Bill is becoming both a penile and senile (former) president.
Or maybe just the second.
It is so obvious that Bill, too, is lying.
George W. Bush and the Clintons are a bunch of liars.
Bill thinks that he wears the pants in the family, but it has really been Hillary in her pant suits all along.
The Good Extraterrestrials will have to end the Iraq war (i.e. our Occupation), because the U.S. government is never going to give up the black gold that it has plundered there for the Pentagon and all of the filthy-rich corporations.
We are stuck with a doom that was planned ahead of time.
Voters are boarding another candidate's ship, because the other candidate's ship is filled with excessive ballast, a cargo of lies, and various shades of manure.
One is a better speaker who also isn’t too bad looking.
One candidate is too inconsistent.
The sails of this candidate’s ship have been flapping hither and thither, hot and cold, up and down.
The captain of this ship is petulant.
We shipmates don't want a whining and petulant Captain.
How likely is it that the next president, whether Republican or Democrat, will pull U.S. troops out of Iraq?
Bush's blundering, bloody boondoggle will continue to burn and bomb for much longer than Obama and Clinton think or are willing to tell us.
It’s not going to be that easy to leave Iraq, at least not very quickly.
The burning and bombing will continue in Iraq, but our troops would remain there a lot longer if McCain was in the driver's seat.
Bush has placed Iraq and the Middle East on a precipice.
What a legacy!
Iran and Al-Qaeda are licking their lips for troops to suddenly leave Iraq.
I want the next president to work on diplomacy---NOT WAR---and to extricate America from its occupation of Iraq.
Here is where Joe Biden's thoughts about what to do in Iraq must be heeded.
As soon as Obama or Clinton becomes president, he or she should immediately activate Mr. Biden to work on the peace process, and end the Bush & Cheney reign over terror.
What are the chances Barack Obama will go all the way to the White House?
To say what I'm about to say makes me sick to my stomach.
I wish that I wasn't having these thoughts.
I fear that the "powers-that-be" will not permit Barack Obama to get elected---or if elected---to remain president.
I know I shouldn't be thinking like this, but I am very concerned about this possiblilty.
I am reminded of a line from a book that I have my students read ("BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN") by Glendon Swarthout):
"We cannot bear the goodness of God."
It's Occupation, Not War
By Charley Reese
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended some years ago. In Iraq, the war ended with the fall of Saddam Hussein's government; in Afghanistan, with the fall of the Taliban government. What's been happening since is occupation and resistance to occupation.
It's always helpful to call things by the right name. One of the ways using the wrong word can trip us is illustrated by John McCain's campaign theme. We have to win the war in Iraq, he keeps saying. Ending a war implies either winning or losing. No such baggage is attached to an occupation. You can end an occupation without either winning or losing. You just withdraw your troops.
The fact that what is going on in Iraq is an occupation is proven by the nature of the conflicts. They are between factions of Iraqis. Our guys are caught in the crossfire or killed by Iraqis who oppose our presence. There are no large-scale attacks directed against us.
Those who want to continue the occupation paint a horrific picture of what they claim will happen if we withdraw a massive civil war, genocide or a regional war. There is no hard evidence to support any of those suppositions. But even if they happen, they need not concern us. Lots of factions in different parts of the world decide to kill each other from time to time, and we don't interfere. As long as there are no Americans to get caught in the crossfire, let the Iraqis have their civil war if that's what they want.
On the other hand, there's never been civil war in Iraq. There were rebellions against the Baathist government and, before that, against the British-sponsored governments, but before our occupation, Sunnis and Shia intermarried and lived side by side. There were always Christians in Iraq and, until the state of Israel was created, Jews. That was, in fact, true throughout the Middle East.
As for al-Qaeda, it has been virtually wiped out in Iraq not by us, but by Sunni tribesmen who turned against it because of its murderous fanaticism. McCain keeps confusing al-Qaeda with Shia and trying to link it to Iran, but al-Qaeda is a fundamentalist Sunni group way outside the mainstream of Islam. Most of its members are Saudis or Egyptians. It was never in Iraq until our war and occupation gave it an excuse to come in. It's never been in Iran. For American politicians to suppose that without us it would thrive and grow in Iraq is just proof of their ignorance.
Our presence in Iraq is the only thing that made al-Qaeda viable. Our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are the principal selling points in al-Qaeda propaganda. We have no interests, strategic or otherwise, in either country. The last thing al-Qaeda wants is for us to withdraw, which is why it should be the first thing we do.
Whatever someone imagines we gain by staying in Iraq and Afghanistan is far outweighed by what we are losing. We are losing lives in dribs and drabs, and we are losing treasure at an alarming rate. We have severe internal problems that our military presence in the Middle East aggravates. Our military is on the verge of being broken. Some Nobel laureates estimate the war will end up costing us $3 trillion. Well, plain and simple, we can't afford it.
We should never go to war unless there are tangible, identifiable benefits for the American people for doing so. Try to think of a benefit we have gained from Iraq or Afghanistan. There are none. We deposed two governments that were not attacking us or threatening to attack us, and we let get away the private terrorist group that had attacked us. It does not matter that they were bad governments. There are lots of bad governments in this world. The only bad government we have an obligation to change is the one in Washington, D.C.
If we don't change direction in this country, we're going to end up impoverished and bankrupt, and you know what? Iraq and Afghanistan will still be the messes they are today.
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The Coming War with Iran: It's About the Oil, Stupid
By Joe Lauria
April 13, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-lauria/the-coming-war-with-iran_b_96428.html
World civilization is based on oil. The world is running out of oil. The oil companies and governments are not telling the truth about how close we are to the end. Dick Cheney knew about peak oil back in 1999 when he spoke to the London Petroleum Institute as Halliburton CEO. He predicted it would come in 2010. After that it's just a matter of years before it runs out. Whoever controls the remaining oil determines who lives and who dies.
Sixty percent of this oil is under a triangular area of the Middle East the size of Kansas. In that speech Cheney said: "The Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."
This small Middle East triangle encompasses the northeast of Saudi Arabia, all of Iraq and the southwestern part of Iran, along with Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates. The US controls Iraq. It has friendly governments in the other states.
Iran is the exception. The US now surrounds Iran.
Controlling an area the size of Kansas shouldn't be a problem for the U.S. military, except that it is heavily populated and many people in the triangle don't want the Americans there and are willing to fight.
It's been known for at least thirty years that America needs alternative energy sources. But instead of an alternative energy plan we got the invasion of Iraq by oilmen wedded to a dying business, willing to kill hundreds of thousands to cling to the last drop. The US is never leaving the region or withdrawing from Iraq. McCain is right about staying, but 100 years is too long. The oil won't last that long.
Iran is next. Lieberman set up Petraeus to testify last week that Iranian-backed groups are murdering hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq. On Friday Gates called Iran's influence in Iraq "malign" and Bush said if Iran keeps meddling in Iraq "then we'll deal with them." They are building their case for war with resolutions in the Senate and at the UN. It's only western Iran, from the Iraq border to 150 miles inside the country that the U.S. will have to occupy. That's where Iran's oil is. But the U.S. will have a nasty battle on their hands in Iran even if they restore a Shah-like puppet in Tehran 30 years after the revolution. The Saudis would not mind seeing the Iranian regime go. But the Saudis may also be on the list. The US may have to destabilize and control Saudi Arabia some day too. The Wall Street Journal a few years ago revealed that in the 1970s under Nixon, Kissinger had plans drawn up for the US invasion and occupation of the Saudi oil fields. Those plans can be dusted off.
The American oil wars are being launched out of weakness, not strength. The American economy is teetering and without control of the remaining oil it will collapse. There will be massive chaos in any case, when only enough oil remains for the American elite and whomever they choose to share it with.
That will leave an oil-starved China and India, both with nuclear weapons, with no alternative but to bow to America or go to war.
It's not about greed any more. It's about survival. Because the leadership of this country was initially too greedy to switch from oil to solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable alternatives, it may now be too late. Had the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the invasion and occupation of Iraq been put into alternative energy the world might have had a fighting chance. Now that is far from certain.
What is certain is that these wars are not about democracy. They are not about WMD. The coming one will not even be about Iran's nuclear weapons project. It's about the oil, stupid.
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