. Bush wants to negotiate from strength not weakness. He is trying to create new facts on the ground. This is an ambitious strategy. If it works, it allows us to recover much of the ground that Iraq has cost us. The opposite is also true. This strategy could double our losses. The key point here is that the Administration is still playing for a win in the Middle East. It is not leaving quietly." [Emphasis added]
Second, on Iran. It's not just a question of Iran's nuclear program. Far from it. Swoop:
A change of emphasis is taking place in the US approach to Iran. State Department officials tell us that they now see the nuclear weapons issue as just one aspect of a more all-encompassing competition with Iran. "It is clear that Iran is challenging us for mastery of the Middle East. Lebanon, Syria, the peace process, terrorism, energy: We are always bumping up against Iranian meddling. The stakes go far beyond nuclear weapons. It is clear that we have to orientate our policy so that we can teach Iran a decisive lesson." Support for this policy of long-term confrontation with Iran extends widely inside the Administration and Washington’s political elites. How this confrontation expresses itself remains undecided, with the military option still confined to the group around Vice-President Cheney and his circle. This group is, however, actively seeking international support. Privately the conservative Arab leaders of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council are urging the US to mount a broad counter to Iran. [Emphasis added]
Joshua Landis at SyriaComment speculates that the White House is using Saudi Arabia as a cutout to fund covert action in the Middle East, à la Iran-Contra. Excerpt:
The NSC diehards and Bandar (with Israeli coordination) have been working on a covert action program, the purpose of which is to strike back at Iran through surrogates, with the arrangements made in such a way as to obviate the need for a Presidential Covert Action Finding, which in today's Washington could not be kept secret. The Saudis would play the role of paymasters and prospective unindicted co-conspirators in case the operation is exposed (which seems to be the likely outcome). [...]The sudden unannounced departure of Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki suggests that Saudi Arabia will be the financier of this operation. Prince Bandar bin Sultan's return to Washington in the form of his young protégé, Adel al-Jubeir. Polished and American-educated, Mr. Jubeir, 44, once worked for Prince Bandar when he was ambassador to Washington. Over the past few months, we know that Prince Bandar has been visiting Washington frequently, staying at the Hay Adams Hotel and visiting people at the White House. He was not notifying Prince Turki of these visits, which has been a flagrant and insulting breach of diplomatic protocol, to say nothing of its personal discourtesy to his own brother-in-law.
Another curiosity has been the repeated rumors of a meeting between Bandar and some unidentified Israelis, time and place unspecified. (The strongest rumor was that one meeting took place in Amman last summer.) The rumors have been persistent, and deserve some credence. [Emphasis added]
So, the American people think they got their message across in the November elections, and following the Iraq Study Group report they think Bush's current round of policy discussions is aimed at doing what everybody else wants: extricating the US from Iraq. But if the stories above are accurate, what's happening is quite the opposite: Bush is raising the stakes, widening the war, counter-attacking with "victory" — whatever that may mean — still the goal. It's crazy, but when has that ever stopped them?
[Thanks, Miles]
Posted by Jonathan at 04:26 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 03:49 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
I'm thinking if George Bush got a lump of coal for Xmas, Santa is sloughing off in his old age. Of course, you never hear of Santa giving a good pistol whipping as a present. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 03:45 PM
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December 28, 2006
| Blowback | Global Guerrillas |
I don't know anything about Somalia, but a more knowledgeable reader pointed me to a post at NonArab-Arab (as Arabic-speaker who monitors the Atab press) that makes a lot of sense. This is an excerpt from a much longer post:
As Abu Aardvark likes to frequently say, Bin Laden and co these days are less about being an organization out to carry out direct attacks (though that still persists) as they are about changing the world view of as many Muslims as possible into believing the "Christian Crusaders" are out to destroy Islam. That, I believe, is a far more important battle than any bullets, smart bombs, suicide bombs, or phantom- or real-WMDs. It is also the essence of why the Bush Administration is such a set of royal screw-ups, why things keep getting worse everywhere Bush and co stick their noses in the Islamic and Arab worlds, and why Somalia is poised to become yet another disaster for US foreign policy...[T]his is going to be yet another Bushie disaster because the important thing in the long run for creating peace, stability, freedom fries...is to not allow Salafi Jihadists (who have zero chance of ever winning power militarily or at the ballot box) to "win" by letting their "clash of civilizations" worldview become the guiding worldview of the majority of Muslims and Arabs. The actions of the US and its allies in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. all are massive examples which give credence to this worldview. US support for secular dictators throughout the Islamic world is another. Now it looks like Somalia will be added to the list (and once again, the US public will be sleeping as it happens and left ignorantly pondering "why do they hate us" the next time something nasty happens as a result).Look at it from the point of view of your average dude on the streets of Cairo, Casablanca, Damascus, Karachi, Jakarta, or wherever else. You don't have to agree with this view (I for one don't), but this is how it looks to them today:
Shariah [Islamic law] is considered a positive ideal for how law and order should be administered.
Somalia was in anarchy until recently some religious Somalis banded together to implement Shariah. In so doing they brought back peace, stability, and justice where they had power.
The US saw the rise of "true Muslims" and wouldn't tolerate it.
The US first tried to stop these Muslims from doing their good by re-arming thugs and warlords, but that failed.
When that failed, the US turned to Christian foreigners (Ethiopia) and aided them in a war to wipe out the good Muslims who were just trying to bring back peace and justice to their country.
Bin Laden had been saying for years that the "Crusaders" were out to harm Islam in Somalia, and suddenly it looks like his warning was right all along and coming to open fruition. Even though this version of events is frought with error and over-simplicity, it has enough truth, and the Bush Administration's policies are so genuinely dangerous and aggressive, that one has to ask, what in the world could they possibly say to turn the tide of public opinion in the Islamic world to their side of things? Answer: nothing. Once again, actions matter more than words, and US actions here are just plain wrong. That's not to say the other actors are pure and right (they're not), but it means that the sheer stubborn-headed automatic resort to the ugliest uses of force (direct or proxy) by the US and its allies instead of recognizing that there are genuine non-Qaeda interests and issues at play that need to be worked with in a complex manner — that therein lies the real problem. Bush's "gut" and Cheney's "one percent" self-induced-fear-mongering are the real sources of the problem here.
In Somalia...events are likely to take a course something akin to the US in Afghanistan but with Ethiopia playing the role of the US and the [Shariah] Courts Union the role of the Taliban. Ethiopia may win hands down at first, but then the real action starts to build up in a guerilla war that has implications beyond just the borders of Somalia. A Christians-attacking-Muslims dynamic will be an easy propaganda drive for the Courts and attract foreign fighters with fresh and nasty skills acquired from Iraq and Afghanistan though local Somali fighters will undoubtedly be the bulk of the troops. [...]
Folks, the point is simple: the Bush doctrine creates conflict and war everywhere it goes that convinces people in the Muslim world that Americans are out to get them. That in turn fuels conflict (for you Americans: that means it makes you less safe, not more safe) and makes the world a worse place. Somalia is about to become the next totally unnecessary-but-tragic example of this. And Americans are barely even watching. Get ready for another bit of blowback, as if we didn't have enough on our hands already. [Emphasis added]
In short: Somalia is poised to become another magnet and training ground for stateless global guerrillas (John Robb's phrase), à la Afghanistan and Iraq. Just what the world needs.
The US goes stomping around the Islamic world, brutal, clueless, self-defeating: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed..."
We're being ruled by lunatics. Blowback is inevitable.
[Thanks, Miles]
Posted by Jonathan at 10:06 PM
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| Global Warming Claims First Inhabited Island | Environment |
Rising sea levels have claimed their first inhabited island. Independent:
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities. [...]
The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented. [...]
So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures. [...]
Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas. [Emphasis added]
These are poor people being made homeless, so we continue with business as usual. But at some point, we are going to look back with stupefaction and horror on this period of our inaction in the face of ever more urgent warning signs.
[Thanks, Jeff]
Posted by Jonathan at 05:53 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 11:30 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him. — Bill Maher
Posted by Jonathan at 11:24 AM
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December 27, 2006
| Call It What It Is: Escalation | Iraq |
Democrats took control of the House and Senate largely because voters want out of Iraq. Even the Iraq Study Group said it's time to start thinking about getting out. So, Bush's response? Surge. Escalate. Retired Army General Jack Keane and AEI's Fred Kagan, in WaPo:
Reports on the Bush administration's efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term "surge" but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000. Some "surges" would last a few months, others a few years.We need to cut through the confusion. Bringing security to Baghdad — the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development — is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.
The key to the success is to change the military mission — instead of preparing for transition to Iraqi control, that mission should be to bring security to the Iraqi population. Surges aimed at accelerating the training of Iraqi forces will fail, because rising sectarian violence will destroy Iraq before the new forces can bring it under control. [...]
Success in Iraq today requires a well-thought-out military operation aimed at bringing security to the people of Baghdad as quickly as possible — a traditional counterinsurgency mission. [Emphasis added]
"Surge" is pure marketing. The proper term is: escalation. And it's going to happen, voters be damned.
Posted by Jonathan at 07:56 PM
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| In The Name Of Jesus | Extremism Religion |
The inimitable Matt Taibbi on the Left Behind video game that lets you slaughter nonbelievers in the name of Jesus (aka, the Prince of Peace):
Left Behind: Eternal Forces allows you to command the tribulation force, uncover the truth about worldwide disappearances and save as many people as possible from the Antichrist.Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series, including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce, against Nicolae Carpathia — the Antichrist.
Defend yourselves from the forces of the Antichrist. Engage in physical and spiritual warfare!
Use Prayer and Special Abilities to boost the Spirit of your forces! Command over 30 unit types through dozens of missions and online player action!
Defend against the spiritual influences and physical warfare of the Antichrist's army through the power of prayer and worship!
— Left Behind: Eternal Forces game synopsis
It's been a long time coming, but this week I finally received the Christmas gift I've been waiting for for what seems like ages — my Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game.
This is the first Christmas gift I've ever bought for myself. Normally, I hate Christmas. In fact, I make it a point each year to search out and print out all the news stories from around the world involving thefts from/desecrations of nativity scenes. When I'm finished, I plaster my office area with all the photos of the glum Yuletiders standing around the now-headless Josephs and Marys, and I make this news-mural my private sanctuary, the place I run to when the holidays (and particularly the holiday commercials) get to be too much to take. [...]
Anyway, back to the Left Behind game, which is the first gift I've ever gotten that actually fills me with Holiday Spirit. For those of you who are not familiar with Left Behind, it is an enormously popular Christian book series which depicts an Armageddon scenario in which the true believers are whisked up to heaven at the Second Coming, literally vanishing out of thin air even as they do things like pilot commercial jet-liners, leaving the rest of us amoral nihilists on earth to bathe in our own blood and generally massacre each other. In the video game, the Believers roam a desecrated New York City landscape (it is highly amusing that both al-Qaeda and the makers of Left Behind: Eternal Forces chose to make their masterpiece against a canvas of a burning Manhattan) wasting the forces of the Antichrist, leaving huge piles of bodies everywhere they go. It is hard to imagine a product that better encapsulates, in one package, the spirit of both modern American capitalism and modern American Christianity. If you have a serious gore jones, it's also not a bad video game. The soundtrack (especially the "Street Fight, Main Theme") kicks ass.
Those of you who were not on the original Left Behind mailing list really missed out, as the e-mails the company sent out in anticipation of this video game launch are easily some of the greatest examples of unintentional comedy ever to grace the Internet. From the start, the company asked its customers to assist them with prayer, and as such sent out regular "prayer requests," for instance this letter asking us to pray for a good reception at a Christian retail convention:
Left Behind: Eternal Forces for the PC is getting closer to completion every day, and we appreciate your prayers! We would ask that you keep the Left Behind Games staff in your continued prayers as we get closer to our release date, from spiritual warfare, and protection for our families.We will be attending the 2006 International Christian Retail Show in Colorado on April 10th to the 13th, please pray that God will bless our presence at his show.
The company was a little quiet after that, but as the release neared and it began focusing on the inevitably problematic marketing campaign, it increasingly asked for prayer help with its promotional efforts. Here's one from October:
Left Behind Prayer Requests:
1. Wisdom as we prepare our promotional strategies
2. Travel safety as our team attends meetings and interviews
3. Unity as a team and that our efforts bring glory to our LordThank you for keeping us in your prayers. God bless you!
As the launch neared, the requests began to be directed towards the reviewers:
Left Behind: Eternal Forces will be available at stores this weekend!Thank you for helping to make this happen. We are praising God! Please keep the game in your prayers.
1. Critics and reviewers will give positive feedback on the game.
2. Church and youth leaders will see the potential of using the game as an outreach tool.
3. Players will multiply as they invite their friends to play with them online.
4. God will bless this game and it will honor Him.
But when the date arrived, the company's "Prayer Team leader," Annette Brown, began to get more and more specific in her corporate prayer goals:
1. Pray God will put it on the heart of the consumers to purchase our product at select Walamart [sic] Stores (top 100 stores) that have our invetory [sic].
2. Next weekend is the biggest shopping weekend of the year, pray the game hits record sales for PC Games.
3. The press is still reviewing the game, pray they will be kind in their reviews.I mean, how twisted do you have to be to pray that consumers will buy your product at select Wal-Mart stores? Wouldn't you hesitate and call a psychiatrist before sending that out into cyberspace?
The requests from Thanksgiving week:
Please pray that our sales will skyrocket this weekend. We have a big God that promises to surpass all that we could ask of Him.Once reviewers got hold of the game, and started to point out the odd dichotomy between its supposedly Christian message and its corpse-strewn video landscape, the company began to pray for good media appearances:
Prayer requests:
1. God will give Troy, Robilyn and Jeff wisdom during their many interviews.
2. God will use these interviews to open the hearts and minds of the listeners to the true intentions and purpose of the game.
3. God will bless us as we develop and choose our sales force.Anyway, if you haven't bought it already, I strongly advise everyone reading this to log on to leftbehind.com and buy the game. It is the perfect American holiday gift. Celebrate the birth of Jesus by wasting dozens of people at a time, using a provocative variety of Christ-sanctioned weapons! You can even operate tanks to destroy whole areas of New York City! Who knows, you might even get to kill Ethan Hawke ("slumming" in a ball cap and dirty jeans) in a Marxist bookstore-coffeeshop on Eighth Street! Kill, kill, kill!
Merry Christmas, America.
Funny in a twisted sort of way, but it would be a lot funnier were it not for the fact that the US military is being led, more and more, by people with this same nightmare vision of what constitutes reality. Video game weapons are one thing...
Posted by Jonathan at 06:41 PM
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| Impedance Mismatch | Corporations, Globalization Environment Musings |
The really big problems facing humanity are, for the most part, problems resulting from the dominant culture's abuse of the natural world. Global warming, deforestation, the collapse of the world's fisheries — these are problems requiring determined action over the long haul. But nothing much gets done. Why?
There are many factors, but one, in particular, strikes me as cause for real pessimism. A sustainable relationship with the natural world requires us to think and act in time frames of many decades, centuries, millenia and more. But our decision-making institutions operate at drastically shorter time scales. That mismatch in time scales is a killer. In the political sphere, decision-makers seldom look past the next election cycle or two. In the corporate realm, where most of the important decisions now get made, perspectives are even shorter, with emphasis on the next quarter or fiscal year. A five-year plan is considered really long-range, blue sky stuff.
Everybody optimizes for the short run. People who don't find themselves out of office or out of a job. And so, by a series of "rational" decisions — rational from a perspective that ignores the long term — we march steadily towards the abyss.
The trend toward increasing corporate power and decreasing political power (with the political process increasingly a wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporate sphere) may, in the end, seal our fate. Just when we desperately need a decision-making institution that can forego short-run profit and convenience for long-term sustainability, we are vesting societal decision-making in the institution least capable of taking that perspective.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:44 PM
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| Wednesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 11:51 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Now President Bush wants to send MORE troops to Iraq. This guy refuses to listen to anybody. The Iraqi people, the American people, his own intelligence Estimates, bi-partisan Study Groups, his wife, Laura, or Barney, his dog. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 11:47 AM
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December 26, 2006
| Tuesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 02:05 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Today at the White House, President Bush signed a deal that would send nuclear fuel to India. When asked about the Indian deal, President Bush said it's the least we can do after stealing your land. — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 02:00 PM
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December 25, 2006
| JB Is Gone | Culture |
James Brown, one of the true giants of 20th century American music, is gone. When I was a Penn undergrad, JB played homecoming one year and absolutely tore the place up. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed seeing him and his impeccably funky band assault that Ivy League citadel of white privilege. He rocked the house like literally no one else could. No compromises, no prisoners. This was just a few years before his astonishing performances in Zaire that you can see in the superb documentary When We Were Kings. Rest in peace, JB.
JB's one-time "funky drummer" Clyde Stubblefield has for years been a staple of the music scene here in Madison, playing three or four gigs somewhere around town most weeks. A beautiful, sweet cat with a beatific smile, who's still got the funkiest chops around, but sadly his health, too, has been failing of late. Wishing you all the best, Clyde.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:55 PM
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| Monday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 02:20 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
This is the time of the year everybody's getting ready for the holidays. Earlier today, Dick Cheney brought home a Christmas tree that he shot. — David Letterman
Posted by Jonathan at 02:15 PM
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December 24, 2006
| What Atrios Said | Iraq |
Posted by Jonathan at 01:06 PM
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| Sunday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:46 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Earlier today, the Christmas tree in front of the White House fell over. Even after the tree collapsed, President Bush insisted that the tree was doing a heckuva job. — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 10:43 AM
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December 23, 2006
| Stompin' | Media |
This is a lot of fun. Sound required.
I love the different ways they leave at the end.
Posted by Jonathan at 03:57 PM
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| Saturday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 03:54 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
This California company that was contracted to build this stupid fence along the border of Mexico has been charged with hiring illegal immigrants. Prosecutors say this is the worst case of irony they have ever seen. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 03:50 PM
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December 22, 2006
| Friday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:16 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
And the President of Iran suffered a very embarrassing setback after voters in Iran elected members of the opposing party in local elections. Apparently he and President Bush have more in common than they realize. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:13 AM
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December 21, 2006
| Record Number Of Bodies Recovered In Baghdad | Iraq |
Iraq continues its slide into the abyss. LAT:
The bodies of 76 unidentified people were recovered Wednesday in Baghdad, police said, the highest 24-hour toll for the anonymous slayings that have become a grim part of life in the capital.All of the victims were men between the ages of 20 and 50. Although they died violently, all shot with automatic weapons, the men were not slain execution-style — no handcuffs or blindfolds, morgue staff members said. Only a few showed signs of torture. [Emphasis added]
It is impossible for most of us to imagine what it is like to live under such hellish conditions, but, as always, it is incumbent on us to try. These events are happening in a real place, to real people, and it's only going to get worse.
Posted by Jonathan at 10:12 PM
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| French Soldiers Twice Had Bin Laden In Their Crosshairs | 9/11, "War On Terror" |
The White House, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and their allies in "defense" industries all have a lot riding on the continued existence of enemies who can excite the public appetite for war. From a marketing perspective, the best kind of enemy is one personified by an individual person who is easy to hate — Saddam Hussein, Muammar Khaddafi, Manuel Noriega, Osama bin Laden. Brand names (and faces). And if you've established a successful brand, you want to protect it.
Get out your tin-foil hats. AFP:
French soldiers in Afghanistan had Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in their crosshairs — twice — but did not receive the order from their US commander to open fire, a French documentary reported.The filmed report, by journalists Eric de Lavarene and Emmanuel Razavi, asserts that the French troops had bin Laden in their rifle scopes in 2003 and then again six months later in 2004.
Four French soldiers assigned to a 200-strong special forces unit in Afghanistan under US military control all confirmed — "at different times and in different places" — that they could have killed bin Laden but that the order to shoot was not forthcoming, the report claims. [Emphasis added]
When people talk about any kind of conspiracy theory, the argument you always hear is that if a conspiracy involves a large number of people surely someone would talk. But the truth is that people do talk, but no one believes them when they do. So this French report will be written off as bogus and forgotten.
And for all I know, it is bogus. Or not. See also this.
Posted by Jonathan at 10:19 AM
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| Thursday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:57 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
You know the part of the Iraqi report that concerns President Bush the most? Having to read it. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 09:55 AM
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December 20, 2006
| "Unbelievably Rapid" Escalation Of Violence | Iraq |
It just keeps getting worse. WaPo:
The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a "strategic success" by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions.In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and "little progress" toward political reconciliation.
"The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence...That is the premier challenge facing us now."
The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said.
"The tragedy of Iraq is that in February in Samarra, the insurgents achieved what one could call a partial strategic success -- namely, to trigger what we've been dealing with ever since, which is a cycle of sectarian violence, that indeed is shaking the institutions," Peter W. Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said at the briefing.
He was referring to the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya mosque, a holy Shiite shrine, in the ethnically mixed city of Samarra north of Baghdad. [Emphasis added]
People still talk like there's a military solution out there somewhere, but they're kidding themselves. More troops won't help.
Posted by Jonathan at 05:50 PM
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| Wednesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:40 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Republicans used their last days in power to pass last-minute tax cuts, expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, clear GOP leadership of wrongdoing in the Mark Foley scandal, and pardon Hitler. — Jon Stewart
Posted by Jonathan at 09:37 AM
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December 19, 2006
| Tuesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:17 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
President Bush today completed what he called "a listening tour." He met and pretended to be listening to various people from the State Department and the Pentagon — all the people he should have met with before the war. — Jimmy Kimmel
Posted by Jonathan at 10:11 AM
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December 18, 2006
| Our Tinhorn Napoleon | Iraq |
All this talk of a US "troop surge" in Iraq, as if the November elections never happened. It's crazy, it's outrageous — and it's doomed to end very, very badly. Juan Cole:
[Consider] the Iraq War Coup now being conducted by W. You thought that the American people had spoken [in the November elections]? They want the troops out? They want to be extracted from the quagmire? Too bad.You see, we do not have a democracy, with the Bush administration in power. We have an elective dictatorship. The elections are like lotteries. Many of them don't even reflect the popular vote or the general will. The Rehnquist Coup of 2000...And the incumbents feel they owe nothing to the electorate, nothing whatsoever. They have the Power. They act as they please. The rest of us are just onlookers.
So Bush's response to the clear public demand for a change of course and a disengagement? It is to run to Henry Kissinger's apron strings. And what does the Butcher of Chile and Indonesia urge? That Bush should put another 40,000 US troops into Iraq!
The problem is that Iraq is a 500,000 troop problem. Another 40,000 are just going to anger locals. And, apparently, they would be sicced on the Shiite Mahdi Army in hopes of permanently crippling the Sadr Movement headed (in part) by Muqtada al-Sadr. And maybe they'd be used in a new offensive against the Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Let me explain why it won't work. It won't work because Iraqis are now politically and socially mobilized. This means that they have the social preconditions for effective political and paramilitary action (they are largely urban, literate, connected by media, etc.) And they are politically savvy and well-connected. They are well armed, gaining in military experience, and well financed through petroleum and antiquities smuggling and through cash infusions from supporters abroad. The Mahdi Army fighters can be defeated by the US military, as happened twice in 2004. But they cannot be made to disappear, as they were not in 2004. That is because they are an organic movement springing from the Shiite poor, and are the paramilitary arm of a large social movement with a national network and ideology. [...]
I am not saying that popular protests cannot be crushed. They can and have been. I am saying that when you have a whole country that is politically mobilized and has substantial resources, a crack-down is likely doomed unless it is almost genocidal. [...]
The US is not going to commit the half a million troops it would take to have a chance of winning in Iraq. Nor is it going to use genocidal methods to strike absolute terror into the hearts of the Iraqi people.
The Iraq situation has gone beyond the point where 40,000 troops can retrieve it. And that is if we even had 40,000 troops to put into Iraq and keep them there any length of time, which we do not.
In fact, since most of the "coalition of the willing" troops have now left (Italy, Spain, etc.), one of the two US divisions would only be putting the number of Coalition soldiers back up to what it was earlier in the Occupation, when things were also not going well.
The fact is that if provincial elections were held today, the Sadr Movement would sweep to power in all the Shiite provinces (with the possible exception of Najaf itself). It is increasingly the most popular political party among Iraq's Shiite majority. For the US to cut the Sadrists out of power in parliament and then fall on them militarily would just throw Iraq into turmoil. It would increase the popularity of the Sadrists, and ensure that they gain nationalist credentials that will ensconce them for perhaps decades.
The "surge" tactic is being generated by Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard and by Frederick W. Kagan and Bill Kristol, i.e. by the same plutocratic American Enterprise Institute (Likudnik Central) that brought you the Iraq War with champagne toasts in the first place.
Kagan has a recent book on Napoleon. Napoleon's most prominent characteristic was his willingness to waste his troops' lives lightly. [...]
Bush is the Napoleon of our age, trampling on whole peoples, a Jacobin Emperor mouthing the slogans of liberty and popular sovereignty while crushing and looting those he "liberated." [...]
And you thought a mere election would make a difference. No one had to elect the American Enterprise Institute. No one needs to crown the emperor, he can do it himself. Welcome to Year 1 of the Empire. [Emphasis added]
The November elections were a referendum on Iraq, but you'd never know it. Not by what the Republicans are doing — or the Democrats either. People want to believe elections will change things, but like the Wobblies used to say, if voting really mattered, it would be illegal. It's going to take a lot more than voting, a lot more.
Posted by Jonathan at 10:35 PM
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| Monday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:20 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
This week a top general at the Pentagon said the War on Terror could take a 100 years to fight. President Bush was furious about the 100-year prediction and said, "Stop setting a fixed timetable." — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 10:12 AM
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December 17, 2006
| Tell New Congress To Act On Global Warming | Activism Environment |
Al Gore wants to deliver a million postcards to the incoming Congress, telling them that now is the time for decisive action on global warming. Go here and fill one out. Go!
Posted by Jonathan at 05:44 PM
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| AP: Hundreds Of Gitmo Prisoners Found Guiltless | 9/11, "War On Terror" Rights, Law |
The