The Washington Post article about the unwillingness of the government to staff the embassy in Baghdad adequately is to me the nail in the coffin for the future of Iraq. The US just does not care enough to try hard to win the war in Iraq. They send Crocker to be Ambassador and then they don't support him. Instead, when he gives his best judgment of what the embassy needs, he gets characterized as a panicky crybaby. What he is asking for is does not sound ideal for the State Department; it sounds like every Arabist and Arab speaker would be in Iraq, putting a hardship on other posts in the Middle East, but hey, is this a war we want to win or not? Not, apparently.
It convinces me that America got the government it deserved, a bunch of cowardly, inept, greedy SOBs. The best and the brightest declined to serve in Vietnam, as George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney did. Al Gore went to Vietnam, and had the election stolen from him as a reward. Now the best and the brightest refuse to go to Iraq. Hey, they can stay here and make billions in the hedge fund or private equity business. Look at Mitt Romney; he didn't serve in the military (apparently his Mormon missionary service exempted him), and when he made his millions in private equity, he avoided a large share of his taxes by taking much of his income as capital gains rather than salary, unlike the families of the ordinary people who died in his place in Vietnam, and now in Iraq.
This is a government that knows how to make OTHER people sacrifice, and like it. However, whatever they have been doing is now working in Iraq. It's a huge mess, but they will just walk away from it. The Republicans who are so concerned about saving babies from abortion are responsible for the deaths of many more thousands of babies in Iraq. They don't care, as long as they get their money.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Wall Street Despises Troops
I am increasingly upset that Wall Street's bull rally continues to set new records, while US military deaths in Iraq continue to set new records. Does Wall Street know we are fighting a war and losing? Do stocks keep going up because the war is irrelevant? Because they are confident that we will soon be leaving Iraq? Because they think we are going to win? I don't get it. Losing a war is bad for a country, but apparently not bad for Wall Street.
The odd thing is that according to George Bush, the boys and girls in Iraq are fighting for them. Bush says this war is in response to Saddam Hussein's attacking the World Trade Center in the New York City financial district. These soldiers are dying to get revenge for the deaths of New Yorkers, and New Yorkers don't give a damn. Of course, neither does Bush, the US Congress, or the American people in general. The soldiers and their families care, but in general the soldiers need the money and don't have other options, or they would probably be out of there, too.
Maybe those rich Wall Streeters could do something about providing jobs for soldiers leaving the military. They they wouldn't have to keep fighting in Iraq until they die.
The odd thing is that according to George Bush, the boys and girls in Iraq are fighting for them. Bush says this war is in response to Saddam Hussein's attacking the World Trade Center in the New York City financial district. These soldiers are dying to get revenge for the deaths of New Yorkers, and New Yorkers don't give a damn. Of course, neither does Bush, the US Congress, or the American people in general. The soldiers and their families care, but in general the soldiers need the money and don't have other options, or they would probably be out of there, too.
Maybe those rich Wall Streeters could do something about providing jobs for soldiers leaving the military. They they wouldn't have to keep fighting in Iraq until they die.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Hooray for Jimmy Carter
Former President Jimmy Carter's criticism of President Bush was completely justified, even if he toned down some of it later, as the Washington Post reports. Maybe it's debatable whether Bush is the worst president ever, but he is certainly one of the worst ones.
With all his talk about fighting the war in Iraq or the war on terror, Bush is a coward. He dodged the draft during Vietnam, and when the US was attacked on 9/11 he went missing. He quit reading My Pet Goat and started flying around the country, to Louisana, Nebraska, and who knows where else. A real man would have returned to Washington, stepped before the TV cameras and said "I'm in charge; I will protect you." He showed up in New York several days later and did the PR thing long after the all clear had sounded.
His position on the Iraq war was, "I'm right, and everybody else (the UN, old Europe, etc.) is wrong." It turned out that Bush was wrong. There were no WMD; we were not greeted as liberators. What really irks me is that Bush did not attempt to be polite or work with other countries. He basically stuck his finger in the eye of anybody who didn't agree with him. So, he and Tony Blair went to war together with a few token troops from some little countries trying to curry favor with the US for whatever reason, in most cases having nothing to do with the war on terror.
In the process, Bush turned his back on US (and British) legal protections like habeas corpus, and instituted torture as an instrument of the US government. He turned the US into one of those outlaw states that we had criticized for the last 50 years. Why? Because he was scared. Many bullies are cowards, and Bush seems to belong to that group. He's a bad, bad man.
With all his talk about fighting the war in Iraq or the war on terror, Bush is a coward. He dodged the draft during Vietnam, and when the US was attacked on 9/11 he went missing. He quit reading My Pet Goat and started flying around the country, to Louisana, Nebraska, and who knows where else. A real man would have returned to Washington, stepped before the TV cameras and said "I'm in charge; I will protect you." He showed up in New York several days later and did the PR thing long after the all clear had sounded.
His position on the Iraq war was, "I'm right, and everybody else (the UN, old Europe, etc.) is wrong." It turned out that Bush was wrong. There were no WMD; we were not greeted as liberators. What really irks me is that Bush did not attempt to be polite or work with other countries. He basically stuck his finger in the eye of anybody who didn't agree with him. So, he and Tony Blair went to war together with a few token troops from some little countries trying to curry favor with the US for whatever reason, in most cases having nothing to do with the war on terror.
In the process, Bush turned his back on US (and British) legal protections like habeas corpus, and instituted torture as an instrument of the US government. He turned the US into one of those outlaw states that we had criticized for the last 50 years. Why? Because he was scared. Many bullies are cowards, and Bush seems to belong to that group. He's a bad, bad man.
Diego Garcia Cigar
The BBC is reporting that US occupation of the island of Diego Garcia is being challenged in British courts. I remember when the US was planning to set up a base on Diego Garcia and sent a cable to all embassies around the world asking what their host governments thought of Diego Garcia. In a classic cable, one of the embassies replied that its government thought Diego Garcia was a cigar.
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