Iraq

Contractors operate equipment under the crackle of automatic weapon fire and with the protection of M-1 tanks, Stryker vehicles and Apache helicopters. The workers in this case are constructing a series of walls to block certain areas of Sadr City, the vast Shi'ite slum in Baghdad.

Dozens of walls have already been built around Baghdad, the southern city of Basra and other Iraqi cities, creating segregated ethnic Sunni and Shi'ite neighborhoods ringed with checkpoints and command posts. The latest flurry of construction activity has little to do with nation building, but rather is more related to a deteriorating security environment.

Message to Hillary - He will be President of the United States in 2009.

Message to Hillary - He will be President of the United States in 2013.

Message to Hillary - You, more than any other American, have contributed to that outcome.

Message to Hillary - Your selfishness, your dishonesty, your mean spirit, your vapid notions of domestic and foreign policy, your 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran' rip-off of McCain's theme song ....

Many of you may or may not be aware of this.  A massive tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta around 10 pm last night.  It caused major damage to several sections of downtown, inflicting massive structural damage as well to the CNN Center where my childhood best friend works.  It destroyed homes, potentially the one where I lived for most of a year.  I'm not sure the status of the home where my friend lives, either, but I am literally praying it was not destroyed.  

The only network covering this live is CNN.  Fox is beating up on Barack, instead.  I have to say, shame on Fox News for not reporting on an utter catastrophe where human lives and safety are and will continue to be at stake.

America, since 1945, has spent zillions of dollars on armaments, on military forces, on building nuclear weapons, on satellites, on space travel and space technology, on army bases, on missile shields, on waging wars, etc. But perhaps, all this time, it has been preparing for the wrong enemy!

Of course, the modern war game: the invading of sovereign countries on a pretext so that you can  gain access to all their resources and, after you’ve destroyed all their infrastructure, make lots of money  from rebuilding it again, is very much a product of an out-of-control capitalist system! Profit is its justifying god, its raison de etre!

A further bonus of this kind of war is that the conduct of the war itself makes lots of money especially if a large percentage of your industry is based upon producing armaments as is the case in capitalist America. You drop the bombs and push the tanks and aircraft hard, then, as they are consumed or wear out, build more and more. Profits, though tainted with the blood of innocents, soar.

We hear over and over from the gasbags and politicos on the other side how "great" things are in Iraq.  How the Euphrates will soon be flowing with chocolate and how they're actually finding pots of dinar at the bottom of the numerous rainbows sprouting up around the country.

Oh, wait:

Bill O'Reilly is still blathering the same question he's been beating for months now. "Do you want to win the war on terrorism?" There's more chance you'll see the Easter Bunny laying eggs in your yard. Why does anyone listen to this fear-mongering jerk?

Ruling the World

A Satirical Exposition

By Peter Fredson
November 8, 2007

I just finished a long compilation of reasons why Bush invaded Iraq, using several thousand files from the past 5 years. Many reasons have been alleged for the invasion, some humorous, and others reaching the edge of criminality. The reasons seemed to shift and multiply as the administration gradually realized things were not going as well as it had hoped. Then a fellow blogger asked me to identify the reason I thought was "really" in the back of the complicated group mind of George Bush and his co-conspirators.

Using some shaman’s animal bones, an eye of a newt, and several hundred patriotic speeches by Bush cabinet members, I reached some conclusions regarding "real" reasons that Bush declared war on Iraq. To get to the bottom of the reasons, I first had to realize that there was NO bottom.

Cross-posted from Docudharma

It will surprise nearly everyone in the U.S. to learn that the single greatest direct cause of Iraqi deaths are the foreign fighters of the United States military and their allies, known as the "coalition". That is what the authors of both of the Johns Hopkins/Al Mustansiriya mortality studies (aka the "Lancet report") found. It is also what the reality on the ground in Iraq demonstrates, though that information is not easily available if one is dependent on the U.S. government, their military, and the American mainstream media as sources.

Who is worse?  The criminal, or those who appease and coddle the criminal -- thus allowing him to continue his crime spree?

My answer below.

So I see this morning that there's been yet another bombing of a mosque in Iraq.  All I can think of is a 1917 trench song:

Bombed last night, and bombed the night before
Going to get bombed tonight
If we never get bombed any more
When we're bombed, we're scared as we can be
Can't stop the bombing sent from Higher Germany
They're over us, they're over us,
One shell hole for just the four of us,
Thank your lucky stars there are no more of us,
'Cause one of us can fill it all alone.  2. Gassed last night, and gassed the night before
Going to get gassed tonight;
If we never get gassed anymore
When we're gassed, we're sick as we can be
For Phosgene and Mustard Gas is much too much for me.
They're warning us, they're warning us,
One respirator for the four of us
Thank your lucky stars that three of us can run,
So one of us can use it all alone.  

I know it's not the same thing, but I bet the sentiment is pretty close.

Read this short article from today's WaPo.  Read it very carefully.  Ok?  Have you read it now?  Do you finally understand now?

Unless you have evidence that contradicts the article, you will have to agree that while a surge of troops or prolonged occupation won't solve the problem in Iraq, a simple withdrawal will not solve the problem either.

http://www.newyorker.com/...

Book after book after book on exploring the roots of Iraq, shows Paul Wolfowitz, along with Donald Rumsfeld, pushing, pushing, pushing the Administration to invade Iraq.

and it isn't pretty.

Healthcare

A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said.

The incident, witnessed by more than two dozen people, was described by police as a particularly outrageous case of "homeless dumping" that has plagued the downtown area. - LATimes

Seventy Percent of Baghdad's Youth Are Not in School and Are Vulnerable, Officials Say

This was aired tonight on the ABC World News.

For all who are still young and have little ones nearby take a long hard look at them, than start thinking how you're going to explain the 'Why are we fighting these people?", when they are older and you're in that perverbial rocking chair. Because they are going to ask and you had better have a Damn Good Reason, because I'll be long gone, or to damn old, and I don't have one now nor will I than.

There isn't one!

One things for sure they probably won't ask "Why do they hate us so?" as the greater majority did here not long ago, they'll probably know at least a little bit of the past!

Has the Iraqi government finally began to take the steps needed to confront the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr?

One of the major points behind NOT privatizing social services for Americas' citizens is oversight. (did that sound calm? good.) That's all the calm you get. Time for some citizen oversight.

First, I outlined some of the problems and bs that ensued with Mr Daniels conversion of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to be run by a private company here.

Sounds pretty crappy, eh? Problems on top of problems.
Did he learn his lesson? What do you think?

I spent an hour with friends on a corner in a small town in upstate New York today. We were standing in a vigil that occurs each Saturday and started a long time ago. We aren't sworn at or flipped the bird as much as in the past. I suppose other peace vigils in other towns around the country might be getting similar replies to the message we are sending regarding this terrible invasion and occupation of an innocent country. Just about everybody today acknowledges that there was no good excuse for the "shock and awe" attack on Iraq.