5
Doesn’t take a prophet digging through chicken entrails to see the Finger of God/dess in the anniversary of this fifth year of soul-eviscerating Bush-folly coming along during Holy Week and leading us, heavy-hearted, to the 4,000th soldier dying on Easter Sunday. Jesus wept.
LOOK … that was the message. So let’s look.
The ’surge’ is going to go into a new phase — they’re calling it the ‘pause.’ It comes as troops rotate out, but leaving even more of them on Iraq soil than we objected to in the surge. Soldiers are now policeman — concrete barriers separate Baghdad neighborhoods — and there is still so little progress in Iraqi infrastructure that sewage runs the street, water must be boiled and electricity remains unpredictable, regional and expensive. Meanwhile, we’re paying both sides not to kill each other … helluva plan, Dubby! The war, that has cost over a million Iraqi lives, driven 20% of the population into exile, corroded the power and spirit of the American military and exhausts us on every level has already presented a bill to this nation of over a half-trillion dollars [approximately $5,000 per minute.]
Uncle Dick’s religion IS the war, so no help there — when it was pointed out to him that “Two-third’s of Americans say it’s not worth fighting,” our Veep had this to say: So?
[DO open the Ann Telnaes link.]
And as for Bush, he’s no doubt ‘praying’ for those poor soldiers … he prayed for the Katrina victims too, as I recall. [As I wrote this, Dubby came on CNN to tell me how we’re all praying and how history will tell us what a good thing his war was — and a White House commentator told me that Dubby pauses with reports of every warriors death to personally pray for the family and friends. Aren’t you impressed? Isn’t that ‘compassionate?‘]
General Petraeus recently said that “progress in Iraq is fragile, it is tenuous.” The Dub and Uncle Dick quickly disagreed — and when St. David arrives on the Hill in the next few days to report on the situation, I’m sure he will have had a fresh script handed to him.
Neither of our Dem candidates can/will end this war quickly — McRib won’t end it at all. We have no idea what’s ahead, although casualty rates are rising in the last weeks which may put it back into the public arena [news.] The economy has pretty much banished Bush’s War to the back pages — perhaps it will be God/dess pointing another finger to the economy that will, eventually, end it.
Short collection here — DO read Senator Byrd’s passionate oratory from 2003 — and McRib’s response to it. Best to know what we’re looking at. Besides doubling Bush’s tax cuts, the man … if he wins … will attempt to keep us there forever.
As for the current conditions in Iraq, I’ll post a couple of Islamic voices to speak to that.
Jude
Cheney On Two-Thirds Of The American Public Opposing The Iraq War: ‘So?’
Think Progress
3/19/08
This morning, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, ABC’s Good Morning America aired an interview with Vice President Cheney on the war. During the segment, Cheney flatly told White House correspondent Martha Raddatz that he doesn’t care about the American public’s views on the war:
- CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.
RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?
RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?
CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
Watch it here [open link.]
This opposition to the war is not a “fluctuation” in public opinion. The American public has steadily turned against the war since the 2003 invasion. According to a new CNN poll, just 36 percent of the American public believes that “the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over ×?’ down from 68 percent in March 2003, when the war began.”
Even though he doesn’t care what the American public wants, Cheney still thinks he is able ×?’ and entitled ×?’ to speak for the American public. Last month, Cheney declared, “The American people will not support a policy of retreat.” If Cheney were actually listening to the “American people,” he would know that 61 percent actually supports the redeployment of U.S. troops.
“Today, I weep for my country”
The speech given by Sen. Robert Byrd on the Senate floor on March 19, 2003, just prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq — and John McCain’s response.
InformationClearing House
Editor’s note: Exactly five years ago, on the afternoon of March 19, 2003, mere hours before bombs began falling in Baghdad, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate condemning the use of military force in Iraq. As soon as Byrd was finished speaking, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., delivered a response defending the Bush administration’s decision to go to war. Both speeches are reproduced in full below.
March 19, 2003 — - Byrd: I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.
But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat U.N. Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split. After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.
The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.
There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, al-Qaida, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board.
The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.
But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight.
The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to “orange alert.” There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home? A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.
What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?
War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift. Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run. Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail. I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.
John McCain
McCain: Madam President, I observed the comments of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia concerning the events which are about to transpire within the next hour or so, or days. I did not really look forward to coming to the floor and debating the issue. It has been debated. It has been discussed in the media. It has been discussed at every kitchen table in America. But I felt it would be important for me to respond to allegations concerning the United States of America, its status in the world, and, in particular, what happens after this conflict is over, which I do not think we have paid enough attention to, perhaps understandably, because our first and foremost consideration is the welfare of the young men and women we are sending in harm’s way. But to allege that somehow the United States of America has demeaned itself or tarnished its reputation by being involved in liberating the people of Iraq, to me, simply is neither factual nor fair.
The United States of America has involved itself in the effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, and now freedom for the Iraqi people, with the same principles that motivated the United States of America in most of the conflicts we have been involved in, most recently Kosovo and Bosnia, and in which, in both of those cases, the United States national security was not at risk, but what was at risk was our advocacy and willingness to serve and sacrifice on behalf of people who are the victims of oppression and genocide.
We did not go into Bosnia because Mr. Milosevic had weapons of mass destruction. We did not go into Kosovo because ethnic Albanians or others were somehow a threat to the security of the United States. We entered into those conflicts because we could not stand by and watch innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered, raped, and “ethnically cleansed.'’ We found a new phrase for our lexicon: “ethnic cleansing.'’ Ethnic cleansing is a phrase which has incredible implications.
The mission our military is about to embark on is fraught with danger, and it means the loss of brave young American lives. But I also believe it offers the opportunity for a new day for the Iraqi people.
Madam President, there is one thing I am sure of, that we will find the Iraqi people have been the victims of an incredible level of brutalization, terror, murder, and every other kind of disgraceful and distasteful oppression on the part of Saddam Hussein’s regime. And contrary to the assertion of the Senator from West Virginia, when the people of Iraq are liberated, we will again have written another chapter in the glorious history of the United States of America, that we will fight for the freedom of other citizens of the world, and we again assert the most glorious phrase, in my view, ever written in the English language; and that is: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The people of Iraq , for the first time, will be able to realize those inalienable rights. I am proud of the United States of America. I am proud of the leadership of the President of the United States.
It is not an easy decision to send America’s young men and women into harm’s way. As I said before, some of them will not be returning. But to somehow assert, as some do, that the people of Iraq and the Middle East are not entitled to those same God-given rights that Americans and people all over the country are, that they do not have those same hopes and dreams and aspirations our own citizens do, to me, is a degree of condescension. I might even use stronger language than that to describe it.
So I respectfully disagree with the remarks of the Senator from West Virginia. I believe the President of the United States has done everything necessary and has exercised every option short of war, which has led us to the point we are today.
I believe that, obviously, we will remove a threat to America’s national security because we will find there are still massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Although Theodore Roosevelt is my hero and role model, I also, in many ways, am Wilsonian in the respect that America, this great nation of ours, will again contribute to the freedom and liberty of an oppressed people who otherwise never might enjoy those freedoms.
So perhaps the Senator from West Virginia is right. I do not think so. Events will prove one of us correct in the next few days. But I rely on history as my guide to the future, and history shows us, unequivocally, that this nation has stood for freedom and democracy, even at the risk and loss of American lives, so that all might enjoy the same privileges or have the opportunity to someday enjoy the same privileges as we do in this noble experiment called the United States of America.
McCain, Cheney reject Petraeus analysis of Iraq
Steve Benen, Crooks and Liars
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
The debate over the U.S. policy towards Iraq (and the debate over the debate) has taken several twists and turns over the course of five long and painful years, but if there’s one thing I thought the entire Republican establishment agreed on, it’s this: don’t disagree with Gen. David Petraeus. His judgment is sacrosanct, his word is gold, and his assessments of conditions in Iraq are unimpeachable.
Why, then, are John McCain and Dick Cheney contradicting Petraeus publicly?
Just four days ago, Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services.
As it turns out, “no one” doesn’t include John McCain, who feels there’s been plenty of progress×?
- “Anybody who believes the surge has not succeeded, militarily, politically and in most other ways, frankly, does not know the facts on the ground.”
×? nor does it include Dick Cheney, who apparently sees political progress Petraeus doesn’t.
- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a “successful endeavor,” pointing to security and political progress on a visit ahead of the fifth anniversary of the war.
A new schism between Petraeus and Republican leaders? Well, probably not. It’s far more likely that McCain and Cheney have their political talking points to read, and don’t much care whether they contradict Petraeus’ comments or not.
Five Years of Genocide
Zuheir Kseibat, InformationClearingHouse
20/03/08
Five years ago to the day, it was the dawn of the American invasion that carried Iraq to the endless darkness of the occupation. The fall of Baghdad, the Arab capital which they almost dubbed Saddam Hussein’s capital, was nothing but the onset of a massive volcanic eruption in the region; its fires still consume the Arabs’ stability and security and rewrite maps from the Ocean to the Gulf.
The captain of the invasion, George Bush, celebrates the “first large-scale Arab uprising against Usama bin Laden.” He reassures Americans that the costs of the invasion and war against and in Iraq, now touching $500 billion, are petty when bearing the “gains” in mind×?notably ending “Saddam’s tyranny” and lighting the candles of hope towards “democracy.”
As he celebrates the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Bush forgets the big misleading lie about the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The battle has turned into a front against al-Qaeda and terrorism, and its strategic goal is to prevent shifting the battlefield to the US. Let it then be the 100-year war fought with Iraqi blood!
Those were five years of tears and blood. They are good enough a price for the Baghdad government to prevent a quick American withdrawal, which would sweep away the “achievements” realized so far, including the reduction of death tolls and rates. The suicide bombers, however, continue to come in waves, while hundreds of thousands have been left dead since the invasion and occupation began. Millions are now refugees all over Mesopotamia and neighboring countries, announcing the worst humanitarian “crisis” in a country that holds the world’s third largest oil reserves. Perhaps it is certainly much worse than a crisis.
Despite all this, Bush is still celebrating the liberation of Iraqis from tyranny, and also from their blood, wealth, sovereignty, security, stability, and unity. By all moral standards, neither he nor his Vice President Dick Cheney feel embarrassed when they present on their list of victories the face of a new Iraq in which al-Qaeda is weakened and the resources of terrorism are dried up. They conveniently overlook al-Qaeda’s students and women, the swamps of corruption drowning ministers and officials, the impoverishment of the homeless and the insanity of those who have been plagued by massacres and bombings that have turned Iraq into the home of the forgotten genocide.
The president, the captain of occupation, and his vice president who has bestowed upon his wife an adventurous and challenging trip to the secret base, are not ashamed of revealing the “logical” conclusion of the extremely costly war: that no other generation of Americans will have to be sent here to deter a potential confrontation on American soil. And if the cost is the blood, wealth, and unity of Iraqis, that would be their problem.
When Mesopotamia becomes the nation of unified plagues falling upon the necks of a nation, the American president finds no reason to apologize for his lies about weapons of mass destruction. Only a handful of the original war architects remain with him but mostly in hiding, while Cheney promises the Iraqis that he would not tire. The battle still has chapters to come, and if the Americans were to be bored by any slackness on al-Qaeda’s side, there would still be the Iranian “influence.” It is as if the vice president is taking the risk to address the victim of murder and warn him against the murderer!
Five years of tears and blood. The deafening bombs are still louder than the wailing of the mothers who lost their children and the weeping of men every time they lost children and fathers. But does any of this happen in Iraq? Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is commending the “healing of the nation,” for Iraqis are no longer killed on the basis of their sectarian identity! Genocide has become “fair,” as it no longer discriminates between Sunni and Shiite. To become indiscriminate, the genocide has had to last as long as the occupation itself. Everything that has been since the dawn of March 20th, 2003 is a “success” according to Cheney’s testimony.
According to al-Maliki’s account, life goes on in Iraq. The only obstacle that hinders “reconciliation” between the ruling forces and the disgruntled parties is a final resolution over the oil law to divide the inheritance of the murdered victim.
The “Iraqis were liberated” five years ago. All they need to do is to believe the American when he offers them a medal for defeating tyranny so they can prepare themselves for another decade or two of war on terror, while he promises them “strategic” military bases to guard oil facilities ×?and the dead.
Cheney wonders about the Arabs and why they are so shy in front of Iran and al-Qaeda. In the century-long war, everyone has a role to play.
In the long night and the epic of forgotten genocide, only Bush hallucinates about victory×?.All the politicians of Iraq hallucinate about democracy-deception. It is the long night of genocide.
‘We live in a nightmare. Death and carnage is everywhere’
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Guardian UK
20/03/08
Baghdad — In most cities of the world a person might expect to be feted for surviving a single bomb attack. In Baghdad, survival stories can be found on every street corner.
Ali is a painter and a student at the academy of art in north Baghdad. A few years ago he moved to the Baghdad suburb of Karrada, where many artists live because of its art market.
When I meet him, Ali is limping slightly. A white bandage protrudes from the sleeve of his striped jumper, and he frequently drops his left shoulder so that his arm rests on his thigh. These are the only outward signs of the injuries he sustained in the previous week.
In a shy, soft voice Ali tells me how he had been standing with a friend in Karrada when a bomb went off at the side of the road. “I heard an explosion very close by,” he says. “I saw smoke and chaos and people screaming. I saw my friend Hassan, who was running and carrying a child who had lost an arm. I saw a nice-looking girl - the Karrada girls, you know how beautiful they are. She was dead. And I saw a girl who had only one eye.
“I couldn’t bear it,” he tells me. “I started to scream and cry.
“Then suddenly there was another explosion. This time, you know, I didn’t hear much, I just saw a tall column of orange fire a few metres away from me and then smoke. I didn’t know what had happened, but the people who had run over to tend the injured from the first bomb were now lying on the street screaming.
“I stood there in the middle of it all. I saw people picking bodies up and carrying them. A police car arrived and the police started to fire bullets in the air. I ran away and hid at the entrance of a shop. When a woman saw me, she started screaming. There was blood on my arm and on my leg.” A friend of Ali’s stopped a passing ambulance and helped him into it. Inside, he found a man whose face was black from burns and whose shoulder was covered with blood. A younger man was bleeding from his legs. “When he tried to lift one of them it bent not at the knee but from the middle of his thigh,” Ali says. “He was screaming, ‘Fix my leg! Fix my leg!’ ”
At the hospital, Ali and the others sat in a corridor waiting to be treated by the overstretched medical team. “There were children there who were all red,” he remembers. “It looked as if they had no faces, they were so covered with blood.”
After waiting a while he was transferred to another hospital, where a doctor examined him. “The doctor told me I just had two bits of shrapnel in my arm and leg,” Ali says. “He asked me why I was crying. I told him it wasn’t for myself but for all the boys and girls around me.”
The doctor took out what looked like pliers and asked Ali to look away. “He got the first bullet out, but the second didn’t come so easily and I screamed.”
After Ali has finished telling me this story I look around at his immaculately clean apartment. On one side of the room are a pile of paintings. He points at three small ones hanging on the wall, a mixture of orange and red splashes. “These are my attempts at surrealism,” he says.
“Immediately after the war, I had a strong feeling of optimism. I was sure the Saddam era wouldn’t come back, we had money and were spending all the money.
“But then the conspiracy theories started. I began hearing my brothers and friends say the Americans were here only for the oil, and after that I would go to bed and lie awake thinking how much oil they were stealing from me. Now I don’t care if they steal the money, I am so tired.”
“I ask myself why life in Iraq is so cheap. We are living in a nightmare. It is like there is a camera recording us and by its light we see images of death and carnage everywhere. The Iraqi have good hearts, but we are living in a state of hysteria.”
This is Ali’s second apartment. His first was blown up. On a mobile phone he shows me grainy video footage of smoke mixed with broken furniture. There are some muffled sounds and then I make out someone shouting: “Are you OK? This is a mortar. We’re getting shelled.”
In fact it was a car bomb, Ali says.
He shared that flat with two other friends, Mamdouh and Sarmad. “They were the best people in the world. Mamdouh and I would listen to [the Arab singer] Fairuz and paint all night.
“The night before that bomb, Mamdouh told me he felt guilty he hadn’t done any work for so long. He told me he would go out for breakfast early in the morning.
“I stayed in the flat, sleeping. Then I heard the first explosion. It was at the end of the street. I went to the window to look, and then as I was walking back the second bomb went of, just under my window.”
Emotional
As Ali ran down the stairs, he saw someone who lived on the first floor wrapped in a blanket. He was dead. “I asked if anyone had seen Mamdouh and Sarmad. They told me no one had seen them. I was crying in the street . A few hours later a friend called me and told me that Sarmad was dead and Mamdouh was in hospital.”
Ali went to the hospital. His eyes and voice are calm - as usual - while he recounts the scene. “He was lying on a bed there in the Kindi hospital, there was a filthy smell all around, the smell of urine. He looked like Mamdouh, but he was like someone else … he smiled and I smiled back, but I felt a great pain in my heart.” Two days later, Ali tells me, Mamdouh died.
“We came, his friends, me and Hassan and Hadi, and washed him and put him in a shroud. You know I am too emotional. I cry very quickly. For six months I didn’t talk to anyone, I was just sad and silent.
Ali loves Arabic calligraphy and has studied it for many years. Now, he says, all he writes are the black mourning signs for his dead friends, which, according to Iraqi custom, he hangs in the street.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.idols 70s singers teensex mature americanbodybuilders amateur teenteenager acne for treatmentclips all amature sexaddiction to pornographyteen chat african americanamateur pussy sexy adult Maplink ringtone alltel ringtonefree 100 mole downloads ringtone2285 ringtones tracfone3390 composed ringtone freealexander warringtonmole 100 free ringtones phonecomposer ringtone 33906015i ringtones Mapelizabeth farmer pornporn elizabeth lawrenceporn montgomery elizabethporn elizabetheanporn ellen degenerousporn ellphoneelongated porn nipplesporn elves Map
Add comment March 24th, 2008