Best and worst and things in between...

What the second amendment is actually all about.

How to treat PTSD.

And I thought fuzzy caterpillars were cute!

Imagine if you were stuck in a room with a blank computer and a floppy....

Making the 'War on Terror' forever unwinnable..

The best photos of 2012.

Finding buried treasure in the U.K.

Blog sprinkles

• Tengrain shows that newspapers began to tank only AFTER the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A rather notable fact....
  

• Number 12 of the 25 Censored stories: Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief.

• A bundle of hope from Phila of Bouphonia... here, here, here and here.

• Amazing series of photos from this last year.

• Palindrome: Harass Sarah.

• Because Obama decided to stop the Eternal War on a Noun, we're letting the terrorists win!! Even though he's done more against terrorism in this last year than in the two terms of Pinky and the Brain.

And Steve Benen educates us on why is it good to be a Republican:

• ...this is probably a good time to review the Media/Political Establishment's Rules for Understanding the Political Implications of Terrorism (or MPERUPIT):

  * If terrorists successfully attack during a Democratic president's first year in office (first attack on World Trade Center), it's the Democrats' fault, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Democratic president's second term, it's the Democrats' fault the terrorists even tried, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists successfully attack during a Republican president's first year in office (9/11), it's the Democrats' fault, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Republican president's second term, it's only because the Republican is "taking the fight to the enemy," and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Democratic president's first year in office, it's the Democrats' fault the terrorists even tried, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  If you don't have the handy dandy MPERUPIT list readily available, remember this shortcut: bad news is good for Republicans; good news is good for Republicans; Democrats are to blame for Republican failures; and Republicans deserve credit for Democratic successes.

  As long as you filter all terrorism-related news through this convenient prism, domestic coverage of current events will always make sense, even when it doesn't.

• Apparently a good site to keep track of Yemen.

And for all those very irritating hateful people you are forced to deal with... a very pretty song:


(if you want the words)

Wait! There must be another page to the list!

Wil Robinson of International Political Will talks about the latest attempt to move Afghans from producing opium poppies ... by planting pomegranates:

Let’s review the many ways our government has told us we can fight terrorism:

Go shopping

Surrender privacy rights

Shred the U.S. Constitution

Throw out habeas corpus

Rewrite the Geneva Conventions

Torture

Promote democracy and then actively sabotage it when you don’t like the result (see: Hamas)

Fund military despots around the world (see: Egypt, Pakistan, et. al.)

Veto United Nations Security Council Resolutions calling for Israel to respect human rights and international law

Rendition

Take off our shoes and go thirsty when traveling on a plane

Deploy a mercenary army with no accountability

Invade countries that didn’t attack us

Continue to placate the one that did (see: Saudi Arabia)

Lower the price of oil by “drilling now”

Refer to the enemy as “homicide bombers” but our own bombs as “smart”

Issue travel warnings to reduce cultural interaction

Color-code fear

Entrapment (see: Hamid Hayat, the Lodi “terrorist”)

Blame Al Jazeera and/or free speech for showing photos of people we killed

Build walls (in Israel or on the Mexican border)

Spend a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war instead of domestic development

Send more troops

Blame religion

Drop bombs on villages from remote-controlled airplanes

And now…Buy pomegranates

It seems we have tried just about everything – except the most obvious:

Stop killing non-white, impoverished Muslims.

Nonsense, I have loads more ideas like.... kites! Selling kites and... um... nuts! and ... Ignore those drones, eat more fruit!

I always said you can't declare war on a noun

It was one of the most idiotic phrases to come out of the Bush administration.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today argues that the use of the "war on terror" as a western rallying cry since the September 11 attacks has been a mistake that may have caused "more harm than good".

In an article in today's Guardian, five days before the Bush administration leaves the White House, Miliband delivers a comprehensive critique of its defining mission, saying the war on terror was misconceived and that the west cannot "kill its way" out of the threats it faces.

British officials quietly stopped using the phrase "war on terror" in 2006, but this is the first time it has been comprehensively discarded in the most outspoken remarks on US counterterrorism strategy to date by a British minister.

In remarks that will also be made in a speech today in Mumbai, in one of the hotels that was a target of terrorist attacks in November, the foreign secretary says the concept of a war on terror is "misleading and mistaken".

"Historians will judge whether it has done more harm than good," Miliband says, adding that, in his opinion, the whole strategy has been dangerously counterproductive, helping otherwise disparate groups find common cause against the west.

"The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common," Miliband argues, in a clear reference to the signature rhetoric of the Bush era. "We should expose their claim to a compelling and overarching explanation and narrative as the lie that it is."

"Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology," he says.

Bush's 'You're either for us or against us'; 'Bring it on'; and 'Wanted, dead or alive' quotes all reflect the bizarre simpleton thinking of the neocons. Sweeping up everybody who doesn't like us into a big pile and treating everyone the same loses the ability for using diplomacy, nuance, tolerance, and the capability of addressing wrongs. Wanting the world to be black or white, good or evil, wrong or right will not make it so. Acting like it is is even worse.

Somebody in the bowels of the Pentagon responds

To my post about General Richard Cody emphasizing the 'All Volunteer' military.

Citiwindo, a blogger name created in April 2008 and whose ip address showed (s)he is connected to the Pentagon said this in comments:

The last thing GEN Cody wants is to bring back the Draft. If you look at all of his previous statements in hearings and in media - he STRONGLY opposes the Draftt. He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get. He made that statement last week to get Congress to get off their duffs and give the Army the money it needs to win this War, and to take care of the Soldiers and families. Congress continues to underfund this Army and cut key programs, FCS, etc. His message has always been the same. Grow the Army, fund it appropriately in the BASE budget, and stop trying to win this war on the cheap thru supplementals.

He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get.

What do you mean? Do you mean those people who don't volunteer tend to be hostile about fighting incompetently run wars? And volunteers apparently will go uncomplainingly and willingly to their deaths because they ... volunteered? Or do you mean the fact that activating the draft would bring the wrath of all voters down upon the heads of politicians? Or could it be you are suggesting the draft gathers up people who shouldn't be in the military? Kinda like those soldiers who won WWII?

He made that statement last week to get Congress to get off their duffs and give the Army the money it needs to win this War, and to take care of the Soldiers and families.

Hmm. I understand the statement about taking care of our soldiers, like not cutting veteran's benefits which Republicans have done several times during the Bush administration. Besides the Walter Reed scandal which was mirrored in every other VA hospital across the nation, just recently we found soldiers who were suffering traumatic brain injuries were being sent back to the war and that some VA employees were told to no longer help disabled soldiers with the filing their paperwork. Is that the kind of getting off of the duff you mean? Or could it be the wonderful new GI Bill Senator Webb is trying to get passed? Why isn't McCain supporting this?

And yet you are blaming Congress? Is it because it is now run by a Democratic majority? You're not blaming the administration that got us into this mess? Not the people who thought this war would be a cakewalk? Not the neocons who thought they'd take out Hussein and pop in Chalabi and everything would be over in six weeks? Not the idiots who try to stifle the soldiers voices when they come back to the US? You aren't blaming the Bush administration but Congress? How odd.

So the plan is to keep sending the volunteers back again and again on their third... sixth... twelfth deployment while they slowly go mad or die? Is your response: So?

We have lost trillions ... TRILLIONS of dollars in this unwarranted, unsupported, unnecessary war of Bush and Cheney's. The neocon wet dream of all wet dreams was to take out Saddam Hussein and wedge ourselves into control in the middle of the oil lands. Well, we are now wedged between Iraq and the Eternal War on a Noun with no clear way out.

So. Just how would more money solve this problem? What could be done with even MORE trillions tossed into the quagmire that we haven't yet tried?

Do you think you could define what winning this war would entail? How do we win the Iraq war which is actually about twenty different little wars: the sectarian vs nationalist war, Shiite vs Shiite factions, Sunni vs Shiite, Kurds vs Turks, Kurds vs Shiite and Sunni, tribal loyalities, revenge, Saudi Arabia vs Iran posturing, warlords jockeying for power and a say in the new government, and al-Qaeda vs everybody else?

I don't think I have ever heard anyone even good ol' Petraeus dare to even attempt to define what victory in Iraq would look like and how it could be achieved. It's always just six months away. Wait another few months, four months, six months.... wait until Bush is no longer President....

Can you define your statement: winning this war? Because, by defining victory, you must then explain the real reason we attacked and invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11.

I don't think you can.

Just WHAT are we fighting for, exactly?

Via Unrepentant Old Hippie:



Marianne Faithfull: Broken English

Could have come through anytime,
Cold lonely, puritan
What are you fighting for ?
Its not my security.

Its just an old war,
Not even a cold war,
Dont say it in russian,
Dont say it in german.
Say it in broken english,
Say it in broken english.

Lose your father, your husband,
Your mother, your children.
What are you dying for ?
Its not my reality.

Just continuing the tradition he began back in college

When he'd party at the frat house until just before the final, then cram furiously for the test. Explains why he was a 'gentleman's C student':

Iraq report card: only 3 of 18 benchmarks met.
On the one year anniversary of President Bush’s State of the Union address justifying his “New Way Forward” in Iraq, Center for American Progress has compiled an “Iraq Benchmark Report Card” showing that “the surge has failed to meet its objectives” as “the Iraqi government has only met three of the 18 benchmarks laid out last year.”

This time you get an F, Georgie. The surge is a dud, the war is a disaster. And it happened on your watch and during your presidency. This is your legacy and yours alone.





Update: Oh, and by the way, the surge was supposed to bring different sides together. All that press about the meeting? What meeting?:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 Negotiations are not taking place in Baghdad on the controversial oil law and other oil disputes, contrary to previous news accounts.

UPI confirmed that a top U.S. State Department official tasked with moving the oil law forward is in Washington, not Iraq.

A number of Iraqi media had reported that a delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government was in Baghdad meeting with top national oil officials in an effort to find agreement on the stalled oil law.

Al Mowaten newspaper quotes a KRG spokesman that the region's oil minister is in Baghdad. But the paper also quotes a Kurdish member of the national Parliament Mahmoud Othamn said there's no such meeting taking place.

We won and nobody told us?

The eternal war on a noun? Why else would the Bush administration want to cut money from the first responders on the Eternal War On Terror?

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will cut counterterrorism money for police, firefighters and rescue departments next year, but not by as much as it originally proposed.

Next month the White House will request $2.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, and not $1.4 billion, an administration aide told Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., on Friday. That would be 10 percent more than the president requested for 2008, but 40 percent less than Congress gave the department this year.

King and other lawmakers were outraged in December when they learned the administration wanted to slash these funds by more than half in its final budget request before Bush leaves office.

Apparently we're keeping our winning secret so the terrorists won't know....

How can it be unlawful to shoot any civilian you want to in a war zone?

The Bush administration promised the mercenaries fighting this war that they would not have to worry about accountability, right?

Blackwater is being sued:

The Center for Constitutional Rights is filing another lawsuit today against the private military firm Blackwater—this time for a shooting in Baghdad on September 9th that left five people dead and ten injured. The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of the family members of one those killed in the shooting.

Countdown to explanations as to why this will be a blow to our freedoms... or to the glorious Eternal War on Terror and Islamofascisticevildoers... 4.. 3.. 2..

We even refuse to wear the little party hats

You have to wonder what it would be like to be Joe Lieberman. Only three years ago he was the Democratic Party's choice for Vice President, and enjoyed all the national attention such an honor entails. Now the only way he can get sucked up to is to go on Fox News and offer up made-to-order fibs about his former party.

Lieberman just went on Fox and gave an extended interview in which he repeatedly suggested that Dems won't acknowledge any progress of any kind in Iraq. "It’s time that everybody including Democratic candidates get off this storyline," Lieberman said.

[snip]

The key point here is that the falsehood Lieberman is telling here is critical to the GOP's last-ditch efforts to prevent support for the war from dribbling away completely. The game plan is to misrepresent what the Dem position has been, in order to (a) paint Dems as churlishly refusing to acknowledge the military's hard-won gains; and (b) conflate the military progress we've seen with the political progress that was always the goal and that still remains elusive.

Senator Lieberman, Fox News thanks you for your devoted service -- and hereby rewards you with the attention you crave.

If you vote for Mike Huckabee

You will be sure to change the Eternal War on Terror into a War of Religions: (my bold)

"People look at my record and say that I’m as strong on immigration, strong on terror as anybody. In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well. And know the threat of it is absolutely overwhelming to us. As a president, nobody’s going to be stronger on building border security, not having amnesty, no sanctuary cities, having a process in place that forces a process that is legal. When it comes to national security, I understand that the threat that we face is not about our grandchildren having better homes and better cars, it’s about whether they’re going to have a breath and a pulse."

Good to know.

Compare that with this statement by Richard Armitage to Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: Are you suggesting that the “War on Terror” is not the central component of U.S. policy right now?

ARMITAGE: There’s two different things. I’m suggesting that it perhaps shouldn’t be. The fact that we make a war on “terror”–which I think is a bit of a misnomer—perhaps it should be a war on extremism, certainly Islamic extremism right now—is keeping us from focusing on other issues, both domestic and international. Look, these terrorists want to hurt us; they’re a real and growing threat. But absent the availability of WMDs to them, they don’t pose an existential threat to us. This is not like fascism during the second world war or communism. The threat they pose to us is whether we in response to their activities will actually do harm to ourselves by changing our way of life, by suspending writs of habeas corpus and by engaging in such activities as torture.

(both links found via Crooks and Liars).

Excuse me, sir. Win what?

Define winning in Iraq. Anybody? General Petraeus?:

His pacification of Mosul proved short-lived. The rapid, $19-billion Iraqi force buildup produced, on his watch, battalions impressive for the numbers trained and the huge arsenal of weapons handed over by the Americans, but the Iraqi soldiers were often unreliable, and their units prone to infiltration by militias when deployed.

Now, in the face of a stubbornly brutal conflict and declining war support at home, General Petraeus has pulled back from the pulsating sense of self-confidence that fellow officers say has been his hallmark — that he can prevail against any odds.

He has become strikingly cautious, avoiding on-the-record comments on many politically contentious issues. Shunning generalizations on the war in interviews, he lays out colored charts and graphs that show falling numbers of suicide attacks, other bombings and civilian casualties, when comparing January’s figures with those in June and July. But he eludes anything that might signal what broader conclusions he will be carrying to Washington in September.

His caution extends to the most fundamental question: whether the war can still be won. “Obviously, what we’re going to try and do is win it,” he says. “What we’re trying to do right now is generate enough hope to give it a chance. But the problem is, it’s likely to muddle along for quite a long time.” A campaign plan the general and Ambassador Crocker recently sent to Washington envisages an American troop presence of some size here at least through 2009.

What does winning in Iraq mean? An undivided country? Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites all working together in harmony? No bombs? No al-Qaeda? A functional democracy? Hitting January 20, 2009? What? How do you define winning?

When, if ever, will our troops be able to come home?

Somebody needs to send Georgie a memo

Because we've known this for a while now: (my bold)

WASHINGTON — Suicide bombers in Iraq are overwhelmingly foreigners bent on destabilizing the government and undermining American interests there, two independent studies have concluded.

The studies report that the number of suicide bombings in Iraq has now surpassed those conducted worldwide since the early 1980s. The findings suggest that extremists from throughout the region and around the world are fueling Iraq's violence.

"The war on terrorism — and certainly the war in Iraq — has failed in decreasing the number of suicide attacks and has really radicalized the Muslim world to create this concept of martyrs without borders," said Mohammed Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and the author of one of the two studies.

I'm sure there would be a lot of volunteers

If he asked third-tour soldiers in Baghdad:

BETTENDORF, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."

Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was posed the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for "a surge of support" for U.S. forces in Iraq.
[snip]
"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."

He added: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

[snip]
The woman who asked the question, 41-year-old Rachel Griffiths of Milan, Ill., identified herself as a member of Quad City Progressive Action for the Common Good, as well as the sister of an Army major who had served in Iraq.

"Of course not," Griffiths said when asked if she was satisfied with Romney's answer. "He told me the way his son shows support for our military and our nation is to buy a Winnebago and ride across Iowa and help him get elected."

Basically, let those who thought signing up was a way to escape poverty, help with school, travel, protect our nation, support our Constitution... let those who volunteered go fight the Eternal War On Terror, the War To Protect Our Way Of Life that is so important and frightening that all the rest of us need to go shopping incessantly. No politician will mention the word draft.

Well... what do you expect from a guy who believes in this:

Strange how every person we kill in Iraq

Just happens to be al-Qaeda....



How very... convenient....

Circling the drain

The neocon agenda, their glorious thousand year reich, their wonderful and eternal war on terror, their power grab, their theocracy, their money.....

It looks like the American citizens have finally awakened from their stupor.

Vanity Press has the line up.

Bush doesn't like it when people make fun of his glorious manly macho Eternal War on a Noun, so.....

Hijacked from Daily Kos:

"In the [60 Minutes] interview, Bush said popularity is not his goal. Well, I thought, mission accomplished."

"President Bush watched the hanging of Saddam Hussein. He said he was not pleased with how the Iraqis executed Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis fired back, 'Yeah? We're not pleased with the way you executed the war.'"
---David Letterman

"The good news is last night President Bush finally admitted he's made mistakes in Iraq. The bad news is he's planning to make the same mistakes again."

"President Bush also said that all the military commanders who have looked at his plan say it will work. That's because all the ones who said it wouldn't work aren't military commanders anymore."
---Jay Leno

"Former President Bush is going to celebrate his 85th birthday by jumping out of a plane. So for one minute there will be two Bush’s in a freefall."
---Conan O'Brien

The reason we aren't being allowed to win in Iraq

Is because of (pick as many as your conspiracy needs):
1) reporters on the ground.
2) unenthusiastic American youths not enlisting in said glorious war.
3) unenthusiastic Americans who read news from 1).
4) the UN (where ARE their black helicopters, anyway?).
5) Europe.
6) the Iraqi people who obviously do not appreciate being liberated and given democracy.
7) the liberals/progressives/hippies who have magical flower powers to curse military efforts.
8 ) the world wide liberal media which is telling us bad news from Iraq. They should only show us how we are winning!
9) the UN European reporters who are embedded with unenthusiastic educated hippie American soldiers.
10) Education

Kenosha Kid has more.

It's like Battle of the Bulge with a dash of Gettysburg and a teaspoon of Valley Forge!

Lieberman thrashes about for a rallying cry for the Eternal War on a Noun.

"There are people who have spoken of this moment in history as if it were the 30’s, and there are some parallels, I fear, there. People say the war in Iraq is comparable to the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Iraq, to the larger war against Islamist terrorism, comparable to the Spanish Civil War, to the Second World War, the late 30’s and the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe until it was almost too late. The painful irony of this moment in our history, is that while in some senses it is comparable to the 1930’s, it’s also already 1942. Because Pearl Harbor [9/11], in this war, has already happened."

Of course, for clarity, you'd have to mention Verdun (Verdun, the longest battle of the First World War, ended on the 18th December. The French Army lost about 550,000 men at Verdun. It is estimated that the German Army suffered 434,000 casualties. About half of all casualties at Verdun were killed.) and Gallipoli.

The eternal War on a Noun will be just that. As we kill more presumed 'terrorists' we will make more. This is a war Lieberman, McCain, and Bush wants your grandchildren to be quagmired in.

Can you guys tell us for which noble cause yet?

Osama could have been killed by the French

but we couldn't have allowed that, could we? I mean, the French kill Osama and there go all the anti-French jokes. Then there goes Osama, and we've lost our reason for being in Ira.. Afghanistan ..or something. This is an eternal War On Terror! Heaven forbid we actually kill off some of those very convenient terrorists!

"The documentary, due to air next year and seen by Reuters on Tuesday, says the troops could have killed the al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. but the order to shoot never came, possibly because it took too long to request it.

"In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said 'I have bin Laden'," an anonymous French soldier is quoted as saying."