JEWEL OF THE PACIFIC

 

I've never quite understood why Guam has always been the brunt of jokes.
Johnny Carson would poke fun with some type of reference to Guam for certain of his one-liners.
I suppose that it is because Guam is a United States territory, and more importantly, that this territory is so far, far away from the U.S. mainland.
I spent six years on Guam.
I came there with a 2-year contract to teach English at JFK High School
(Yes, a public high school---not military.)
My return trip to the U.S. would be paid for if I stayed the duration of my contract.

When I arrived on Guam, it was a beautiful and sunny morning.
Coming off of the 747 felt like I was walking into a sauna.
In the airport I just happened to meet a young woman who had also come to Guam on the same 2-year contract.
We rented a car so that we could find the main offices of the school district.
Marine Drive:
The main artery of the business side of Guam.
Should we head left or right?
I forget which one of us said to go right, but that's the direction we went.
After driving for about 5 minutes we came to a stop when a military officer and his guard dog approached us.
"This is private property. You will have to go back."
We were on Anderson Air Force base property.
We explained who we were and what we were looking for.
He told us to go back the other direction.
I guess I asked what was ahead on Marine Drive in the (wrong) direction that we had been going. He told us that it was the marine lab of the University of Guam.
That's where we went next.
The marine lab wasn't far, and we came to a road that went down a hill.
This short road went to the lab that was located on a shore of the Pacific Ocean!
A friendly man greeted us.
He asked us if we'd like some coconut crab.
Within minutes he brought to us some delicious crab.
What a delectable and warm welcome to
Guam this was!
The young woman and I didn't stay long and we returned to Marine Drive to get to the school administration office.
We arrived.
I registered and found what school I would be teaching at.
A man drove me to JFK high school.
Rain.
The sunny sky had turned into buckets of rain.
The downpour made it difficult to see the road.
Finally, I arrived at the high school, and the rain ended just as quickly as it had begun.
Beautiful!
And that's what Guam is.
Beautiful!
I lived in two different apartments and in one "jungle house" my first four years on Guam.
The ocean was serene and warm most of the time.
People can joke about Guam, but unless they have lived there they will never know just how special Guam and its people are.
And that is no joke.

THE IRAQ WAR WAS BOUGHT WITH LIES

Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail. Our president and his administration were arrogant during the lead-up to the Iraq war in that they listened only to those who would tell them what they wanted to hear. They were ignorant in the lack of scholarship and due diligence they brought to the matter of how the invasion would be received by those being invaded. And they were incompetent at almost every level in the execution of the war and its aftermath. What the political commentator Bill Maher described last year as "fuck-up fatigue" in regard to this administration has moved to the next stage. Around our kitchen table—and I suspect yours—the current stage is outrage fatigue, a simmering frustration and anger over what this administration has done in our good name. It begins at the top, of course, with a president who is now perceived beyond our shores to be one of the most dangerous men in the world. Indeed, many Americans have a similar opinion of him. We have our secretive, power-mad vice president, who can't decide whether he is part of the executive branch of government or the legislative branch. The president—now with one of the lowest approval ratings of any U.S. leader ever—has dangerously isolated us from the rest of the world. We have the beginnings of a new Cold War with the Russians. We are out of favor in South America, never mind the Arab world. The French and the Germans don't have much time for our opinions—although they will take our money. A majority of our English-language confederates in Britain, Canada, and Australia think the invasion was a horrible mistake. And Americans themselves are weary of the constant fearmongering, the gut feelings of impending doom, and the absence of any advance in the true war on terror—the one against al-Qaeda along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.


[From Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse
by Graydon Carter
VANITY FAIR
September 2007]

Graydon Carter is the editor of VANITY FAIR
His books include What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Knopf).



Tell a lie over and over and that lie appears to be true.
The Bush administration attempted---and succeeded---with one of the most effective campaigns of propaganda in history.
Bush does not equal Hitler.
But Bush does equal deception and dishonor.
And this American president's Iraq war was conceived with falsehoods that were able to conquer and control the Fourth Estate.
Almost all of us were deceived.
Almost all of us bought it.
The American people and the world now know the truth.
The Republicans---and now subservient Democrats---were the willing and unwavering patsies of Bush.
They permit his lies to remain unaccounted for and uninvestigated
(Oooh no...can't have political and partisan oversight right now... there's a war going on...and an election is coming!)
What to do about the war in Iraq has more clarity (but without a solution) than what to do about why and how that war was engendered.
Americans whose memory lasts for only about a fortnight should watch Bill Moyer's documentary Buying the War and/or read its script.
Then become sick and angry at what has been done to them and the Iraqi people.

By Mad Plato





The Washington Post editorialized in favor of the war 27 times, and published in 2002 about 1,000 articles and columns on the war. But the Post gave a huge anti-war march a total of 36 words. "What got even less ink," Moyers says, "was the release of the National Intelligence Estimate."

What comes out of watching this show is a powerful realization that no investigation is needed by Congress, just as no hidden information was needed for the media to get the story right in the first place. The claims that the White House made were not honest mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors.
By David Swanson



Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-04-16 14:28:
The Nazi's launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Poland, on 09/01/39. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and was the catlyst for WWII.
The Bush Regime launched an invasion of a sovereign state, Iraq, on March 20, 2003. The rationale for that invasion was based on gross lies and and could be the catlyst for WWIII or at least a regional conflict in the Mideast.
After a real "Coalition of the Willing" defeated the Nazi's in 1945, the German's responsible for that invasion were tried at Nuremburg, Germany. One of the charges they were convicted on was that Germany had launched an illegal, agressive war against a sovereign state, Poland. Several were executed and other sent to prison.
When Bush claims that his war is like WWII guess he might have a point after all, except for the trial part that is.

DICK SPEAKS

Quack! Quack!

I knew it would be a bad thing to invade Baghdad.

But that was back in 2000 and 2002.

9/11 changed everything.

Even me.

After 9/11 (but before I shot a lawyer in the face), I knew that the American people and Congress would approve of an attack on Iraq.

And my Halliburton investment would get a shot in the arm!

One of the world's most dangerous dictators (not me) is gone.

Progress is being made in Iraq (just don't pay attention to the death count).

Soon, we will be greeted in Iran as that country's liberator, as we rid the world of another nutcase.

Quack! Quack!

Got to get down to Crawford and hunt me some quail and armadillos.

No alcohol on this trip.

Just Tang.

THE BIG CHESS GAME

DEAR GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS AND RYAN CROCKER:

DON'T BETRAY US DON'T GIVE US ANOTHER BIG CROCK OF YOU KNOW WHAT

The Bush administration, and more specifically Bush himself (and, of course, Dick Cheney), will not give up their fight or ship in Iraq, even though that ship has shipwrecked and the fight is not winnable.

The American people know this.

Our democracy is no longer a democracy where the voice of the people is listened to by Congress or the president.

The United States will not win a war in Iraq where its own citizens are fighting each other and their invader/occupier.

Liberator?

O! Tragic name for a tragic war!

Good-sounding words do not always produce reality.

Bush wants to be a leader known to history as one who didn't retreat from his mistakes and blunders.

History's fact sheet on such leaders is not a good one.

Hitler and Napoleon come to mind.

Of course, the Decider is no world conqueror or savior.

He just believes that he is.

The U.S. Congress is Bush's biggest shill.

The Democrats raise taxes so that the Republicans and Democrats can spend and spend and spend.

The Iraq war will continue and continue and continue.

Iran will become another piece moved in the great chess game.

Bullets, bombs and missiles are big bucks.

The U.S. war economy will continue to bomb and invade in the name of its self-interests and national security.

But Bush's Iraq war has given us neither.

The democrats will continue to carry the baton, and in fact, may expand the war into other regions.

The chess game is controlled by the Pentagon and its money brokers.

A president just moves the chessmen.

CHECKMATE.

THE GLORY HOLE

 Glory Hole Outside Central City, Colorado, 1930

In 1859, John Gregory discovered "The Gregory Lode" in a gulch near Central City. Within two weeks, the gold rush was on and within two months the population grew to 10,000 people seeking their fortunes. William Byers, founder of the Rocky Mountain News, and some companions pitched their tents on open ground squarely in the center of the mining district. Thus Central City was born and was soon the leading mining center in Colorado. It came to be known as "The Richest Square Mile On Earth".
Central City is located in the Rocky Mountains, 35 miles west of Denver. It is at the southern end of Gilpin County at an elevation of 8,496 feet.

I've visited Central City a few times.
Before and after.
Before it had casinos, and after it got casinos.
I like Central City both ways.
I climbed down into the Glory Hole once. 
 That was before it was sealed off to the public.
I was fortunate to be one of the last who was able to walk down into that huge hole. The same hole that was dug out and known as The Gregory Lode.
The day I did so I didn't have my prescription glasses, and so I was a blind soul, searching for unknown treasures, but hopeful.
I crawled, with my head close to the ground, covering only inches of terrain in that large hole, when I saw a crystal.
 It was about half an inch long and had the shape of a miniature tower with a pointed apex.
I proudly kept that little crystal for many years, but no longer have it.
All I have now is my memory of a visit to the Glory Hole.

BUSH'S BRAIN EDITED

He was a leaker but he stayed.

He wasn't found to have committed any crime

&

So he stayed.

My name is Rove

&

I was Bush's Brain.

I was very loath

To be insane.

I was a leaker

But not a streaker.

I was just a big peeker

Whose smears got reeker.

Please let me fly, please

Let me fly.

I have high-paying

Speaking engagements

And a book on the way.

NO MORE TURD BLOSSOM

News that Karl Rove is leaving is no big surprise.
What else is there for him to do?
The Decider is not running for president.
Neither is Dick.
The glabrescent Turd Blossom has nothing more to do except write a book...and ignore subpoenas!

Al Gore fought a wretched campaign in 2000 and in the grand finale it was not Rove but five Republican justices on the US Supreme Court who gave Bush the White House on December 12, 2000, refusing to let Gore get a conclusive count of the missing ballots in Florida.
ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Gregory: Matt Cooper, let’s pick up on an aspect of the interview with, with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case, that you were part of as well. And something’s that’s very interesting, he, he went out of his way to say, “I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information” and taking issue with, with Novak’s testimony in his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was. He said he would never confirm that information. That’s different from your experience with him.

Cooper: Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11^th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn’t know about it or that this was all the leak…

Gregory: Or that he had heard it from somebody else…

Cooper: …by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

Gregory: But he makes no apologies to Valerie Plame.

Cooper: Karl Rove never apologizes. That’s not what he does.


From On “Meet The Press” with David Gregory
August 19, 2007

Q & A

Is it a good idea to pay poor high school students as an incentive to stay in school?

It's a very good idea as long as it isn't tax payer dollars that are being used to pay for this incentive.

My poor high school students would be motivated to try harder to learn if they knew that a pot of money was at the end of the road.

Money talks.

Poor students can hear this talk loud and clear.

They might not drop out if they’re getting paid.

What do you think of when you see Iraq's Nuri al-Maliki holding hands with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Isn't this just a custom?

What did we think when Cheney and Bush held hands with those Sheiks?

Isn't it better that Mr. al-Maliki and Mr. Ahmadinejad are holding hands than throwing bombs at each other?

I guess it's different strokes for different folks.

Is the 2008 presidential campaign happening too fast?

Not if starting so early allows the voting public to get a better idea about the candidates.

It isn't a bad thing for citizens to see the clean and dirty laundry early on.

It isn't a bad thing to hear candidates' ideas and positions way ahead of time.

Then in the last moments of the campaigning we can better judge who the best qualified candidates are.

LIVING IN A FOOL'S PARADISE

Is the financial sky falling?

Are the chickens coming home to roost?

Is it time to pay the piper?

Are we now reaping what we have sowed?

These mixed metaphors are attempting to describe what is happening in the economies of the world.

The U.S. is bound hand and foot to Japan and China for its debt.

Have we been living in a fool's paradise and on borrowed time?

American food and fuel prices are rising faster and faster.

Milk, meat and oranges are no longer take-for granted and relatively cheap commodities.

I've known for some time that the best thing that money can buy is some land with a self-sufficient water supply.

Grow your own food.

401k's will not feed you if the world economy collapses.

Neither will all of those gold and silver coins.

America (love or hate her) still is the barometer for what happens in the economies of other nations.

Is the world at the end of its tether?

“The leaders have repeatedly lied to us about the true nature of our economic situation. The people have allowed themselves to be sucked into a fantasy that now increasingly resembles a jet engine. And we know what happens to the pigeons which end up in the belly of a jet engine. The Powers that be may yet continue the delusion for a while longer. However, they cannot change the fundamental economic reality underlying the stock market declines, or the housing collapse, or the dollar collapse or the rise in precious metals prices.”

Doug McIntosh

August 8, 2007

MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB

Considering the instabilities and dangers that abound, the aggressive posture of the Bush regime goes far beyond recklessness. The Bush regime is the most irresponsibly aggressive regime the world has seen since Hitler's.

If only a sweet young thing would volunteer to give Bush a blowjob so that he can be impeached before he leads us to Armageddon.

August 10, 2007

By Paul Craig Roberts

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration

Before I knew there were movies or something called Hollywood, I had dreams of strange ships high up in the sky.

I didn't know what these giant barques and their lights were.

It was only years later that I remembered these strange dreams.

I knew back then that our earth was being watched.

Just before recalling these dreams I was thinking about human progress:

Edison.

Wax cylinders.

Vinyl records.

8-Track Cartridges.

Cassette Tapes.

CDs.

Vacuum Tubes.

Transistors.

Silicon Chips.

I wonder what might come next?

Miniaturization is making virtual miracles happen.

Now, if we could only achieve as much progress in making Peace on Earth.

NO WATER NO ELECTRICITY NO PEACE BUT PLENTY OF TIME

VICTORY

MEANS

MORE TIME

MORE TIME

BEFORE

WE LEAVE

IRAQ.

WINNING MEANS

MORE TIME

MORE TIME

BEFORE

WE LEAVE

IRAQ.

SUCCESS MEANS

MORE TIME

MORE TIME

BEFORE

WE LEAVE

IRAQ.

MORE TIME

MORE TIME

MORE TIME

FOR MORE DYING

MORE DYING

MORE DYING

BEFORE

WE LEAVE

IRAQ.

Published on Wednesday, August 8, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

American Genocide In The Middle East: Three Million and Counting

by David Goodner

Deaths directly and indirectly attributable to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have neared one million people, a body count higher than the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan combined, according to a new report released by Just Foreign Policy.

That brings the U.S. caused death count in the Middle East to over three million people, and that’s not even counting fatalities in Afghanistan or Palestine.

The Just Foreign Policy report is an update to two controversial studies published by the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet. In 2003, the Lancet reported over 100,000 excess deaths in Iraq were attributal to the U.S. invasion. That study may be read here.

In 2006, the Lancet updated their study and found over 600,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. That study may be read here.

The killing of Iraqis since the U.S. invasion includes violence caused by the overwhelming air and ground power of U.S. military forces, mortalities caused by the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and disappearances and murders caused by sectarian conflict and internal power struggles among different Iraqi factions.

The report’s methodology is controversial because it bypasses the normal model of death verification - which requires documenting each and every individual body tallied by governments, hospitals, and morgues - and instead uses a model first developed to estimate deaths caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, where bodies are often never found.

Many defenders of the occupation of Iraq claim that a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would spark a genocide as sectarian conflict and civil war escalated out of control. Indeed, violence may increase temporarily in the short term following a U.S. withdrawal. Nature abhors a vacum and competition among Iraqi factions for power may increase as they rush to fill the void.

However, what is clear is that the U.S. invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq in and of itself constitutes a kind of genocide. American economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s killed one million civilians, according to a 2003 study by the Centre for Population Studies. And the U.S. funded both sides of the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980’s, contributing to well over one million Arab and Persian casualties, according to Farhang Rajaee in a 1993 article published by the University of Florida titled The Iran-Iraq war: the politics of aggression.

Now an additional 996,836 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion in 2003. The instability and sectarian conflict were stoked by this unilateral, preemptive, and illegal invasion, and there is little hope of the internal conflict ending while Iraq is under foreign military occupation.

This situation is historically similar to the colonial period, where infighting between African and other indigenous tribes around the globe increased because of the havoc wreaked by colonial powers and their divide-and-conqueor strategies.

Indeed, the seeds of conflict and disputes between ethnic groups, e.g. in Rwanda, were planted by Western colonialism. People of color around the world reap what we sow.

The immediate future of Iraq looks grim, with solutions ranging from bad to worse. Our only hope of ending the senseless violence is an unconditional and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, followed by some kind of responsible assistance by the U.N. and Arab peacekeeping forces.

If the Iraqis have to go to civil war to sort out the mess that our government has left them in, let them. It will eventually burn itself out like in Lebanon and, without any further interference from the West besides reconstruction and reparations, the Iraqis will be able to begin rebuilding their devastated country.

David Goodner is senior at the University of Iowa majoring in international studies and human rights.

THE DECIDER IN DENIAL WAS WRONG 95 TIMES

Bush's address to the 437th Airlift Wing contained oft-repeated assertions that the president and other officials have made in recent months to rally lagging support for the war. He mentioned Al Qaeda 95 times — and of those, 29 were in references to the group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2007

Al Qaeda X 95=Bush's War

The Decider can say Al Qaeda 95 million times, but it doesn't alter the fact that this Long War president’s pre-emptive-shock-and-awe invasive war---and the occupation now---has multiplied the number of jihadists and terrorists.

The ones that should have been pre-emptively shocked and awed were NOT in Iraq.

The civil war in Iraq, according to CNN reporter Michael Ware, is made up of about 1% Al Qaeda.

Mr. Ware said that 1/2 % of that 1% are foreign fighters.

He pointed out that Al Qaeda is the most ruthless.

But they will get more and more ruthless as long as a foreign power occupies a Muslim country.

Saddam is dead.

His sons are dead.

The WMD were never found.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

He isn’t packing anything for George W. Bush.

Some U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials said Bush's broader assertions were in line with analysts' views. They noted that Bush used careful wording and deliberate attribution in cases in which he was citing intelligence that had not been substantiated.
But other experts and former U.S. intelligence officials questioned those assertions.
They noted that the Iraq conflict had undoubtedly attracted Islamic extremists who were trained in Afghanistan and might have fought in other theaters. But some cited an official U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last year that described Iraq as a "cause celebre" for Islamic radicals worldwide, fanning anger and resentment across the Muslim world and beyond.
"I think what the president is saying is in some sense fundamentally misleading," said Robert Grenier, former head of the counter-terrorism center at the CIA as well as the agency's mission manager for the war in Iraq. "If he means to suggest the invasion of Iraq has not created more jihadists bent on killing Americans, and that if Iraq hadn't been there as a magnet they would have been attracted somewhere else, that's completely disingenuous."
The war "has convinced many Muslims that the United States is the enemy of Islam and is attacking Muslims, and they have become jihadists as a result of their experience in Iraq," Grenier said.
Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University, a veteran counter-terrorism analyst and government consultant, said the vast majority of fighters who are part of Al Qaeda in Iraq are Iraqis who have shown little interest in seeking targets beyond that country's borders.

A British panel of private and government experts known as the Iraq Commission released a report this month that concluded there were between 50 and 75 "disparate groups, formed to rid the country of coalition forces."

Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2007

Q & A

What does it say about the state of Iraq if almost a third of the population is without water, sanitation, food and shelter?

It says that Iraq is in a very thirsty, smelly, hungry, homeless, and hopeless state. I wonder why?

Would you support the increased use of surveillance cameras in American cities?

Yes, monitor every breath and bite we take.

We finally can have those cameras that were in the futuristic novels 1984 and Fahrenheit 451?

Democracy.

Ain't it just dandy!

Should No Child Left Behind be left behind?

Yes, it should be eliminated.

No child's behind is left.

This program takes time away from classroom teaching because it relies too much on just passing tests.

I teach high school ESL, and this program plus the Texas TAKS test (that must be passed in order to receive a diploma) take precious time away from covering the curriculum.

Too many interruptions occur.

Teaching the test, and then practicing the test, then taking the test, then more teaching and testing of the test...all it does is damage the educational process.

Nothing wrong with an exit test.

But make it an exit test...not this constant testing, testing, testing, testing.

Should Supreme Court Justices be required to disclose their medical conditions?

If there are any medical conditions that affect or interfere with the duties of Supreme Court Justices, then those conditions should be disclosed.

Tacoma, Washington plans to use classical music to chase gangs from bus stops. Is that a good idea?

It's a great idea.

While you're at it, play some jazz and a lot of Big Band numbers...

REAL LOUD!
(The down side is that this might make gangs even more loco.)

Should Congress have expanded the Bush administration's authority to eavesdrop without warrants?

No, not if this warrant-less eavesdropping is done on citizens who communicate only within the United States. Then warrants should be obtained.

Do you agree with Newt Gingrich's statement that the Bush administration is waging a "phony war" on terrorism?

The Bush administration has scared the public too much (conveniently just before elections, speeches and legislation).

Bush has not searched for Mr. Bin Laden hard enough.

First, he gave us his WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE poster, and then he said that he didn’t really spend much time thinking about bin Laden.

The war in Iraq was the wrong place to fight terrorists.

Too much time, too much money and too many lives have been sacrificed in Iraq.

Bush is still in his state of denial when he believes that an occupation needs to continue in Iraq. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the nexus and nucleus of the GWOT.

The Bush administration and its perpetual war on terrorism is ludicrous when U.S. ports and borders remain so unprotected.

Phony and propagandistic rhetoric will not defeat al-Qaida.

GONE TO HELL

Highways and bridges…

GONE TO HELL.

Schools…

GONE TO HELL.

An economy…

GONE TO China.

A war…

GONE TO HELL.

A Constitution…

GONE TO HELL.

HOW?

WHY?

WHO?

"Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam."

John Brady Kiesling

Diplomat who resigned his post at the U.S. embassy in Greece on February 27, 2003

"Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far."

John Brady Kiesling

“There are many costs that come when our leaders divert $2 billion every ten days to occupy a distant land. The first of these is human. Wars cost lives in a war zone, but they also dry up the funding that could save lives on the home front. By drawing resources away from vital social and economic development projects at home -- and maintaining a safe and functional infrastructure is essential to progress on both fronts -- an obsessive focus on warmaking abroad leaves a trail of death, destruction and decay in the U.S.”

“Writing of federal "negligence" when it comes to infrastructure repair, the Star-Tribune's Coleman observed, "A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren't enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.”

From Broken Bridges, Lost Levees and a Brutal Culture of Neglect

By John Nichols

www.thenation.com

August 2, 2007

TOTAL NO RECALL

Here they go again.

Now Dick Cheney can't recall.

Dick Cheney knows the ropes and has had enough political experience and savvy to recall most events and moments.

Especially key moments.

It’s his heart and not his brain that is Dick’s problem.

Oh…and his SOUL!

Dick can't recall if he had anything to do with the visit by Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to the bedside of John Ashcroft.

This visit has to be put in the category of a key moment.

Dick described this lapse of memory to Larry King on July 31, 2007.

He spoke with that tilted head and bent mouth.

Dick needs to be put under oath and swear to tell the truth...ABOUT MANY, MANY KEY MOMENTS.

Maybe giving him some potent anesthesia would

loosen him up and relax his memory-neurons.

If Dick had to testify under oath (with a recorded transcript) he would be more careful about what he says and does.

But Tragedy has already occurred.

What Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, their obedient servants Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove (Who else?) have already done to Iraq is a crying, shameful crime.

Their lies have already been told and described in many books and articles.

Their mistaken and tragic deeds have been done.

Their prevarications and fabrications have generated the destruction of an old country.

Their PRE-EMPTIVE SHOCK AND AWE WAR has made Iraq and the world MORE DANGEROUS...not LESS DANGEROUS.

It's time for some Truth and Justice.

America deserves better than what it has received from this duplicitous and secretive administration.

This administration needs to pay the piper BEFORE they escape their official duties.

One essential demand is for Pelosi to encourage, rather than to block, Congressional investigations of past and ongoing administration deception, unwisdom, illegality and unconstitutionality in pursuing an aggressive war and in curtailing our rights. Such investigations, calling forth testimony under oath of current and former officials many of whom are eager to tell the truth at last, as well as demonstrating continued administration stonewalling, will almost surely lead to what does not yet exist: irresistible pressure from a belatedly-informed public for the impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney.

Daniel Ellsberg at a press conference August 9, 2007 at which Cindy Sheehan announced her independent candidacy for the 8th Congressional District of California.