Letterman: The Gayest Show on Television
Leave it to Dave to flout the current hypocrisy.
Gays are the "niggers" of today...and the gay-bashers and homophobes are the KKKlan of today.
Where would these ne'er-do-wells be without an enemy to have a culture war against?
Thursday, May 27, 2004
President Gore's Historic Speech
President Gore's Speech
EXCERPTS (SUBHEADS MINE)
Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared
...
BUSH SQUANDERS AMERICA'S GOOD WILL
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
DOMINANCE IS AS DOMINANCE DOES
More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.
BUSH'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.
One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.
...
BUSH CHANGES TONE, STARTS MURDERING PEOPLE
President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."
George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.
How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.
How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.
...
GORE DEMANDS RESIGNATIONS
We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.
We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.
Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.
George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.
As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.
During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?
The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what's been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights....
...
BUSH'S UNILATERALISM SUCKS
Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.
A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.
Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on."
Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.
Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
...
EXCERPTS (SUBHEADS MINE)
Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared
...
BUSH SQUANDERS AMERICA'S GOOD WILL
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
DOMINANCE IS AS DOMINANCE DOES
More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.
BUSH'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.
One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.
...
BUSH CHANGES TONE, STARTS MURDERING PEOPLE
President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."
George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.
How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.
How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.
...
GORE DEMANDS RESIGNATIONS
We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.
We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.
Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.
George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.
As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.
During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?
The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what's been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights....
...
BUSH'S UNILATERALISM SUCKS
Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.
A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.
Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on."
Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.
Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
...
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Monday, May 24, 2004
20 Minute Ovation for World Hero, Michael Moore
20 Minute Ovation for World Hero, Michael Moore
EXCERPTS:
The festival hung a garland on Moore for his scathing denunciation of the President's dubious democratic credentials, the Bush family connections with the Bin Ladens and the diversionary war on Iraq. It was a spectacular rebuke to Republican and corporate America, a stunning exocet of scorn launched from the epicentre of old Europe.
A widespread cinema release could bring anti-war/anti-Bush opinion to the political tipping point. It might make a real difference to the Presidential election and perhaps even to the future of American and British troops in Iraq. It isn't often that Cannes juries have it in their power to change the course of history.
EXCERPTS:
The festival hung a garland on Moore for his scathing denunciation of the President's dubious democratic credentials, the Bush family connections with the Bin Ladens and the diversionary war on Iraq. It was a spectacular rebuke to Republican and corporate America, a stunning exocet of scorn launched from the epicentre of old Europe.
A widespread cinema release could bring anti-war/anti-Bush opinion to the political tipping point. It might make a real difference to the Presidential election and perhaps even to the future of American and British troops in Iraq. It isn't often that Cannes juries have it in their power to change the course of history.
Carl Bernstein: Bush is another Nixon
Carl Bernstein: Bush is another Nixon
History lesson: GOP must stop Bush
By Carl Bernstein
Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution and rule of law.
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator — Howard Baker of Tennessee — famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago.
Today, confronted by the graphic horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, by ginned-up intelligence to justify war, by 652 American deaths since presidential operatives declared "Mission Accomplished," Republican leaders have yet to suggest that George W. Bush be held responsible for the disaster in Iraq and that perhaps he, not just Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is ill-suited for his job.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
The Day After Tomorrow - seeing the pictures makes it more real
The Day After Tomorrow
"Everyone knew this was happening...seeing the pictures simply made it all more real and tangible somehow." - Donald Rumsfeld
"From the scientific point of view it is now very likely that there will be again another Ice Age, quite soon, in the world, that we shall have the north part of the world all frozen like it used to be, and we're beginning to have natural disasters, from the scientists' study it seems likely that we should soon begin to have these great changes in the earth's climate so people will not be able to live where they have, and the oceans will rise, and many cities will be flooded, like London, and Calcutta, and so on. These things, they say, will happen, according to scientific theory, in about forty years at the most, but maybe even quicker." - J.G. Bennett
This fragment of a speech by Gurdjieff protege, J.G. Bennett was included on an album by Robert Fripp, "Exposure" back in the '70s. To many of us, this is nothing new...
A Conservative Case for Voting Democratic
A Conservative Case for Voting Democratic
Give either party complete control of government, and the vaults are quickly emptied.
By Doug Bandow
LINK
Conservatives, Republicans, Moderates, Independents...they are all bolting from Bush and his failed "presidency". They are not too happy about the administration or Congress either. And I think there may be a rare point of unity with Liberals, Democrats and Progressives on just this need to return Government to those who understand how to best govern. I have a newfound respect for those who are not so hoodwinked that they can see that Bush Inc. has been bad medicine for America, Iraq and the entire world.
But I think also that many are bolting just because they hate to be on the losing side. These people do not have my newfound respect. They are simply remaining opportunistic. Maybe they had best just sit on their hands election time, as we really don't want to go down the opportunism road. We want a return to simple decency, honesty, reward for work, a love for peace and tolerance, a cleaner and more healthy environment. Things we all, rich and poor, share.
I sense a new dawn on the horizon. A better 21st century is on the vision train!
Give either party complete control of government, and the vaults are quickly emptied.
By Doug Bandow
LINK
Conservatives, Republicans, Moderates, Independents...they are all bolting from Bush and his failed "presidency". They are not too happy about the administration or Congress either. And I think there may be a rare point of unity with Liberals, Democrats and Progressives on just this need to return Government to those who understand how to best govern. I have a newfound respect for those who are not so hoodwinked that they can see that Bush Inc. has been bad medicine for America, Iraq and the entire world.
But I think also that many are bolting just because they hate to be on the losing side. These people do not have my newfound respect. They are simply remaining opportunistic. Maybe they had best just sit on their hands election time, as we really don't want to go down the opportunism road. We want a return to simple decency, honesty, reward for work, a love for peace and tolerance, a cleaner and more healthy environment. Things we all, rich and poor, share.
I sense a new dawn on the horizon. A better 21st century is on the vision train!
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Bush's Fear of Waffles
Bush's Fear of Waffles
The Bushies fear waffles. They talk about them all the time.
Waffling is bad. It's bad to waffle. Kerry is a waffler. Their linguistic inventory is not that advanced.
But why do the Bushies fear waffles and wafflers?
Well, I'm not sure about waffles, but when it comes to wafflers, I have a pretty good hunch: They want people (supporters) to stay the course, for to change one's mind means becoming a dreaded waffler. Who cares that new information shows that the whole Iraq war, for example, was fought unnecessarily?
This binds the hands of those who would otherwise make the necessary upgrades to their knowledge-base...even if it means reversing a decision. Waffling, if you will.
But those who have seen both sides often have the greatest potential for clarity, which is a rare commodity here in BushWorld.
The growing number of websites by traditional allies of Bush shows that they are not afraid of the syntheses their minds may have achieved from having seen both sides, and are now positing solutions to what they now know to be a real and gathering problem...that of a secretive, law-skirting, mammoniacal, arrogant throwback to mere nationalistic 20th century war profiteering and their pre-cosmic ilk, bulls among China, swine before pearls, lording over all, sporting overalls...and we're supposed to turn a blind mind...
Now I done gone and forgot the subject...subconsciously exemplifying the point.
-Anonymoses
The Bushies fear waffles. They talk about them all the time.
Waffling is bad. It's bad to waffle. Kerry is a waffler. Their linguistic inventory is not that advanced.
But why do the Bushies fear waffles and wafflers?
Well, I'm not sure about waffles, but when it comes to wafflers, I have a pretty good hunch: They want people (supporters) to stay the course, for to change one's mind means becoming a dreaded waffler. Who cares that new information shows that the whole Iraq war, for example, was fought unnecessarily?
This binds the hands of those who would otherwise make the necessary upgrades to their knowledge-base...even if it means reversing a decision. Waffling, if you will.
But those who have seen both sides often have the greatest potential for clarity, which is a rare commodity here in BushWorld.
The growing number of websites by traditional allies of Bush shows that they are not afraid of the syntheses their minds may have achieved from having seen both sides, and are now positing solutions to what they now know to be a real and gathering problem...that of a secretive, law-skirting, mammoniacal, arrogant throwback to mere nationalistic 20th century war profiteering and their pre-cosmic ilk, bulls among China, swine before pearls, lording over all, sporting overalls...and we're supposed to turn a blind mind...
Now I done gone and forgot the subject...subconsciously exemplifying the point.
-Anonymoses
Survey: Who reads blogs? Who writes them?
Survey: Who reads blogs? Who writes them?
Some people, over the years, have gotten the impression that blogs (or weblogs) were created by different people. But a new survey shows that all blogs (or weblogs) issue from a single source, in the basement of a duplex in Patterson, N.J. And yes, the guy is a nerd. Or is it geek?
And he has THE WORST case of Carpel-Tunnel in recent history.
More astonishing information about this man can be found at this link.
THIS LINK
Some people, over the years, have gotten the impression that blogs (or weblogs) were created by different people. But a new survey shows that all blogs (or weblogs) issue from a single source, in the basement of a duplex in Patterson, N.J. And yes, the guy is a nerd. Or is it geek?
And he has THE WORST case of Carpel-Tunnel in recent history.
More astonishing information about this man can be found at this link.
THIS LINK
Conservatives for Kerry
Conservatives for Kerry
and other wonders of the world.
Republicans for Kerry
Kerry Republicans
Republicans Against Bush
REPUBLICANS AGAINST GEORGE BUSH
CODEX SERAPHINIANUS
CODEX SERAPHINIANUS
If anyone out there has my missing copy, I'd appreciate your returning it. Thanks. -Dave
If anyone out there has my missing copy, I'd appreciate your returning it. Thanks. -Dave
Friday, May 21, 2004
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Some recommended reading...online
The Education of Henry Adams
by Henry Adams
Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Sorrows of Young Werther
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
An Ideal Husband
by Oscar Wilde
When We Dead Awaken
by Henrik Ibsen
Songs of Innocence and Experience
by William Blake
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poems
by T.S. Eliot
Short Stories
by O. Henry
Works by William Shakespeare
by Henry Adams
Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Sorrows of Young Werther
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
An Ideal Husband
by Oscar Wilde
When We Dead Awaken
by Henrik Ibsen
Songs of Innocence and Experience
by William Blake
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poems
by T.S. Eliot
Short Stories
by O. Henry
Works by William Shakespeare
Has Pat Buchanan achieved Cosmic Consciousness?
Has Pat Buchanan achieved Cosmic Consciousness?
And, for that matter, has WorldNetDaily?
This is what the new cosmic Pat says on WorldNetDaily:
EXCERPTS:
The neoconservative hour is over. All the blather about "empire," our "unipolar moment," "Pax Americana" and "benevolent global hegemony" will be quietly put on a shelf and forgotten as infantile prattle.
America is not going to fight a five- or 10-year war in Iraq. Nor will we be launching any new invasions soon. The retreat of American empire, begun at Fallujah, is underway.
With a $500 billion deficit, we do not have the money for new wars. With an Army of 480,000 stretched thin, we do not have the troops. With April-May costing us a battalion of dead and wounded, we are not going to pay the price. With the squalid photos from Abu Ghraib, we no longer have the moral authority to impose our "values" on Iraq.
Bush's "world democratic revolution" is history.
Given the hatred of the United States and Bush in the Arab world, as attested to by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, it is almost delusional to think Arab peoples are going to follow America's lead.
Iraq was an unnecessary war that may become one of the great blunders in U.S. history.
The Iraqi peoples should then be told that U.S. soldiers are not going to fight and die indefinitely for their freedom. If they do not want to be ruled by Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr or some future Saddam, they will have to fight themselves. Otherwise, they will have to live with them, even as they lived with Saddam. For in the last analysis, it is their country, not ours.
The president should also offer to withdraw U.S. forces from any Arab country that wishes us to leave. We have already pulled out of Saudi Arabia. Let us pull out of the rest unless they ask that we remain. Our military presence in these Arab and Islamic countries, it would seem, does less to prevent terror attacks upon us than to incite them.
A presidential election is where the great foreign-policy debate should take place over whether to maintain U.S. troops all over the world, or bring them home and let other nations determine their own destiny. Unfortunately, we have two candidates and two parties that agree on our present foreign policy that is conspicuously failing.
And, for that matter, has WorldNetDaily?
This is what the new cosmic Pat says on WorldNetDaily:
EXCERPTS:
The neoconservative hour is over. All the blather about "empire," our "unipolar moment," "Pax Americana" and "benevolent global hegemony" will be quietly put on a shelf and forgotten as infantile prattle.
America is not going to fight a five- or 10-year war in Iraq. Nor will we be launching any new invasions soon. The retreat of American empire, begun at Fallujah, is underway.
With a $500 billion deficit, we do not have the money for new wars. With an Army of 480,000 stretched thin, we do not have the troops. With April-May costing us a battalion of dead and wounded, we are not going to pay the price. With the squalid photos from Abu Ghraib, we no longer have the moral authority to impose our "values" on Iraq.
Bush's "world democratic revolution" is history.
Given the hatred of the United States and Bush in the Arab world, as attested to by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, it is almost delusional to think Arab peoples are going to follow America's lead.
Iraq was an unnecessary war that may become one of the great blunders in U.S. history.
The Iraqi peoples should then be told that U.S. soldiers are not going to fight and die indefinitely for their freedom. If they do not want to be ruled by Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr or some future Saddam, they will have to fight themselves. Otherwise, they will have to live with them, even as they lived with Saddam. For in the last analysis, it is their country, not ours.
The president should also offer to withdraw U.S. forces from any Arab country that wishes us to leave. We have already pulled out of Saudi Arabia. Let us pull out of the rest unless they ask that we remain. Our military presence in these Arab and Islamic countries, it would seem, does less to prevent terror attacks upon us than to incite them.
A presidential election is where the great foreign-policy debate should take place over whether to maintain U.S. troops all over the world, or bring them home and let other nations determine their own destiny. Unfortunately, we have two candidates and two parties that agree on our present foreign policy that is conspicuously failing.
SAPs Under Wraps: A Game of Craps?
THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
EXCERPTS (Headlines mine):
SAP RISING
The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.
...
RUM TRUMPS THE CHUMPS AT CIA
According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
...
SOME PEOPLE THINK YOU CAN BULLSHIT ANYONE
The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone.”
...
The Abu Ghraib story began, in a sense, just weeks after the September 11, 2001...
Rumsfeld reacted in his usual direct fashion: he authorized the establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate “high value” targets in the Bush Administration’s war on terror. A special-access program, or sap—subject to the Defense Department’s most stringent level of security—was set up, with an office in a secure area of the Pentagon. The program would recruit operatives and acquire the necessary equipment, including aircraft, and would keep its activities under wraps...
...
THE WHITE WORLD
They carried out instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret C.I.A. detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the sap command center in the Pentagon in real time, and sifted for those pieces of information critical to the “white,” or overt, world.
...
GRAB WHAT YOU MUST. DO WHAT YOU WANT.
“We’re not going to read more people than necessary into our heart of darkness,” he said. “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’”
One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen Cambone, who was named Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in March, 2003.
...
BOYKIN BOINKING THE MUSLIMS
Cambone’s military assistant, Army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, was also controversial. Last fall, he generated unwanted headlines after it was reported that, in a speech at an Oregon church, he equated the Muslim world with Satan.
...
RUMMY AND HAMBONE GO ONE BETTER! ROUGH SEX!!
Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.
...
IT'S BLACK AND IT'S HOT...AND IT'S FLOWING INTO THE WHITE WORLD
Cambone says, I’ve got to crack this thing and I’m tired of working through the normal chain of command. I’ve got this apparatus set up—the black special-access program—and I’m going in hot. So he pulls the switch, and the electricity begins flowing last summer. And it’s working. We’re getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq and the intelligence is flowing into the white world.
Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official told me: not only would he bring the sap’s rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap’s auspices.
...
RECYCLED HILLBILLIES
The military-police prison guards, the former official said, included “recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland.” He was referring to members of the 372nd Military Police Company. Seven members of the company are now facing charges for their role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. “How are these guys from Cumberland going to know anything? The Army Reserve doesn’t know what it’s doing.”
...
THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS
“The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone,” he said. “This is Cambone’s deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program.” When it came to the interrogation operation at Abu Ghraib, he said, Rumsfeld left the details to Cambone. Rumsfeld may not be personally culpable, the consultant added, “but he’s responsible for the checks and balances. The issue is that, since 9/11, we’ve changed the rules on how we deal with terrorism, and created conditions where the ends justify the means.”
...
THE GENEVA CONVENTION HAS COME TO AN END
They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end.
...
FIRST THERE WAS A PRETZEL ACCIDENT...
The abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed on January 13th, when Joseph Darby, a young military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib, reported the wrongdoing to the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division. He also turned over a CD full of photographs. Within three days, a report made its way to Donald Rumsfeld, who informed President Bush.
...
CAMBONE IS HAMBONE
The most vulnerable senior official is Cambone. “The Pentagon is trying now to protect Cambone, and doesn’t know how to do it,” the former intelligence official said.
...
RUMMY LOWERS THE BAR, AND THE WORLD LOWERS THE BOOM
“We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.”
FULL STORY
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
EXCERPTS (Headlines mine):
SAP RISING
The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.
...
RUM TRUMPS THE CHUMPS AT CIA
According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
...
SOME PEOPLE THINK YOU CAN BULLSHIT ANYONE
The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone.”
...
The Abu Ghraib story began, in a sense, just weeks after the September 11, 2001...
Rumsfeld reacted in his usual direct fashion: he authorized the establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate “high value” targets in the Bush Administration’s war on terror. A special-access program, or sap—subject to the Defense Department’s most stringent level of security—was set up, with an office in a secure area of the Pentagon. The program would recruit operatives and acquire the necessary equipment, including aircraft, and would keep its activities under wraps...
...
THE WHITE WORLD
They carried out instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret C.I.A. detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the sap command center in the Pentagon in real time, and sifted for those pieces of information critical to the “white,” or overt, world.
...
GRAB WHAT YOU MUST. DO WHAT YOU WANT.
“We’re not going to read more people than necessary into our heart of darkness,” he said. “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’”
One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen Cambone, who was named Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in March, 2003.
...
BOYKIN BOINKING THE MUSLIMS
Cambone’s military assistant, Army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, was also controversial. Last fall, he generated unwanted headlines after it was reported that, in a speech at an Oregon church, he equated the Muslim world with Satan.
...
RUMMY AND HAMBONE GO ONE BETTER! ROUGH SEX!!
Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.
...
IT'S BLACK AND IT'S HOT...AND IT'S FLOWING INTO THE WHITE WORLD
Cambone says, I’ve got to crack this thing and I’m tired of working through the normal chain of command. I’ve got this apparatus set up—the black special-access program—and I’m going in hot. So he pulls the switch, and the electricity begins flowing last summer. And it’s working. We’re getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq and the intelligence is flowing into the white world.
Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official told me: not only would he bring the sap’s rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap’s auspices.
...
RECYCLED HILLBILLIES
The military-police prison guards, the former official said, included “recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland.” He was referring to members of the 372nd Military Police Company. Seven members of the company are now facing charges for their role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. “How are these guys from Cumberland going to know anything? The Army Reserve doesn’t know what it’s doing.”
...
THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS
“The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone,” he said. “This is Cambone’s deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program.” When it came to the interrogation operation at Abu Ghraib, he said, Rumsfeld left the details to Cambone. Rumsfeld may not be personally culpable, the consultant added, “but he’s responsible for the checks and balances. The issue is that, since 9/11, we’ve changed the rules on how we deal with terrorism, and created conditions where the ends justify the means.”
...
THE GENEVA CONVENTION HAS COME TO AN END
They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end.
...
FIRST THERE WAS A PRETZEL ACCIDENT...
The abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed on January 13th, when Joseph Darby, a young military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib, reported the wrongdoing to the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division. He also turned over a CD full of photographs. Within three days, a report made its way to Donald Rumsfeld, who informed President Bush.
...
CAMBONE IS HAMBONE
The most vulnerable senior official is Cambone. “The Pentagon is trying now to protect Cambone, and doesn’t know how to do it,” the former intelligence official said.
...
RUMMY LOWERS THE BAR, AND THE WORLD LOWERS THE BOOM
“We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.”
FULL STORY
anonyMoses @ Daily Kos
anonyMoses @ Daily Kos
Including such hits as:
- The Right: The Ambitious Mediocre
- Bush's "crusader prisons"
Including such hits as:
- The Right: The Ambitious Mediocre
- Bush's "crusader prisons"
JUST SHUT UP!!
JUST SHUT UP!!
by Neal Pollack
You are full of shit, Rush. So shut up. You too, Coulter. And Lieberman? For the love of G-d, shut your fool mouth. Everybody just shut up.
LINK
by Neal Pollack
You are full of shit, Rush. So shut up. You too, Coulter. And Lieberman? For the love of G-d, shut your fool mouth. Everybody just shut up.
LINK
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