Rolling out new product?

Barnett Rubin at the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog has a post, based on what he says is an "excellent" connection in Washington that, indeed, Iran's on the buffet menu for the Pentagon:

Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11.

Oh, isn't that nice. September 11th gets used once again by these amoral ghouls as justification for more killing of brown people. "Remember how horrible that day was? REMEMBER!?!? Well, you wouldn't WANT THAT AGAIN, WOULD YOU?"

His friend's comments:

They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Well, FAUX News is already with the program, as I pointed out last week. We'll see what the rest of the conservative media comes up with over the next couple weeks.

Ooooo-kay

Double UH?

President Bush needs to stop the back and forth taking place and order New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, certain members of Congress, Powell, and other leaders to come to Camp David, sit down, come up with a workable plan, and get it going.

[snip]

Mr. President, you've been accused of being John Wayne. Well, act the part. Pull a John Wayne and save the day.

Excuse me, Mr. Martin? Are we talking about the same Mr. Preznit Bush, the one in the big house in DC? You mean the guy who whines like a spoiled brat when people criticize his clothing? The one who used a helicopter to avoid confronting a grieving mother? The same wretched excuse for a human being who yocked it up with seniors in Arizona while people in the 9th Ward watched the water start to rise? The same worthless cretin who appointed an unexperienced political crony to head FEMA two years after 9/11? The same whiny-ass tittie-baby who can't make a speech that's not in front of military or veterans, 'cause someone might disagree with him?

Oh, and Mr. Martin? He's only "the commander in chief" to those in the military. Unless there's been a coup while I haven't been looking (and god knows, there might well HAVE been at the rate we're going), he's not "our" commander in chief. He's our damn employee, and a piss-poor one at that.

"John Wayne", my ass. More like Pauly Shore.

Anyone else concerned about this?

Line from Preznit Whackjob's speech to the American Legion on Tuesday:

"I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."

Um, declaration of war? More pointless saber-rattling from Chicken George?

We shall see, I suppose.

SPECIAL BONUS: Try to figure out the point of this quote from the article (not responsible for head explosion):

"We have a lot of congressmen who want to go and pull out" of Iraq, said Dave Bode, a Vietnam veteran from Nicollat, Minn. "They'd better sit back and understand they are free over here and if they were in another country they wouldn't be."

UH???

And, as they say, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its butt on the ground while jumping.

Two years ago today...

...a man who supposedly made protecting the American people his biggest priority after 9/11 let the better part of a major American port city die 'cause he had better things to do.



And let's not forget the shining performance of this Arabian horse expert:



Heckuva job, guys.

Those of you with access to Link TV may want to watch Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans by Greg Palast, who's done a lot of followup on the Katrina situation. More here, including the story of how he was accused of being a terrorist threat for filming the Exxon refinery next to one of the relocation camps for ex-New Orlanders. Which refinery is easily locatable here, courtesy Google.

WTF?

I realize there's a distinct link between SF fandom and right-wing wankery, and I plan on addressing this subject at some point, but what the HELL is it lately with appropriating the names of characters from excellent writers for the purposes of Islamophobic blathering?

I may have to change my nom de blog to Professor Bernardo de la Paz to preserve the balance.

Like a bad penny

Funny, I seem to have heard of this guy before:

Allawi said Sunday that he would not participate in a sectarian government and will return to Baghdad soon to "reverse the course in Iraq."

Ah, yes, that would be Mr. Shot-to-the-Back-Of-The-Head Alawi, Mr. "Mohammed Atta Trained In Baghdad"Allawi, Mr. "Saddam-Lite" Allawi.

Well, he couldn't get elected by his own people, so are evidently going to re-install him as that new thug Thomas Freidman hoped for so desperately.

Things are just so much simpler when you just abandon that messy difficult complicated "democracy" and get right to the good stuff, eh?

1 plus 1 = not good, very bad

One:

U.S. officials rethink hopes for Iraq democracy

The U.S. government has long cautioned that a fully functioning democracy would be slow to emerge in Iraq. But with key U.S. senators calling for al-Maliki's removal, some senior U.S. military commanders even suggest privately the entire Iraqi government must be removed by "constitutional or non-constitutional" means and replaced with a stable, secure, but not necessarily democratic entity.

plus one:

Military Coup Planned for Iraq?

A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq. I received the following from a reliable, knowledgeable contact. There is no certitude that this plan can or will be implemented. That it is being discussed at high levels seems highly likely.

equals "I wouldn't want to be al-Maliki right now, thank you".

Your government, economical as ever

Well, if the Bush administration does indeed label the Iranian army, or at least part of it, as a "terrorist group" and therefore carries out airstrikes against them, looks like, according to Robert Baer in the NYT, they'll say "what the hell":

Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will.

Aw, isn't that nice. As long as there's hardware in the air, they'll cut back on the costs of flying sorties over Iran and kill two birds with one stone as it were. Sweet of 'em to think of the taxpayer like that.

Meanwhile the ever-predictable FAUX News is doing their part to make the Next Shiny Regime Change War inevitable. How thoughtful of them, seeing as how well the last one has gone. But green-tinted night vision footage of bombs exploding and views of anonymous skylines with smoke in the distance don't grow on trees, y'know. Time for that "new product" rollout, as Andrew Card put it.

Be Frank, be Ralph, be Charley, whatever

CNN.com:

Thompson: Time for a 'frank discussion' about fighting terrorism

Oh, good, looks like there's one Republican candidate who isn't TOTALLY insane. I agree, Sen. Thompson! Time for a real dialogue in America about how the failed policies of the Bush White House and the geenyouses in the Pentagon in using the blunt instrument of war, as opposed to the surgical approach of law enforcement, have encouraged hatred and fear of the United States and acted in favor of al Qaeda...

...

Oh, wait, he gave this speech in front of the VFW, huh?

Oops.

Calling terrorism "a global threat" to the United States, Thompson pointed out that he thought the United States was at a crossroads and told the veterans "it's time that we had a frank discussion in this country at the highest levels with both parties as to what it's going to take and the unity we're going to need" to battle terror.

*sigh* Well, I guess that means not only do we have to keep troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, we have to attack Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Indonesia, China and Venezuela. And we'll need to keep expanding on the police/surveillance state here in the U.S., 'cause we sure as hell can't trust our own people, especially, YOU KNOW, those people:

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men — often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country — adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.

Well, so much for THAT.

It's that time again

Well, like the buzzards returning to Hinckley, you can tell it's election time in the United States again by the appearance of the ever-popular smear campaign:

Heidi Lynne Fleiss, the former "Hollywood Madam" who was convicted on charges connected to a prostitution ring in 1995, is a big supporter of the New York Democrat's White House bid, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

[snip]

Fleiss isn't the first former madam to express support for Clinton's White House Bid. Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, also known as the "D.C. Madam," said last May she's pulling for Clinton. And, famed porn star Jenna Jameson has also said she is supporting the New York senator.

CNN.com gave this story a prominent spot not only on their "Political Ticker" page yesterday but a listing under "Latest News".

Obviously the point we're supposed to take away from this is that "Democrats = perverts". I mean, what would be the point otherwise of making a big deal over endorsements of Sen. Clinton by madams and porn stars?

Oh, here we go

On Loud Obbs' show the other night, long-time PNACer James Woolsey asserted that TEH FEARED IRANIAN BOMB is nigh:

I’m afraid within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they could have a bomb.

How long until this mutates into "TEH IRANIANS WILL HAVE BOMB IN FEWE MONTHS"? Hell, regardless of the total lack of evidence beyond "the Iranians are all EEEVIL an' STUFF", I haven't seen any real proof of their interest in nuclear weapons.

As the Thinkprogress post points out, Wollsey's been kind of, um, WRONG before in this analysis of nuclear programs:

“I think it would be a lot easier to stop Saddam now than it would be two or three years from now when he would be almost certain to have nuclear weapons.” [1/10/03]

Combining the chatter of the same neocon idjits who've gotten us entrenched in that glorious FUBAR of Iraq in asserting Iran should be our next target, with the accusations from the Pentagon that Iran is supplying bombs to Iraq ('cause, you see, Iraqi's just aren't sophisticated enough to make their own, even though they were only "two years" away from nuclear weapons) and the imminent labeling of the elite section of the Iranian army as a terrorist organization (which, as is pointed out here, would mean the 2001 AUMF would cover any attack on Iran so Bush need not even bother going back to Congress on the matter) I'd say things might be about to come to a boil.

I've been wrong before. I hope I'm wrong again.

What's more American than death?

A bit of local news - the company manufacturing the steel for the to-be-built 9/11 Memorial is going to take it on the road:

(AP)-- The September 11th memorial is taking survivors' stories and artifacts from its planned museum on a national tour beginning in South Carolina.

The 15-city tour is modeled after the 1980s campaign that raised money to renovate the Statue of Liberty.

[snip]

Joseph Daniels is president of the memorial foundation. He says he hopes the memorial will be a national symbol that people will associate with being American.

I'm not sure why this story creeps me out. "Associate with being American"? I thought the idea of "American" was associated, at least in a positive way, with small-L libertarianism, equality, justice, freedom of dissent, hope for the future, stuff like that. Why we're supposed to now associate 9/11 with "being American" I'm not entirely sure. It's right up there with my discomfort at the proclamation of that day as "Patriot Day", which implies what happened was somehow "patriotic" instead of horrific.

Look, I don't "hate America". I wish we would live up to our ideals, not that we every really have, but at least we've made the effort up until now. But for some weird reason 9/11 DID change things, at least in the sense that we seem to feel what people did that day is somehow "American". Bullpshyte. I maintain what people did that day in being "little heroes"* was HUMAN, not American. It had nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with whatever speaks to us when other fellow Homo Sapien Sapien are hurting.

People bleed when they're cut whether they're American, Iraqi, British, Polish, French, Japanese, Indonesian, Brazilian or whatever. And other people come along and bandage that cut because they're PEOPLE. The more we keep that in mind instead of somehow believing "our" deaths and tragedies are more significant than everyone else's the better off we'll be.

*Note: I mean "little heroes" not in a patronizing sense but in a Spinradian sense, in that so many who helped others that day maybe didn't change the world, but did indeed influence one other person's life in a positive way, even if it was as small as the store owners who gave shelter and maybe a bottle of water, gratis, to people fleeing the dust cloud from the collapse. "Little" heroes, maybe, but heroes nonetheless.

Unity

Everyone else has been all over this like white on a Republican National Convention, but I'd like to offer a thought on the subject in the form of a quote I first latched onto back when Mr. Bykofsky's "unity" was hot:

‘I’m sure we can all pull together, sir.’
Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the only way to make progress…’

from The Truth, by Terry Pratchett

Preznit Doesn't-Give-A-Damn

After the horrible bridge collapse in Minnesota and the revelation that over a quarter of America's bridges are in danger as well, who could possibly oppose more spending on road maintenance?

The Decider, that's who:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A week after a deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis, President Bush on Thursday dismissed raising the federal gasoline tax to repair bridges at least until Congress changes how it spends highway money.

"The way it seems to have worked is that each member on that (Transportation) committee gets to set his or her own priorities first," Bush said. "That's not the right way to prioritize the people's money. Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities."

Oh, well, kee-rist, "priorities", eh?

We're spending $10 billion A MONTH in Iraq "to keep Americans safe", supposedly, from the threat of al-Qaeda. That's about what we'd need to spend a YEAR over the next 20 years to get all our bridges into shape, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers report I linked to at the top. I'd argue that infrastructure problems are a bit more of a real-world threat to American citizens than terrorism, but hell - "priorities".

Look, I don't make a hell of a lot of money. I have to buy gas just like anyone else, and I'm not crazy about the idea of being charged an extra fifty cents a gallon. But, as I've been told so many times over the years, as adults we do stuff that we don't necessarily like because we're responsible. We go to work every day, we eat our veggies, we say "please" and "thank you" to people we'd much rather throttle within an inch of their sorry lives, and we pay taxes so people we've never even met don't need to have a bridge collapse on top of them. But I'd wish our elected officials would frickin' grow up as well and keep up their end of the system.

Awaiting anguished cries from Libertarians

ZOMG!!eleven the GUMMINT wants to INTERFERE in the sacred Agora:

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- The crisis in the mortgage market has increased the likelihood that the Federal government could intervene in some way to alleviate a credit squeeze.

[snip]

"The chance of government intervention in the marketplace in response to current events has increased significantly," said Andy Chow, portfolio manager at SCM Advisors LLC, a $14 billion San Francisco-based investment firm specializing in fixed-income and structured-finance markets.

Once again, the inevitable principle of "Msilaicos" - privatize profits, socialize losses. Go ahead, take risks - you can always rely on the taxpayers to bail you out if things go wrong (they HAVE TO, otherwise the economy might collapse!), AND you don't have to share your windfall with the proles if they don't! Win-win! Whee!

"Congress is very focused on this issue," Doug Duvall, a spokesman at Freddie Mac, said. "There's a squeeze in the market right now and lenders are tightening their standards. But having a little more prudent underwriting isn't a bad thing. It's important to keep people in their homes and to make sure they buy homes they can afford."

How unfortunate then that those people whose homes are now threatened were dealing with companies whose job it was to deceive them into buying houses they couldn't afford, by telling them they COULD afford it. Obviously the fault of the house buyers, there.

(kudos to Greg Saunders at This Modern World for the link)

I think I see part of the problem...

Well, if it's a new week for the Bush administration there must be a new terrorist video out, and mirable dictu, the archvillains don't disappoint:

(CNN) -- U.S. Embassies and American interests "at home and abroad" are prime targets for terrorist attacks, American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn said in a newly released al Qaeda-produced video.

"We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad ... ," Gadahn -- also known as Azzam the American -- says in the video provided to CNN by www.LauraMansfield.com, a Web site that analyzes terrorism.

Oh, "a Web site that analyzes terrorism", eh?

Wellwellwellwell, that wouldn't be this "LauraMansfield.com" , would it?

Laura Mansfield is your preferred source for up-to-date, credible information from professionals who speak the language and understand the religion, history, and culture of the Islamic world.

That would, of course, be "understand" in a VERY SPECIAL PARTICULAR WAY, from the looks of her links:

• Daniel Pipes
  
• Hot Air
  
• Michelle Malkin
  
• Little Green Footballs
  
• The Jawa Report
  
• Jihad Watch
  
• Debbie Schlussel

Yeah, I can see how you'd gain a certain "understanding" of Islam hanging around with folks like that. (Um, doesn't Professor Juan Cole speak Arabic? Why, yesindoodley, he does. But of course he isn't on the list 'cause he doesn't "understand" it properly...)

And she writes books, too! With scary titles like "One Nation Under Allah":

An insightful look at the permeation of Islam into the American way of life by Laura Mansfield. Laura goes undercover into the mosques of America and tells you what is happening in these Islamic centers. A comprehensive look at the changes that have been slowly forced onto American society to accommodate Islam.

Wow, she made it into those EEEEEVIL hotbeds of radicalism and came out ALIVE!!!1! ooh how scary. Not sure, um, what she's referring to though by changes being "forced onto American society to accommodate Islam". You'd think the government had sent in troops to shut down the Honey Baked Ham stores nationwide and forced lil' girls to wear burqas. I ain't seein' it.

Need I point out the shifting boundaries, though - one minute she's talking about "radicals" then the next it's mosques in general. I'm not sure what logical fallacy that would fall under - "undistributed middle", maybe? Same thing as Bush did, evidently so well, with "Iraq = 9/11". Point remains - for folks like this, there ARE no non-radical adherents of Islam.

And this is where CNN gets information from. Well, given that they're willing to allow Glenn Beck to spout out of his ignorant piehole on their network every night, I shouldn't be surprised.

Cleared that one up, possibly

In an earlier post I had been speculating about the low-flying jets out of the local ANG base and what it might mean. Well, possibly it was worse, to some extent, as witness this article over at Common Dreams:

“What the U.S. forces are doing now is increasing their air force potential in a last attempt to crush the fighters with the minimum casualties possible,” retired Iraqi Army colonel Mustafa Abbood from Baghdad told IPS. “It is a desperate attempt to make Iraqis turn against their fellow-fighters. It failed in Fallujah, and I do not see how it will work elsewhere.”

Iraqis around Baghdad say they have noticed more air traffic in recent months. “There is a notable increase in the number of airplanes flying in the Iraqi skies,” Amjad Fadhil, a farmer from Latifiya, south of Baghdad, told IPS. “F-16s and helicopters are roaring like monsters everywhere.” There are more than 100 U.S. aircraft crisscrossing Iraqi air space at any one time.

Air Force engineers are working long hours to upgrade Balad air base, just north of Baghdad, which already supports 10,000 air operations per week. One of the two 11,000-foot runways has been reinforced to withstand five to seven years more of hard use.

So maybe I was wrong and those pilots WERE being trained for Iraq. Sure, there probably aren't many anti-aircraft batteries in Iraq, but given that the Pentagon and White House seem to be contemptuous of National Guards troops anyway, maybe their attitude is "the more people we have dropping bombs the better, and who cares what their speciality is".

What the HELL is going on in DC?

Frickin' weird set of priorities you've got there, guys:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House late Saturday night approved the Republican version of a measure amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by a vote of 227-183, with most Republicans and conservative Democrats supporting the bill.

[snip]

"Last night, the Senate passed this bill at about 9:30. Now it's almost 1 o'clock. We should have had the FISA bill on the floor the first thing this morning," Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan told reporters in the early afternoon.

"We could have passed a rule and passed this bill by 11 o'clock this morning, and it could have been on its way, and the president could have signed it," said Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

What's the hurry there, Mustang Sally? I know DC in August is not exactly a grand vacation spot but why such a rush?

House Democrats rearranged the schedule so the FISA bill could be considered ahead of a measure dealing with Defense Department funding.

So, um, we gotta fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, but it's okay to delay spending any money to fight them over there until we've pushed through a bill to allow spying over here. Ooooo-kay.

Democrats had objected to provisions in the GOP bill that grant the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the authority to approve all wiretaps, even if one party is in the United States, with minimal court oversight.

Whee, 'cause what possible reason could we have these days to doubt the honesty of the attorney general? (Remember, kids - it's not perjury if you didn't MEAN to do it!)

Back on this earlier story (FISA "upgrade" - editorialize much, CNN?) there's a couple pertinent points that didn't make it into this morning's version:

Senate Democrats reluctantly voted for a plan largely crafted by the White House after Bush promised to veto a stricter proposal that would have required a court review to begin within 10 days.

[snip]

Democrats agreed the law should not restrict U.S. spies from tapping in on foreign suspects. However, they initially demanded the FISA court to review the eavesdropping process before it begins to make sure that Americans aren't targeted.

By the final vote, Senate Democrats had whittled down that demand and approved a bill that largely mirrored what the Bush administration wanted.

So basically the White House wrote the legislation, handed it to Congress and DEMANDED that they sign it. And the Democratic-controlled Congress, far from telling an unpopular Preznit who's ignored or abused legislation they've passed before to go stuff it, rolls over and asks for their furry belly to get skritched, like it was still 2002 or something. It's like al-Qaeda had goddamn airplanes in a holding pattern over America and the only thing preventing them from attacking would be this legislation.

"Ach, Abdul! Plan Falafel must be aborted! They can intercept phone conversations between us now with minimal FISA court oversight!"
"DAMN them, the dogs! Now we shall NEVER force them all to wear burqas and wash before praying! Quick, Achemed, to the escape pod!"

Crazy extremists

Crazy troll on Sadly, No! alleges CAIR is part of the SEEKRIT ISLAMOBOLSHIFASCIST CONSPIRACY:

CAIR is a particular concern because it is accepting vast sums of Saudi money to work against Americans. Federal prosecutors named tem as unindicted co-conspirators in their case against Hamas (http://www.nysun.com/article/55778).

Wow, the NY Sun. Almost as impartial a source as the Washington Times! And, yeah, I'm sure we should keep a close careful eye on anyone accepting money from the Saudis.

Like this guy:

Or this guy:


Then we have those whacked-out fanatics who threaten attacks on cities full of innocent civilians for political purposes, like this guy:

Washington - Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo says the best way he can think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. is to threaten to retaliate by bombing Islamic holy sites.

The Colorado congressman on Tuesday told about 30 people at a town-hall meeting in Osceola, Iowa, that he believes such a terrorist attack could be imminent and that the U.S. needs to hurry up and think of a way to stop it.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," Tancredo said at the Family Table restaurant. "Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do."

Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia, are Islam's holiest cities.

He then accused Islamic fanatics of stealing his luggage and locked himself in the men's room and hummed Menduo tunes for the next three hours.

Okay, I made up that last bit. But it might have happened!

Then again it's not as bad as some sociopath encouraging attacks on American cities for poltical purposes.

(And if it's really, as Mr. Gas-Huffing Wingnut asserts, "insulting Islam publically can result in felony hate crimes", why the HELL are folks like Malkin, Charles "LGF" Johnson, Crazy Pammy and Baron "Gates of Bacon&Playdoh" Bodissey still running around loose for?)