Celebrating “Mission Accomplished” Day
It’s too bad Hallmark doesn’t make a card for this anniversary. Of course, it’s hard to come up with an appropriate sentiment. Do you wish the Iraqis a “Happy Anniversary! Since the end of “major combat operations” life’s been a little rough, but hey! You’ve got a Constitution…and had elections…and….”
See? Where do you go with it?!
The greeting card for neocons is easier, “Congrats on Mission Accomplished! Just another Friedman unit or two or ten and surely Iraq will turn the corner and the insurgents will be in their last throes. Really!”
Four years after his famous banner-and-codpiece photo op, look at El Pollo Loco’s war and occupation have brought us…..what, exactly?
Terrorist attacks worldwide are up by 25%. Forty-five percent of all attacks (6630 of them, up 91% from 3468) took place in Iraq, and 65% of terror attack fatalities occured there.
Tens of thousands – and possibly hundreds of thousands – of Iraqis are dead. Men, women, children. Iraqi citizens of all ages are dying at an average of 1500 per month, according to Iraq Casualty Count.
More than 50% of Iraqis support attacks on US military personnel.
We have lost 3351 of America’s sons and daughters with more than 26,000 wounded. April 2007 was one of the deadliest months in the history of the occupation for American troops, with over 100 killed.
The financial cost for this war is over $500,000,000,000. Five hundred billion. And what is there to show for it? Reconstruction projects touted as successes are falling apart.
The emotional cost can’t even begin to be calculated. We have thousands of soldiers suffering PTSD. Their families are living with worry and stress on a level that we on the outside can’t really begin to comprehend.
Over 430,000 service personnel have been discharged from the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 119,000 have sought treatment from the VA for medical or mental issues.
El Pollo Loco will most likely avoid comment today, though I’m sure Mr. Snowjob will do a fine little spin-and-dance number about it. Certainly, lots of Republican right-wing pundits will foul the airwaves as they spin their little hearts out.
But, at the end of the day, the fact remains: Iraq is not a success. It’s a worsening civil war, and our soldiers are stuck in the middle of it.
There is no chance – none, zero, zip – that this is going to come out well for the US. Iraqis aren’t suddenly going to wake up and say, “Hey – we don’t really give a sh*t what sect you are, or whether or not you pray this way or that. It’s time to heal our country, and come together as brothers (and sisters) to restore our nation.”
Instead, the divides will grow deeper, as will the hatred, and the killing will continue until someone – US-backed or not – becomes the next Saddam.
It’s time for Congress to stand up and send a message to the President from the American people:
Bring our troops home, Mr. President.
* * *
UPDATE: 5/1/07
Some of us are celebrating Law Day and hoping for a return to the rule of law that will signal the end of the Bush misAdministration. Preferably (please please please) with a perp walk at the Hague.
However, I’m sure El Pollo Loco and his minions/minders are celebrating – no kidding – Loyalty Day. Oh, the irony in this little Presidential proclamation: [emphasis mine]
[…] America was founded by patriots who risked their lives to bring freedom to our Nation. Today, our citizens are grateful for our Founding Fathers and confident in the principles that lead us forward. On Loyalty Day, we celebrate the blessings of freedom and remember our responsibility to continue our legacy of liberty.
Our Nation has never been united simply by blood, birth, or soil, but instead has always been united by the ideals that move us beyond our background and teach us what it means to be Americans. We believe deeply in freedom and self-government, values embodied in our cherished documents and defended by our troops over the course of generations. […]
Jenn’s Sunday Sermon
No one’s shocked to discover even more proof of incompetence from the Bush misAdministration, are they?
From the Washington Post:
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.
Titled “Echo-Chamber Message” — a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again — the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans “practical help and moral support” and “highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving.”
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.
[snip]
More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe — released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act — provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. […]
In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. “Tell them we blew it,” one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: “The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded.”
[snip]
And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand,” the new documents show.
Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel, according to a 40-page State Department table of the offers that had been received as of January 2006. [all emphasis mine]
What’s new (or news) here – other than the fact that this is embarrassing on a scale I can’t even begin to describe?
The Bush regime – with its emphasis on “loyalty” and habit of rewarding the big fundraisers, with its continual placement of incompetent, inexperienced personnel in key agencies (and driving out the career staffs of those agencies) – was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the damage and death and incapable of responding in a timely and appropriate manner to the disaster in New Orleans and around the Gulf Coast. And when other countries offered aid, in every manner possible, they were turned down or – even worse – had their aid packages left to rot.
What’s newsworthy is that this is a warning to every other major city in America: if something happens, you’re on your own. Not that the feds don’t want to help, but that they are hog-tied with politically-wired appointees who’ve turned everything they’ve touched to dust.
Friday Anti-War Song
I AIN’T MARCHIN’ ANYMORE
— Phil Ochs
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore
For I’ve killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying
I saw many more dying
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore
It’s always the old to lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall
Now look at all we’ve won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brother
And so many others
And I ain’t marchin’ anymore
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore
It’s always the old to lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall
Now look at all we’ve won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain’t marchin’ anymore
Now the labor leader’s screamin’ when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it “Peace” or call it “Treason,”
Call it “Love” or call it “Reason,”
But I ain’t marchin’ any more.
Gulf of Tonkin – Redux?
I can’t help but wonder, is this what El Pollo Loco, and his puppet-master, The Prince of Darkness, have been waiting for? Is this going to be the modern-day equivalent of the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
From the Associated Press:
Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors who had boarded a ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf off the Iraqi coast on Friday, officials said.
The British government demanded “the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.”
[snip]
The seizure comes at a time of rising tensions between Iran and the West, which accuses the Islamic republic of violating a U.N. calls for it to halt uranium enrichment and open its nuclear program for inspection. It also comes amid U.S. accusations that Iran is funding and arming Shiite militias in Iraq, worsening sectarian tensions there.
So, how long before Bush is telling us that he’s ordered a strike by the Air Force? [Because even BushCo can’t start a ground war with the tattered and stretched Army and Marines they have now.]
I’m starting to feel paranoid, but with this particular bunch of crooks and liars, things that seemed paranoid 10 years ago are absolutely possible today.
Who would imagine a President who would lie us into war, constantly shift the reasoning for that war, and refuse to stray from his course even in the face of unmitigated failure? Who could have imagined an Attorney General’s underlings conspiring with the White House underlings to fire US Attorneys for political reasons?
Who could have imagined a government that outed a covert officer because her husband said their evidence and reasoning for war was forged? Who would imagine the President insisting “we don’t torture” even as his Vice-President was haunting the halls of the Rubber-Stamp Congress seeking exemptions to the McCain Torture Doctrine?
Who would imagine that a major city would be left to drown? Who would have imagined Osama Bin Laden would still be on the loose? Who would have imagined pallets of cash being flown to Iraq and just handed out willy-nilly? Who would imagine… Jeebus Christmas but the list goes on forever.
And that’s why I’m expecting a major “incident.” Something that kills US troops. I dread such a thing, but – unfortunately – because of the current misAdministration’s actions over the past six years…well, we know that all options are on the table. Even the crazy ones. [Or should that be “especially” the crazy ones?]
Is this why two carriers and a strike group were ordered to the Gulf recently?
From the same article:
The United States, Britain’s chief ally, has built up its naval forces in the Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. Two American carriers, including the USS John C. Stennis — backed by a strike group with more than 6,500 sailors and Marines and with additional minesweeping ships — arrived in the region in recent months, ratcheting up tensions with Iran.
I’m really starting to believe that, at some point, probably within the next few months, there will be an attack, US troops will be killed, and all “evidence” will point to Iran. Bushie will whip up the outrage, someone will testify at the UN, the talking heads will trip over themselves to endorse this new war, networks will spend millions on graphics like, “War in Iran” and “America Fights Back” and then: BOOM!
Four Years Later
What has been accomplished in the last four years? Oh, sure there’s an Iraqi constitution and a “duly elected” parliament, Saddam is dead, and I’m sure somewhere there is a school being painted, but if we were to ask Iraqis and Americans, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” what do you think their answer will be?
Four years after this unnecessary war of choice began, the Iraqis are dying by the hundreds every month, and the US is financially unstable with a military that’s caught in the middle of a civil war and near the breaking point, with wounded soldiers overwhelming the system.
The great and grand War on Terror has been used to restrict our freedoms and justify human rights abuses, and no one – with the exception of El Pollo Loco and his crew of cheerleaders and war profiteers – is seeing any sign that things in Iraq will improve.
From Tim Lambon in the New Statesman, embedded with US troops:
It’s hard to describe the noise when a whole cabinet of crockery is emptied on to the floor. Even harder not to shout in indignation when the American soldier who intentionally tipped it forward, until the plates and dishes slid smashing to the floor, says without regret, “Whoops!” and crunches over the shards past the distraught owner. “Cordon and search” they call looking for Sunni insurgents and their arms and explosives. But at what cost to the battle for “hearts and minds”?
The sweep was a co-operative action between Delta Company of the 2nd Battalion 12th Cavalry and the Iraqi Army’s 246th Battalion. The plan was for the Iraqis to lead and the Americans to provide security and back-up. With engines throbbing, the force waited for 45 minutes at the start line for the Iraqis to arrive.
Friday Anti-War Song
Teach Peace
— Thomas Alan Connor
It’s hard to place a value
On a setting sun
Or a healthy child walking
And learning how to run
Non-tangible are things
We hold so dear
Like love and hope and friends
Or the shedding of a tear
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
You know that it’s true
No promises are kept
If we can’t commit
To the cause of oneness
A feeling of bliss
No axis has it’s center
If it can’t decide
Which direction it should go
Because of internal pride
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
You know that it’s true
Maybe we can see through the lies
And break through the barriers
That cage our lives
It’s not the might of muscle
We need to choose
But more the might of mind
Or peace will lose
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
Teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
Teach peace
We’ve got to teach peace
Everybody we’ve got to teach peace
You know that it’s something we’ve got to do
We’ve got to see it through
The Big Dick Has Another Close Call
Has anyone ever so embodied the T-shirt phrase, “God doesn’t want me, and the devil’s afraid I’ll take over.” as much as Dick Cheney?
I mean, just how many close calls is this guy gonna get? He’s had how many heart attacks? Plus a near-bombing, plus DVT (which, thanks to the morons of the MSM, we’ve all heard waaaayyy too much about!). He’s got a pacemaker. He’s overweight.
I feel like Willow fighting the resurrected Natives during the very-special Thanksgiving episode of Buffy: “Why. Won’t. You. Die?
[Note to the Secret Service: NO – I’m not advocating Dick’s death by anything other than natural causes, in his sleep, when he’s a very old man. Since he’s a very old man already, I’m assuming he already spends much of his time sleeping in his super-double-secret hidey-hole, so nature will – at some point – do her thing.
What I don’t want is for some nut to assassinate him in the mistaken belief that it would somehow “fix” things. For one, violence is the wrong way to solve a problem. (Something Dick wouldn’t understand, I’m sure.) Secondly, Georgie McFlightSuit (or his merry band of puppeteers) would find a way to use it to declare martial law and become dictator-in-chief. But mostly because…well, can you imagine the media coverage of such a thing?!
It’ll be 24/7 views of correspondents standing outside buildings, knowing nothing, saying nothing of value, while “experts” discuss everything from the funeral to how the nutjob’s last bowel movement may have contributed to the assassination. One thing for sure, it would give Sean Hannity something substantial to talk about instead of the lies and half-truths and distorted “facts” he usually spouts during his moments of verbal diarrhea.]
It’s annoying, in an evil-incarnate kind of way. The Big Dick lives forever and ever, and beautiful, wonderful, amazing people like my brother-in-law are diagnosed with brain cancer and die within months of diagnosis, but not before their bodies are traumatized and distorted by the fight against the disease.
Beautiful wonderful, amazing babies will be tucked into their beds by loving parents, but will not wake up in the morning. Beautiful, exasperating, amazing teenagers will do something stupid and their lives will end in a flash of high speed or a blur of alcohol poisoning.
It’s the unfairness of it all. Every day, millions who did nothing more than bring joy to those around them – in ways large and small – are taken from this life, and a man who brought nothing but death and destruction and hatred to the world lives on.
I believe in karma. I believe in doing unto others. And, because of those beliefs, I know that one day – perhaps soon – Dick Cheney will reap all that he’s sown. I want him to know the pain he’s inflicted. I want him to feel the responsibility he bears for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. I want him to face justice and know fear in his heart.
I’d prefer he was alive and in the Hague when that happens.
Friday Anti-War Song (Belated)
What can I say? Life’s busy, and sometimes you wake up and realize you’re running a day behind.
This one’s for Dick Cheney, living in his little bubble-universe where the Iraq war is going well after the soldiers were greeted with flowers and candy, the economy is doing great, and El Pollo Loco is the greatest President since Lincoln.
I wonder how many of us will attend Darth Cheney’s funeral, just to make sure he’s dead?
*
MASTERS OF WAR
Bob Dylan
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
;
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
God/dess Forgive Us
In 1967, one year to the day before his death, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the war in Vietnam:
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us. [all emphasis mine]
Yesterday, Riverbend broke her silence for the first time since the New Year. Her words, and those of the young woman whose words she translated into English, show exactly how well the war in Iraq is going:
As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.
She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.
[…]
“I told him, ‘I don’t have anything [I did not do anything].’ He said, ‘You don’t have anything?’ One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came and said, ‘Are you finished? We also want our turn.’ So they answered, ‘No, an American committee came.’ They took me to the judge.
Anchorwoman: Sabrine Al Janabi said that one of the security forces videotaped/photographed her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape. Another officer raped her after she saw the investigative judge.
[…]
And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile. [emphasis mine]
All Americans share the blame. We allowed this to happen in our name.
May the gods have mercy on us.
How Very…Eenteresting
Since I’m trying to be a good girl who doesn’t refresh too often during the Libby live-blogging going on over at FireDogLake, I’ve been keeping myself distracted by surfing the net.
From Newsweek, via The Blue Herald comes this little tidbit to induce nausea:
But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous. A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.
As Question Girl says, “Someone sneezes, and we’re at war.”
And here’s George Bush, tickling his nose with a feather: Continue reading
You Have Spoken
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“I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.”
– Molly Ivins, 1944-2007
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