ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

Longer than World I and II combined?

"Numbers ebb and flow. Bands of fighters appear and vanish."

Yes, and so do American soldiers.

What are we doing?

The old adage is, "The only thing worse is if we leave."

No, the only thing worse...

IS IF WE STAY.

Leave Afghanistan!

First it was Iraq.

I mean, first it was Afghanistan, and now, it's still Afghanistan!


Before that Vietnam.

When will we ever learn?

But I forget:

WAR IS BIG BUSINESS.

America is (or was) in a recession.

So...

"Onward, Christian soldiers..."


P.S.
If a better life is won by staying and fighting in Afghanistan, then stay and fight. But this is not occurring. More and more civilians are being killed. It's getting worse, not better in Afghanistan. And where is the rest of the world? Why are America and only a few allies staying in Afghanistan?

Below is a piece in the New York Times by David Brooks.

The situation in Afghanistan is growing complex and confusing.

***

The Afghan Imperative

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: September 24, 2009

The New York Times

Always there is the illusion of the easy path. Always there is the illusion, which gripped Donald Rumsfeld and now grips many Democrats, that you can fight a counterinsurgency war with a light footprint, with cruise missiles, with special forces operations and unmanned drones. Always there is the illusion, deep in the bones of the Pentagon’s Old Guard, that you can fight a force like the Taliban by keeping your troops mostly in bases, and then sending them out in well-armored convoys to kill bad guys.

There is simply no historical record to support these illusions. The historical evidence suggests that these middling strategies just create a situation in which you have enough forces to assume responsibility for a conflict, but not enough to prevail.

The record suggests what Gen. Stanley McChrystal clearly understands — that only the full counterinsurgency doctrine offers a chance of success. This is a doctrine, as General McChrystal wrote in his remarkable report, that puts population protection at the center of the Afghanistan mission, that acknowledges that insurgencies can only be defeated when local communities and military forces work together.

To put it concretely, this is a doctrine in which small groups of American men and women are outside the wire in dangerous places in remote valleys, providing security, gathering intelligence, helping to establish courts and building schools and roads.

These are the realistic choices for America’s Afghanistan policy — all out or all in, surrender the place to the Taliban or do armed nation-building. And we might as well acknowledge that it’s not an easy call. The costs and rewards are tightly balanced. But in the end, President Obama was right: “You don’t muddle through the central front on terror. ... You don’t muddle through stamping out the Taliban.”

Since 1979, we have been involved in a long, complex conflict against Islamic extremism. We’ve fought this ideology in many ways in many places, and we shouldn’t pretend we understand how this conflict will evolve. But we should understand that the conflict is unavoidable and that when extremism pushes, it’s in our long-term interests to push back — and that eventually, if we do so, extremism will wither.

Afghanistan is central to this effort partly because it could again become a safe haven to terrorists, but mostly because of its effects on the stability of Pakistan. As Stephen Biddle noted in a recent essay in The American Interest, the Taliban is a transnational Pashtun movement active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is part of a complex insurgency trying to topple the Pakistani regime.

Pakistan has a fragile government with an estimated 50 or more nuclear weapons. A Taliban conquest in Afghanistan would endanger the Pakistani regime at best, create a regional crisis for certain and lead to a nuclear-armed Al Qaeda at worst.

A Taliban reconquest would also, it should be said, be a moral atrocity from which American self-respect would not soon recover.

Proponents of withdrawal often acknowledge the costs of defeat but argue that the cause is hopeless anyway. On this, let me note a certain pattern. When you interview people who know little about Afghanistan, they describe an anarchic place that is the graveyard of empires. When you interview people who live there or are experts, they think those stereotypes are rubbish. They usually take a hardened but guardedly optimistic view. Read Clare Lockhart’s Sept. 17 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to get a sense of the way many knowledgeable people view the situation.

Amidst all the problems, the NATO coalition has a few things going for it. First, American forces have become quite good at counterinsurgency. They have a battle-tested strategy, experienced troops and a superb new leadership team. According to the political scientists Andrew J. Enterline and Joseph Magagnoli, since World War II, counterinsurgency efforts that put population protection at their core have succeeded nearly 70 percent of the time.

Second, the enemy is wildly hated. Only 6 percent of Afghans want a Taliban return, while NATO is viewed with surprising favor. This is not Vietnam or even Iraq.

Third, while many Afghan institutions are now dysfunctional, there is a base on which to build. The Afghan Army is a successful institution. Local villages have their own centuries-old civic institutions. The National Solidarity Program was able to build development councils in 23,000 villages precisely because the remnants of civil society still exist.

We have tried to fight the Afghan war the easy way, and it hasn’t worked. Switching now to the McChrystal strategy is a difficult choice, and President Obama is right to take his time. But Obama was also right a few months ago when he declared, “This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. ... This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

***

SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2009

Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die

Thursday 17 September 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t News Analysis

(Illustration: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t)

On September 7 the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported that the previous week US soldiers raided one of its hospitals. According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men's and women's wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters.

Soldiers demanded that hospital administrators inform the military of any incoming patients who might be insurgents, after which the military would then decide if said patients would be admitted or not. Fange called the incident "not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict, but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement" between nongovernmental organizations and international forces.

Fange said that US troops broke down doors and tied up visitors and hospital staff.

Impeding operations at medical facilities in Afghanistan directly violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the obstruction of medical operations during wartime.

Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer for the US Navy, confirmed the raid, and told The Associated Press, "Complaints like this are rare."

Despite Sidenstricker's claim that "complaints like this" are rare in Afghanistan, they are, in fact, common. Just as they are in Iraq, the other occupation. A desperate conventional military, when losing a guerilla war, tends to toss international law out the window. Yet even more so when the entire occupation itself is a violation of international law.

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild and also a Truthout contributor, is very clear about the overall illegality of the invasion and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan by the United States.

"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law," Cohn, who is also a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and recently co-authored the book "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent" said, "Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men - 15 from Saudi Arabia - did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal."

Thus, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, along with the ongoing slaughter of Afghan civilians and raiding hospitals, are in violation of international law as well as the US Constitution.

And of course the same applies for Iraq.

Let us recall November 8, 2004, when the US military launched its siege of Fallujah. The first thing done by the US military was to invade and occupy Fallujah General Hospital. Then, too, like this recent incident in Afghanistan, doctors, patients and visitors alike had their hands tied and they were laid on the ground, oftentimes face down, and held at gunpoint.

During my first four trips to Iraq, I commonly encountered hospital staff who reported US military raids on their facilities. US soldiers regularly entered hospitals to search for wounded resistance fighters.

Doctors from Fallujah General Hospital, as well as others who worked in clinics throughout the city during both US sieges of Fallujah in 2004, reported that US Marines obstructed their services and that US snipers intentionally targeted their clinics and ambulances.

"The Marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially they did," Dr. Abdulla, an orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General Hospital who spoke on condition of using a different name, told Truthout in May 2004 of his experiences in the hospital. "They closed the bridge which connects us to the city [and] closed our road ... the area in front of our hospital was full of their soldiers and vehicles."

He added that this prevented countless patients who desperately needed medical care from receiving medical care. "Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved," said Dr. Abdulla. He also blamed the military for shooting at civilian ambulances, as well as shooting near the clinic at which he worked. "Some days we couldn't leave, or even go near the door because of the snipers," he said, "They were shooting at the front door of the clinic!"

Dr. Abdulla also said that US snipers shot and killed one of the ambulance drivers of the clinic where he worked during the fighting.

Dr. Ahmed, who also asked that only his first name be used because he feared US military reprisals, said, "The Americans shot out the lights in the front of our hospital. They prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much-needed medications." He also stated that several times Marines kept the physicians in the residence building, thereby intentionally prohibiting them from entering the hospital to treat patients.

"All the time they came in, searched rooms and wandered around," said Dr. Ahmed, while explaining how US troops often entered the hospital in order to search for resistance fighters. Both he and Dr. Abdulla said the US troops never offered any medicine or supplies to assist the hospital when they carried out their incursions. Describing a situation that has occurred in other hospitals, he added, "Most of our patients left the hospital because they were afraid."

Dr. Abdulla said that one of their ambulance drivers was shot and killed by US snipers while he was attempting to collect the wounded near another clinic inside the city.

"The major problem we found were the American snipers," said Dr. Rashid, who worked at another clinic in the Jumaria Quarter of Falluja. "We saw them on top of the buildings near the mayor's office."

Dr. Rashid told of another incident in which a US sniper shot an ambulance driver in the leg. The ambulance driver survived, but a man who came to his rescue was shot by a US sniper and died on the operating table after Dr. Rashid and others had worked to save him. "He was a volunteer working on the ambulance to help collect the wounded," Dr. Rashid said sadly.

During Truthout's visit to the hospital in May 2004, two ambulances in the parking lot sat with bullet holes in their windshields, while others had bullet holes in their back doors and sides.

"I remember once we sent an ambulance to evacuate a family that was bombed by an aircraft," said Dr. Abdulla while continuing to speak about the US snipers, "The ambulance was sniped - one of the family died, and three were injured by the firing."

Neither Dr. Abdulla nor Dr. Rashid said they knew of any medical aid being provided to their hospital or clinics by the US military. On this topic, Dr. Rashid said flatly, "They send only bombs, not medicine."

Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City also reported similar findings to Truthout, as did other hospitals throughout Baghdad.

Dr. Abdul Ali, the ex-chief surgeon at Al-Noman Hospital, admitted that US soldiers had come to the hospital asking for information about resistance fighters. To this he said, "My policy is not to give my patients to the Americans. I deny information for the sake of the patient."

During an interview in April 2004, he admitted this intrusion occurred fairly regularly and interfered with patients receiving medical treatment. He noted, "Ten days ago this happened - this occurred after people began to come in from Fallujah, even though most of them were children, women and elderly."

A doctor at Al-Kerkh Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, shared a similar experience of the problem that appears to be rampant throughout much of the country: "We hear of Americans removing wounded Iraqis from hospitals. They are always coming here and asking us if we have injured fighters."

Speaking about the US military raid of the hospital in Afghanistan, UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said he was not aware of the details of the particular incident, but that international law requires the military to avoid operations in medical facilities.

"The rules are that medical facilities are not combat areas. It's unacceptable for a medical facility to become an area of active combat operations," he said. "The only exception to that under the Geneva Conventions is if a risk is being posed to people."

"There is the Hippocratic oath," Fange added, "If anyone is wounded, sick or in need of treatment ... if they are a human being, then they are received and treated as they should be by international law."

These are all indications of a US Empire in decline. Another recent sign of US desperation in Afghanistan was the bombing of two fuel tanker trucks that the Taliban had captured from NATO. US warplanes bombed the vehicles, from which impoverished local villagers were taking free gas, incinerating as many as 150 civilians, according to reports from villagers.

The United States Empire is following a long line of empires and conquerors that have met their end in Afghanistan. The Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Indo-Greeks, Turks, Mongols, British and Soviets all met the end of their ambitions in Afghanistan.

And today, the US Empire is on the fast track of its demise. A recent article by Tom Englehardt provides us more key indicators of this:

In 2002 there were 5,200 US soldiers in Afghanistan. By December of this year, there will be 68,000.

Compared to the same period in 2008, Taliban attacks on coalition forces using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) has risen 114 percent.

Compared to the same period in 2008, coalition deaths from IED attacks have increased sixfold.

Overall Taliban attacks on coalition forces in the first five months of 2009, compared to the same period last year, have increased 59 percent.

Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan.

Neither will the United States, particularly when in its desperation to continue its illegal occupation, it tosses aside international law, along with its own Constitution.

---

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan," (Haymarket Books, 2009), and "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last five years.

***

The following was from MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

[NOTE: Jamie Rubin is an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University]

MR. BARNICLE: Admiral Mullen said yesterday in a public forum, a Senate hearing, that one of the things we've done very badly, we've under- resourced very badly for four or five years our commitment to Afghanistan.

That is basically throwing the prior Joint Chiefs and the top military command and an administration right under the bus.

MR. RUBIN: Well, I think he has. He's thrown under the bus the effort that went into Afghanistan for six, seven years, is the point I was making. He's making the argument for resetting the clock.

The Bush administration, the military, the Pentagon---including Secretary Gates, who's still there, are all focused on Iraq. They put the best troops, the best intelligence, the best resources, the daily commitment to Iraq. And yes, in 2008 we had a turnaround there.

The fundamental question that the Congress is going to face, and I think administration officials are struggling with, is is Iraq a reasonable analogy now?

Will the surge that worked in Iraq, is there an analogous situation in Afghanistan?

If have top-level effort, if the president focuses on it, if we have additional surge of military forces, if we reset the objectives---

Because we lowered the objectives in Iraq, where we began working with Sunni warlords that previously we weren't prepared to work with.

So if we lower the objectives and increase the resources, I believe we can achieve this mission.

But we're going to have to have a serious national debate over the next several months in order to do that, and I think we're going to need to hear a lot more from the administration about all of these issues.

And we need to really, really put to bed the issue that I think is behind everybody here, which is that this is another Vietnam.

And I think that Vietnam is a terribly debilitating analogy for our country. Every time something is difficult, we say, oh, it's Vietnam.

Afghanistan and Vietnam have nothing to do with each other. The whole world is on our side in Afghanistan; the whole world was clearly not on our side in Vietnam.

The people in Afghanistan prefer an outcome that's not the Taliban, while in Vietnam, as you know, the situation was different.

So let's take that analogy, throw it out the window, and deal with the facts on the ground. It's going to be hard enough, with those facts, to win the argument."

***

The following is by Professor Juan Cole

(http://www.juancole.com)

9/17/09:

I was one of the first analysts to warn that Afghanistan could turn into a Vietnam for President Obama, so of course I do not agree with Rubin. And his remarks frankly worry me because he is making an analogy from Iraq to Afghanistan, which just won't work.

First of all, official Washington has never understood the real reason for which rates of civilian deaths fell dramatically in Iraq in late 2007 and through 2008, compared to the almost apocalyptic death rate in 2006-2007 during the Sunni-Shiite civil war kicked off by the Feb. 2006 bombing of the Askariya "Golden Domed" shrine in Samarra.

Beginning in a big way in summer of 2006 and continuing for at least a year, the Shiites of Baghdad and its environs determinedly and systematically ethnically cleansed the Sunnis from the capital. I figure that over a million people were likely displaced. Mixed neighborhoods such as Shaab became wholly Shiite. Baghdad went from being 50/50 Sunni-Shiite, more or less, in 2003 to being perhaps 85%-90% Shiite today. Much of the violence of the civil war period was the result of neighborhood fighting between adherents of the two branches of Islam, so when the Sunnis were expelled (many of them all the way to Amman and Damascus), the violence naturally declined substantially.

Rubin thinks that the violence declined because the US government began being willing to enlist Sunni militiamen to fight radical fundamentalists and Baathists. But the Sunnis took the deal in part because they were losing so badly. And, the main effect of the Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq was in al-Anbar Province, which only has a little over a million people out of Iraq's 27 million, not in Baghdad. In the capital they probably just stopped the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis.

The reasons the Shiites won the civil war in Iraq include:

1) Shiites were the majority, with 60% of the population;

2) Shiites had militias such as the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army to carry out the ethnic cleansing;

3) Shiites had gained control of an oil state and had significant monetary resources;

4) Next-door Shiite Iran offered enormous resources and facilities to the Iraqi Shiites, helping them avoid being strangled by the Sunni Arabs of the west and north. In essence, the US caught a big break insofar as its main regional enemy happened to have the same basic objectives in Iraq as did the US, reinforcing Washington's policies.

5) Most Shiites and their Kurdish allies (altogether some 80% of the population) saw the al-Maliki government as legitimate, though most Sunni Arabs did not.

6) Shiites had gained control of the newly trained army and security forces and could deploy them against Sunnis, since the new recruits were largely literate, increasingly well-trained, and motivated to stop Sunni violence against their relatives;

7) US troops disarmed the Sunnis in the capital first, before turning to Shiite militias, leaving the Sunnis helpless before 2) and 3) above; and

8) Most Sunni Arabs in Iraq were and are secular nationalists who resented the religious extremism of many of the guerrillas, and whose tribes began to have a feud with the Islamic State of Iraq because it bombed Sunni young men seeking recruitment into the national police.

Afghanistan differs from Iraq in the following respects:

1) The Pashtuns from whom the anti-government forces derive are some 44% of the population, not a 20% or less minority the way the Sunnis of Iraq are. While most Pashtuns still reject the guerrillas, so did most Sunni Arabs reject the extremist guerrillas; the latter still controlled significant swathes of Sunni Iraq. The Taliban and kindred groups are a significant presence everywhere there are large Pashtun populations.

2) The Tajik and Hazara militias have largely been demobilized and are not available for deployment against the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups. The pro-Kabul Pashtuns typically do not have militias.

3) The pro-Karzai Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara Shiites and Uzbeks that form the ruling clique are not united, and the government they dominate is extremely weak and poverty-stricken (the GDP in international currency [not purchasing power parity] is only about $9 bn a year, and the government budget is a little over $1 bn.). Iraq has something close to $70 bn. in reserves from oil sales. The Afghan government controls only 30% of the country. The country is resource-poor and there is no prospect of it having a proper tax base for a competent bureaucracy and army any time soon.

4) The Pashtun plurality is backed by the enormous Sunni country of Pakistan, whereas the pro-Kabul Pashtuns have no regional foreign patron to speak of; Iran generally supports the Tajiks and Hazaras, but it is hard to discern that they have pumped very significant resources into the country. In essence, Washington's regional ally, Pakistan, is ambivalent about the Tajik/Hazara/Uzbek takeover of Kabul and not close to Karzai's faction of Pashtuns.

5) In the aftermath of the recent election, probably a majority of Afghans and of Pashtuns sees the Karzai government as corrupt and illegitimate.

6) The Afghan army has faced extreme difficulties in training and expansion. Some 90% of the troops are illiterate, which limits how much they can be trained and even their ability to read street signs when they are sent into an unfamiliar city. (Iraq's literacy rate is 76%). Many Afghan troops lack discipline and some proportion regularly use recreational drugs during work hours. There is no evidence of any great esprit de corps or attachment to the Karzai government, in contrast to the Iraqi army's willingness to fight for PM Nuri al-Maliki and his ruling coalition.

7) US troops have proven unable to disarm the Taliban, Hizb-i Islam, or the Haqqani group. The number of fighters attached to these guerrilla groups has grown from 3,000 a few years ago to 15,000- 20,000 today. They are local, know the terrain, and receive patronage and support from Pashtun tribes who resent the foreign troop presence.

8) Pashtuns are not for the most part secularists, and a combination of religious and nationalist rhetoric such as is deployed by old-time guerrilla leader Gulbadin Hikmatyar and his "Islamic Party" has a great deal of appeal to them. Although the Taliban are only thought well of by 5% of Afghans in polls, that is probably 10% of Pashtuns. And many of the guerrilla groups opposing Karzai are not properly called Taliban (Pashtuns in Kunar Province are not thinking of Islamic Party when they denounce Taliban). Virtually no Pashtuns, who are a plurality of the country and the largest single ethnic group, want US or NATO troops in their country.

So Afghanistan is not very much like Iraq (there are other differences, as in the organization of the tribes), and if Rubin advises H. Clinton and Obama to depend on a "surge" plus a "Sons of Afghanistan" artificial militia policy, I think that would be dangerous advice.

Afghanistan is more like Vietnam than Obama and Rubin suggest. And, it is becoming more like it all the time.

By the way, Mr. Rubin, we Americans don't call "anything that is hard" Vietnam. We don't call keeping up a space station "Vietnam" or getting universal health care "Vietnam." We invoke Vietnam against long, costly Asian land wars, the objectives of which are murky and the medium-term and long-term success of which is in significant doubt. And by these criteria, Afghanistan has "Vietnam" written all over it.

***

September 3, 2009

Afghanistan Syndrome: There Are More Americans Fighting In Afghanistan Today Than The Soviets Deployed At Their Peak

By Mark Ames

This article first appeared in Alternet.

America now has more military personnel in Afghanistan than the Red Army had at the peak of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country. According to a Congressional Research Service report, as of March of this year, the U.S. had 52,000 uniformed personnel and another 68,000 contractors in Afghanistan — a number that has likely grown given the blank check President Obama has written for what’s now being called “Obama’s War.”

That makes 120,000 American military personnel fighting in Afghanistan, a figure higher than the Soviet peak troop figure of 115,000 during their catastrophic 9-year war. Just this week, General McChrystal, whom Obama appointed to command American forces in Afghanistan, is talking of sending tens of thousands more American troops. At the height of the Soviet occupation,Western intelligence experts estimated that the Soviets had 115,000 troops in Afghanistan — but like America, the more troops and the longer the Soviets stayed, the more doomed their military mission became.

***

British aide quits over Afghanistan war

Posted Fri Sep 4, 2009 6:29am AEST

Updated Fri Sep 4, 2009 7:50am AEST

"Britain fights; Germany pays, France calculates; Italy avoids": UK troops in Afghanistan (Reuters: Ahmad Masood)

• Audio: Brown faces more fire on home front (The World Today)
• Related Story: US, British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

A key aide to Britain's defence secretary has resigned over the war in Afghanistan.

Eric Joyce, the parliamentary private secretary to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, said there were "problems" over Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government's handling of the war "which need fixing with the greatest urgency".

"I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets," he said in a resignation letter quoted by Channel Four television.

"I think we must be much more direct about the reality that we do punch a long way above our weight, that many of our allies do far too little, and that leaving the field to the United States would mean the end of NATO as a meaningful proposition."

Mr Joyce, a former army major and lawmaker, added there was a perception that "Britain fights; Germany pays, France calculates; Italy avoids" within NATO.

Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan. A total of 211 British troops have died there since 2001 and the recent passing of the 200 milestone revived questions about the scope and purpose of Britain's mission there.

The spike in deaths has also raised questions about troop numbers and whether they are adequately equipped.

MAYHEM AND MURDER IN PARADISE

A colleague once told me that Juarez reminded him of Paris.

"Paris?", I said.
"Yes", he told me.
"Paris."
"In what way?", I asked.
"The all-night, street life."
He also mentioned that Paris and Juarez looked similar, and this surprised me.
But as the saying goes, That was Then and This is Now.

Before my married bliss, I spent many a night carousing in Juarez.
Smoking and drinking and talking all night-long.

If Juarez back then was like Paris, then I am grateful that I was able to experience just briefly the life that was there.
I had always been enthralled and enticed (and envious) of pre-World War II-post-World War I life in Paris.

They were exciting and happy days, even for those artists who were down and out.

Juarez
Is
A
Paradise Lost.

Juarez
Is now
A
Haven Of Mayhem & Murder.

OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

I'm listening to John Fogerty sing Deja Vu All Over Again.

The following are not words in this song, just my own thoughts
as I listen.

We can win...

But we have to have more troops....

To fight the growing counterinsurgency.

More advisors...

To train their soldiers and police so that our soldiers can leave.

More money.

More money.

More time.

More money.

More blood.

MORE BLOOD.




***


Here was my post a month ago today about Afghanistan:

FINALLY A COMMENT THAT WAS AIRED ON JACK CAFFERTY'S FILE AUGUST 14, 2009

It’s Vietnam all over again, or as John Fogerty says and sings, it’s “Deja Vu” all over again.
Like ants, the Taliban will keep moving, charging, and killing, and American lives will continue to be sacrificed.
For what?
I would like President Obama to tell the American people very specifically what we are doing in Afghanistan.
More importantly, do the people of Afghanistan want us there, or do they want us out?
It seems like a very big waste of money when Americans die, and when there is only more and more escalation after a decade-long invasion.
Oh, and where in the blazes is bin Laden?


***

Bamian Afghanistan

By M.L. Squier

Echoes of Tamerlane, Genghis Khan and
Alexander were found in tourquoise, opal and
Amethyst dreams,
Young vagabonds slept on Persian rugs
Beneath Heaven's green pastures far below
Tall Buddhas on Bamian's plains.
While bright on earth green grass grew under
Falling rain, above the sky lit up dark
Echoed man's last refrain:
'We hail the rains to bring us back to life;
We hail the rains to remove this mortal rule
of knife.'

But thunder shouted and sirens cried,
People hurried, they fought and died.
Echoes of Tamerlane, Genghis Khan and
Alexander were found in tourquoise, opal and
Amethyst dreams,
Young vagabonds slept on Persian rugs
Beneath Heaven's green pastures
Far below tall Buddhas on Bamian's plains.

MORE OR LESS MACHO

The INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE has added a new sport to its games. It's called Sports for Athletes Who Are Hermaphrodites or just The Hermaphrodite Games.

Steroids, of course, are still forbidden, but the International Olympic Committee decided that it was not fair for athletes to compete who have the misfortune (or fortune?) of possessing both male and female genitals.
Athletes must undergo rigorous examinations to determine whether they qualify to compete in the Hermaphrodite Games.

And even if athletes have both male and female genitals, the key qualification will be the amount of testosterone that he (or she) has.

Too much testosterone, and the athlete cannot compete as an hermaphrodite, but must then compete as a man.

Likewise, too little testosterone, and the athlete must compete as a woman.

The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has agreed to follow the same rules as the IOC.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

The following is an abbreviated, fictitious version of President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress.
September 9, 2009

Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:

Please, please, stand up.

I need your support both on your feet, on your seat, and in your sleep.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Please, please...don't sit down yet, give me a few more moments of having you stand at my attention.

Alright, go ahead and be seated.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Since my remarks tonight concern health care, I encourage all members of Congress and all Americans---in fact, all members of the human race---to wash their hands a lot.
If we can beat the flu we might have a fighting chance to keep improving the economy and saving the planet.

Remember, a sick society is an unproductive society.

A sick world is not a productive world.

We need as many healthy citizens as possible to keep this economy and the world's growing.

On Health care, this nation can no longer wait to give all Americans guaranteed health care.

Insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are going to have to bite the bullet.

Your profits are killing people.

We can no longer let you be killers.
Sell us your pain killers, but stop killing citizens with out-of-this world health costs.

All Americans should have health care---with or without a pre-existing medical condition.

Our nation can no longer let its citizens die just because they are unable to pay for their health care.

This is not socialism---this is good humanism.

I call upon Congressmen who have received political contributions from insurance companies or other entities---you must now do the courageous and correct thing:

Vote for and pass universal Public Health Care!

Thank you.
Good night.

God bless you---God bless America---and wash your hands!

KICKING THE HABIT

Sid Video:
Hello? Is this the Help Line for Internet Addiction?

Help Line:
Yes, how may we be of assistance?

Sid Video:
I've gone cold turkey, and I feel terrible.

Help Line:
Sir, what are your symptoms?

Sid Video:
I'm cold, and I'm shaking all over.

Help Line:
Is your computer unplugged?

Sid Video:
Yes.

Help Line:
Good. Do you have a hammer?

Sid Video:
Yes.

Help Line:
Good. Go get it and then smash your computer.

Sid Video:
But...

Help Line:
No "buts", sir, just do it.

Sid Video:
O.K.
[Smash!]

Help Line:
Good. What you need to do now is run a warm bath and soak for awhile, and then your Internet-Tremens should subside. Take two aspirin, and call us in the morning.

Sid Video:
Can I watch T.V.?

Help Line:
Of course.


***

September 5, 2009

FALL CITY, Wash. (AP) — Ben Alexander spent nearly every waking minute playing the video game “World of Warcraft.” As a result, he flunked out of the University of Iowa.
Mr. Alexander, 19, needed help to break an addiction that he called as destructive as alcohol or drugs. He found it in Fall City, where what claims to be the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States just opened its doors.
The center, called ReSTART, opened in July, and for $14,000 it offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use.
“We’ve been doing this for years on an outpatient basis,” said Hilarie Cash, a therapist and executive director of the center. “Up until now, we had no place to send them.”
Internet addiction is not recognized as a separate disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, and treatment is not generally covered by insurance. But there are many such treatment centers in China, South Korea and Taiwan, where Internet addiction is taken very seriously, and many psychiatric experts say it is clear that Internet addiction is real and harmful.
Whether such programs work in the long run remains to be seen.
The five-acre center in Fall City, about 30 miles east of Seattle, can handle up to six patients at a time. Mr. Alexander is so far the only patient of the program, which uses a cold-turkey approach. He spends his days in counseling and psychotherapy sessions, doing household chores, working on the grounds, going on outings, exercising and baking cookies.
Cosette Dawna Rae, a psychotherapist, has owned the bucolic retreat center since 1994, and was searching for a new use for it when she teamed up with Ms. Cash. Ms. Cash, co-author of the book “Video Games and Your Kids,” started dealing with Internet addiction in 1994, with a patient she said was so consumed by video games that his marriage ended and he lost two jobs.



IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES AND INTERNET ADDICTION

FREEDOM OR FASCISM?

Copyright 2008 Howard David Johnson

***

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini



The voices and choices of the people are being trumped and trampled by the corporate behemoths of the insurance and pharmaceutical industry, and upon the backs of these behemoths sit all of the greedy, spineless, gutless U.S. senators.

Shame on them...and boot their butts out of the Senate!

Revolutions have been fought for freedom from tyrants.

Our own founders fought valiantly to free our nascent nation from tyranny.

The tyranny that is now among us---in front of us---within and without our nation---comes from the megalithic, corporate monsters who have taken control of our physical and economic lives.

Mussolini described the fascism which is now the tyranny whose iron claws hold the American people.

Well, all of the people except for the Insurance, Banking, and Pharmaceutical CEOs.

Our throats are being cut.

Our bodies are being gutted.

Our lives and future are being destroyed.

And, yes, I know that I and everyone else needs to eat healthier and live healthier.

(I still dislike exercise or heavy lifting.)

The Middle Class is a ghost of its previous self,
and the richest of the rich have gotten much richer while the poorest of the poor have gotten much poorer.

The banks have robbed us.
The insurance companies are robbing us.
It is no surprise, then, that neither want us to have an option to compete with their monopolization of health care.

And so the opposition pins its fearful names upon such a public option.

It's Socialism!

It's Communism!

It's Marxism!

It's Stalinism!

It's totalitarianism!

Obama is worse than Adolf Hilter!

Give me a break!

It's time to start another revolution.

Give the people a public option!

DOME OF THE DARKLING EARTH

Copyright 2008 Howard David Johnson

***

The cries of power!
The steeds and golden saddles of nuclear horsemen!
Chariots racing closer and closer to the shore of Enlightenment!
Start again, said the bionic man,
Blood and bone are irradiated.
Go on smiling, said the beggar man.
The Stone Age, the Metal Age, the Dark Ages,
The Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution...
Voyages in oceans and galaxies!
The Gold Rush, the Golden Lust, the Garden of Eden...
Voyages in oceans and galaxies!
Where are you Adam and Eve?
Where in the devil is God?
Men kissed Prometheus again
When Atom walked
Onto the stage
Of raging flame.
By M.L. Squier
[a.k.a. Mad Plato]

BROTHERS

I don't know where I was when Bobby Kennedy died.
I know exactly where I was when JFK was killed.
I was in my 10th grade English class.
I was at work when Senator Ted Kennedy died.
May America remember them and the good that they did (and tried to do) as the Ship of State sails forth into new and dangerous waters.

PROGRESS PLUNGE

All our lauded technological progress---our very civilization---is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein

Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory. “Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said.



***


I believe that an error has already occurred, and it's that you have created new, man-made organisms.

But that’s man for you.

Or science.

No stone left unturned.

Nothing will stop the march of science.

It’s like the pool where I swam when I was a boy.

The pool’s name was Progress Plunge.

First, the pool water is clean and clear, and then there appears a kids’ big turd, floating around…

Yikes!

Run...

I mean swim for your life!

It all begins quite innocently, and with all of the best intentions, and then the uh-ohs begin to befall the scientists, and then ...

Earth.

The serenity of science suddenly slides into insanity and destruction.

You can take the atom as an example, or lasers, or rockets, or hydrogen energy---

Or even our blessed computers that we’re all so addicted to.

Yes, one of these days they, too, will be a danger for us.

Love turns into Hate.

Progress becomes a horse of a different color, or in this case an entirely new organism.

Maybe, though, we’ll need these new life-forms to fight those super-intelligent computers.


Dr Venter said the research was particularly important because it opened the door to altering algae and bacteria to perform useful functions. “This could be one of the most powerful tools in biology,” he said.


From

Artificial life is only months away, says biologist Craig Venter

August 21, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6804599.ece

DON'T MAKE MY DAY

BO:
Good afternoon gentlemen.
Before I take any questions, I first want to draw your attention to my new six-shooters. Nice, aren't they?
Now for some questions.
Yes, Clint...and please don't ask me to say, "Go ahead, make my day."

CLINT:
Thank you, Mr. President.
Why do you believe that packing a gun (or two) will be a good thing to do in light of the amount violence in our world today.

BO:
Well, Clint, I'm packing to show the world's punks and terrorists that I'm more than just a community planner. I've got 'em, but I don't want to have to use them. Yes, Annie.

ANNIE:
Mr. President, is your gun-toting a reaction to a few citizens who have brought their guns to maybe show that they are tired of being messed with?

BO:
Well, Annie I'm not sure what you mean by being messed with, but I'm sure that more than one American is upset with the way things are; but as I've said before, I believe that little by little things are getting better, and will continue to do so.

[A Secret Serviceman walks up to President Obama and hands him a box of ammo.]

BO:
Up to now, my pistols have been empty, but it looks like the SS wants me to have live ammunition, since it seems that the anger level of the crowd has risen, and I don't want to take any chances.
Next question. Yes, the man in the back with the bow and arrow. Robin?

ROBIN:
Yes. Thank you Mr. President.
Sir, as a candidate you said that your administration would be more transparent than the previous one. But have you been a straight shooter with the American Public? I'm thinking now of the public option in the Health Care proposal.

BO:
Well, Robin. I am a straight shooter, and if you come out to the White House firing range, you'll see for yourself just how straight.
But, no, I still want a public option.
All options are on the table...sitting there with my heaters.
One more question. Yes, Mohammad.

MOHAMMAD:
Mr. President, today you said that the war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity---not choice--- and that the Taliban want to attack the U.S.
Is this really accurate?
Isn't this the same type of message that George Bush gave Americans for eight years?
And John Brennan from your Homeland Security office recently said that (quote),
"The United States is no longer engaged in a 'war on terrorism'; neither is it fighting "jihadists" nor locked in a 'global war'...it is now soley a 'war with Al Qaeda'.

BO:
Well, Mohammad, the ruthless Taliban don't want to just grow and sell poppies.
They want to take over Afghanistan, and once again enslave freedom-loving Afghans.
We simply can't let the brutal Taliban get their way again.
We owe this to the people of Afghanistan.
Thank you.
I'm off to the firing range.

AMOEBAS TEA AND THE HEADS OF LAMB

I almost stopped drinking coffee when I lived in Kabul.
Tea was poured and imbibed 24-7.
Tea, tea, tea.
Would you like some tea? Yes. More tea? Why of course.
It was the first thing you did when you visited anyone.
Tea, tea, tea.
No teasers...and, please...
NO COFFEE!

Amoebas and not the Taliban were THE ENEMY when I lived in Afghanistan.
Boil your water or you'll get Amoebiasis!
Boiling water was also something that was done 24-7.

Men carried the heads of lamb upon their own heads.
I never ate any of these heads.
This heady experience just didn't appeal to me.

FINALLY A COMMENT THAT WAS AIRED ON JACK CAFFERTY'S FILE AUGUST 14, 2009

It’s Vietnam all over again, or as John Fogerty says and sings, it’s “Deja Vu” all over again.
Like ants, the Taliban will keep moving, charging, and killing, and American lives will continue to be sacrificed.
For what?
I would like President Obama to tell the American people very specifically what we are doing in Afghanistan.
More importantly, do the people of Afghanistan want us there, or do they want us out?
It seems like a very big waste of money when Americans die, and when there is only more and more escalation after a decade-long invasion.
Oh, and where in the blazes is bin Laden?

MORE MENCKEN GEMS

[From Happy Days, 1940]

"When arc-lights began to light the streets, along about 1885, they attracted so many beetles of gigantic size that their glare was actually obscured. The beetles at once acquired the name of electric-light bugs, and it was believed that the arc carbons produced them by a kind of spontaneous generation, and that their bite was dangerous as that of a tarantula.
These flies were no concern to my brother Charlie and me; they seemed to be innocuous and even friendly compared to the chiggers, bumble-bees and hornets that occasionally beset us. Indeed, they were a source of pleasant recreation to us, for very often, on hot Summer evenings, we would retire to the kitchen, stretch out flat on our backs on the table, and pop away at them with slingshots as they roosted in dense clumps upon the ceiling."

"The Baltimore of the eighties was a noisy town, for the impact of iron wagon tires on hard cobblestone was almost like that of a hammer on
an anvil."




[From Heathen Days, 1943]

"---what a foul smell, indeed, a gymnasium has! how it suggests a mixture of Salvation Army, elephant house, and county jail!"




[From the Smart Set, May 1919]

"Whoso approaches women still faces the immemorial dangers. Civilization has not made them a bit more safe than they were in Solomon's time; they are still inordinately menacing, and hence inordinately provocative, and hence inordinately charming."

"The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who, on grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love."




[From the Smart Set, May 1920]

"The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection---the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases."




[From the Smart Set, January 1921]

",,,he [Woodrow Wilson] knew better than they did how to arrest the boobery with words that were simply words, and nothing else...He knew how to make them glow, and weep. He wasted no time upon the heads of dupes, but aimed directly at their ears, diaphragms and hearts."




[From In Defense of Women, 1922]

"Men do not demand genuine beauty, even in the most modest doses; they are quite content with the mere appearance of beauty. That is to say, they show no talent whatever for differentiating
between the artificial and the real. The film of face powder, skillfully applied, is as satisfying to them as an epidermis of damask...False bosoms intrigue them as effectively as the soundest of living fascia."




[From the Smart Set, 1923]

"In all my years of search in this world, from the Golden Gate in the West to the Vistula in the East, and from the Orkney Islands in the North to the Spanish Main in the South, I have never met a thoroughly moral man who was honorable."




[From the Smart Set, December 1919]

"The hardest thing about death is not that men die tragically, but that most of them die ridiculously."

"The dying man doesn't struggle much and he isn't much afraid. As his alkalies give out he succumbs to a blest stupidity. His mind fogs. He will power vanishes. He submits decently. He scarcely gives a damn."




EPITAPH
[From the Smart Set, December 1921]

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

HIRED HOOLIGANS

THE MOB HAS MANY HEADS, BUT NO BRAINS.
Thomas Fuller


Halloween is already here, or I'm just seeing bad outtakes from Night of the Living Dead.

With the sound off, I'm watching wailing persons flailing their flippers, and they're making me think that I'm looking at the spawn of Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

These are not the best citizens or "voices" that America has to offer the world.

They are ignorant rabble and cattle (with my apology to all cows).

These jostling and shouting crowds drown out sanity and veracity.

Their angry and rowdy rhetoric is not persuasive.

Where in the world are we heading?

Q & A

Should the Obama administration launch a criminal investigation of CIA treatment of detainees?

Yes, but that’s not enough.
The entire Iraq war should be under investigation.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz etc. all should be placed under a microscope, preferably the Scanning Tunneling kind.
Before the extent of torture came to light, here's what I wrote on page one in my book WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ:

Saddam Hussein is dead and gone.
His fate was sealed soon after he climbed out of his spider hole.
Bush’s War will continue, and Saddam Hussein can now hang out with virgins in paradise.
How much better do we feel now that a brutal dictator has been put to death?
The United States of America is itself hanging in the balance of truth and justice.
Will the Bush administration be prosecuted for any Crimes or Misdemeanors?
Will President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney escape investigation for a war that was dictated and prosecuted with fabrication and obfuscation?
We may feel good about the hanging of Saddam Hussein, but we should not feel satisfied until our own leaders are brought to justice for an unjust and unnecessary war.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer call the town hall protests against health care reform “Un-American.” Are they?

They’re not Un-American, but they are ugly and disruptive.
At least these protesters can do their protesting.
Didn’t George W. Bush only hand-pick his audiences?
The Republicans are dishing out what they didn’t want done to them and their own “mob rules.”
One thing for sure, if this unruliness escalates into behavior more extreme, then it won’t just be Un-American, it will be Un-Civilized.



Should the House cancel its order for $550 million worth of new jets?

Is that $550 million Monopoly money?
Isn’t it the (un)funny money that’s been used for a long time now in the good old U.S.A.?
Maybe Congress should do less jetting and more reading, you know, like reading what they vote for before they vote.

POISONOUS WEEDS AND CRUNCHY CHEETOS

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
Upton Sinclair






Is America's soul becoming bankrupt?

The erosion of its soul started a long time ago.

Too many wars because of Lies & Greed (not National Security).

China and other countries now practically own us.

It doesn't matter who is president.

The country was already becoming bankrupt.

Are we living on BORROWED time?

The Iraq war was based upon a big lie.


P.S. I changed the title from POISONOUS WEEDS to POISONOUS WEEDS AND CRUNCHY CHEETOS.
I had to lighten the tenebrous tone of the above opinions, and this change dawned on me as I was eating my crunchy Cheetos.


***

From "A French Revelation,or The Burning Bush"
By James A. Haught [Editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)]

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its "coalition of the willing" to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush's call and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs."

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn't comply with Bush's request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal.

It's awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who "got saved." He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven't known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn't in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq's oil---or to protect Israel---or to complete Bush's father's vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

***

From THE 911 MYSTERY PLANE AND THE VANISHING OF AMERICA by Mark H. Gaffney:

So, why the rush to war after the September 11 attack? If the Bush administration had conclusive evidence that al Qaeda was responsible, why not release it? Was the Bush White House tight-lipped because the actual evidence would have exposed the complicity of the US military and intelligence community?
Regrettably, there is considerable evidence that elements of the Bush administration were complicit in the 9/11 attack, and may even have helped stage it.
Bin Laden was actually under the protection of US security agencies prior to the 9/11 attack. According to Le Figaro, bin Laden checked in to the American Hospital in Dubai on July 4, 2001, just two months before 9/11, where he received medical treatment over a ten-day period for a serious kidney ailment.
Soon after G.W. Bush entered office the White House ordered the FBI to "back off" from ongoing investigations of Osama bin Laden and other members of his family, some of whom were living in the US at the time. Do we dare to connect these dots? Surely the story in Le Figaro suggests that elements of the US intelligence establishment knew about the coming 9/11 attack and allowed bin Laden to remain free to play his assigned role.
"The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11", said Rex Tomb/Chief of Investigative Publicity for the F.B.I.

***

By Mad Plato:

Why aren’t our tiny, delusional apple-carts being upset?

Why do the bandwagons upon which we hooded sheep sit continue to roll along with mute indignation or anger at what happened?

The current versions of the "truth" (that is, the propaganda which is propagated and perpetuated) live on.

These "other" explanations are very disturbing---as they should be---and as they are---but the public and media refuse to face them because they are so awful and so "out there".

Yes, there are many poisonous weeds...

And their treasonous and infamous roots grow around the souls of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and Blackwater, and Halliburton, and ALL who benefited from the chicanery that took this nation into Iraq. Obama continues the charade in Afghanistan.

It's time to stop bleeding this nation and its patriots.

Bring them home.

The Bush Jr. White House still needs thorough, Independent Investigating, but it probably will never occur because the "new Pearl Harbor" foisted upon us, and that murdered thousands and millions, is just too perfidious to contemplate or admit.

Our attention is riveted on the present and the future, but it may be the past that has condemned both.


***


FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE:
THE GW BUSH - OSAMA BIN LADIN CONNECTION

James R. Bath, friend and neighbor of George W. Bush, was used as a cash funnel from Osama bin Laden's rich father, Sheikh bin Laden, to set George W. Bush up in business, according to reputable sources from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
The connection between GW Bush, the bin Laden family, and the Bank Commerce Credit International (BCCI) is well documented.
Bin Laden-backed BCCI money was funneled into the Bush family in return for favors.

"Bath---who made his fortune by investing money for Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin-Laden, was an original investor in George Bush Jr.’s oil exploration company..."
[from The Outlaw Bank]

"Bath provided financing to George W. Bush, the future president's eldest son, when he went into the oil business..."
from [False Profits]

"Bath told me he was in the CIA... he had been recruited by George Bush himself 1n 1976 when Bush was director of the agency... Bath and George, Jr. were pals and flew together in the same Air National Guard unit, and Bath lived down the street from the Bush family when George, Sr. was living in Houston... he became representative for Sheikh Khalid bin-Mafouz... one of the richest men in the world, and he was a controlling shareholder in BCCI..."
[from The Outlaw Bank]

"During George Bush's tenure as CIA director, the agency was allegedly involved in a very curious business deal with James R. Bath, a Texas businessman who is a friend and sometime financial backer of one of Bush's sons (George Bush, Jr.). Bath was also a business associate of Khalid bin Mafouze and an important BCCI insider."



BIN LADEN MONEY SENT TO GW BUSH THROUGH JAMES R. BATH

"... BCCI would make payments to key officials, sometimes in suitcases filled with cash. As BCCI officer Abdur Askhia stated in interviews to the Subcommittee staff: Abedi's philosophy was to appeal to every sector.

Osama bin Laden, whose funds were inherited from his father, Sheikh bin Laden's BCCI investments, has been operating out of Afghanistan since he was established as a conduit for CIA funds in the 1980's. "Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operation of all time, both in terms of dollars spent ($5-$6 billion) and personnel involved..."
[from The CIA's Greatest Hits]



IT WAS THE OIL...NOT Gog and Magog STUPID!

THE TICKER IS TICKING

I keep watching this TV commercial where a woman swears that she survived her stroke (or heart attack) because she quickly ate some aspirin.

That I might experience a coronary event (it doesn't sound as bad as heart attack or stroke) is a sanguine but scary likelihood, and so I make it a practice to always have a few 325mg aspirin in my shirt pocket.

It can't hurt, but the attack itself will probably hurt a great deal.

John Ritter and I were born in the same year.
This very funny and likable actor died from an aortic dissection caused by a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect.
(The causes of death can sure have some very peculiar names.)

The word undiagnosed sticks out like a sore thumb.
So what do I do to make sure that I am diagnosed?
Certainly not what I do now which is very little.

It's time to get off of my caboose and have the old engine checked...
BEFORE the stroke or coronary event strikes.

We just never know when we'll go.

TEN BY MENCKEN

I
"The art of writing, like the art of love, runs all the way from a kind of routine hard to distinguish from piling bricks to a kind of frenzy closely related to delirium tremens. Nearly all the whole of everyday journalism belongs to the former category: it is, in its customary aspects, no more than the reduction of vivid and recent impressions to banal sequences of time-worn words and phrases."

II
"All professional philosophers tend to assume that common sense means the mental habit of the common man. Nothing could be further from the mark. The common man is chiefly to be distinguished by his plentiful lack of common sense: he believes things on evidence that is too scanty, or that distorts the plain facts, or that is full of non sequiturs. Common sense really involves making full use of all the demonstrable evidence---and of nothing but the demonstrable evidence."

III
"Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy. It is, I suppose, one of their godlike qualities. Jahweh, as the Old Testament shows, spends a large part of His time trying to ruin the business and comfort of all other gods."

IV
"War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands."

V
"The belief that man is immortal is a vestige of the childish egoism which once made him believe that the earth is the center of the solar system. This last is probably still cherished by four Americans out of five."

VI
"It is never possible for a metaphysician to state his ideas in plain English. Those ideas, with few exceptions, are inherently nonsensical, and he is forced to formulate them in a vague and unintelligible jargon."

VII
"Metaphysics is a refuge for men who have a strong desire to appear learned and profound but have nothing worth hearing to say. Their speculations have helped mankind hardly more than those of the astrologers. What we regard as good in metaphysics is really psychology: the rest is only blah."

VII
"Life on this earth is not only without rational significance, but also apparently unintentional. The cosmic laws seem to have been set going for some purpose unrelated to human existence. Man is thus a sort of accidental product, as the sparks are an accidental by-product of the horseshoe a blacksmith fashions on his anvil."

VIII
"It is probably true that the advance of civilization will gradually diminish the popularity of war, but it remains doubtful that it will abolish war altogether. The Greeks, by all the standards held up by schoolmasters, were certainly civilized, and yet they fought many wars. The popes, including even some of the best popes, fought many wars."

IX
"It always takes two or three years of war, with a series of costly disasters, to set up any genuine demand for peace."

X
"The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore."

TEN WORDS

The Talisman by Le'Rav

Sounds of Fun by Gerald Schwartz

Azure Sky by Kim Huber

Azure Shore by Janna Sokova

FAVORITE WORDS:

FACTOTUM

SCINTILLA

SYZYGY

AZURE

TALISMAN

LEAST FAVORITE WORDS:

BORING

DISINGENUOUS

BOTTOMLINE

DOABLE

FINALIZE

Q & A AND MINOR REPORTS

What does it mean when more than one in 10 Americans is on antidepressants?

It means that we need to take antidepressants because we...
Overeat---
Over-drink---
Over-stimulate ourselves with news and information---
And all of those unpronounceable "legal" drugs.
It also means we should buy lot of stocks in antidepressants.


***

Sure would be terrible, wouldn't it, not to have to pay to go to the hospital or doctor?
Michael Moore's "Sicko" shows just how painful it ISN'T.
People in countries who have this scary and terrible "socialized medicine" are incredulous that mighty America does not.
It makes this country look like the laughing stock of the world.
Capitalism may just fall on its greedy knees sooner than you can shake a stick or say "Karl Marx".


***

Yeah, aren't we just great...
Capitalist enslavers---
Covert coup-makers---
Native American decimators---
Cradle of Civilization killers (for Democracy, naturally)---
Mexico annexation-takers?
But I am glad that I live here in America to be able to say, think, and write these things.
Yes, this is America, land of low-paid migrant workers, landscapers, and servants.
We're a mighty, proud (profane?) people, aren't we?

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Special Comment last night by Keith Olbermann pointed out the millions and millions of dollars that are paying off senators and representatives, and buying their political votes to oppose ANY Public Health Care.
He gave names of both Republicans and Democrats who are shills for the insurance-medical-pharmaceutical leviathan.
Public Health Care is a threat and enemy to the Corporate, hooligan, buzzards.
The American people are secondary to the special interests of the super-profitable insurance-medical-pharmaceutical leviathan.
The fight for Public Health Care is a "war" as deceitful, corrupt, and horrible as the deceitful and horrible Iraq war was.
Until Americans rise up out of their beds and easy chairs, and leave their flat-screens and computers, and begin to fill the streets with their voices, this "war" will be won (as it has always been won) by the filthy-rich "crooks".
America, wake-up!
Let Congress and Greedy corporations know that you are sick and tired of them...
And you won't take it anymore.
First, however, call Washington to let them know.
And keep in mind that these powers-that be just love it when they hear people say, "Oh, we can't do anything. They're in power. Even our votes don't matter anymore."

ANOTHER SUNDAY MORNING SWIMMING WITH SHARKS DROWNING IN DEBTS SURROUNDED BY PYTHONS

Car sales are up.
The Stock Market is near 10,000 again.
Earth has not been hit by a planet-killing asteroid.
Race relations hit a bump in the road, and are being repaired with
beers & cheers...

BUT

There's plenty of time and space remaining for

MORE

spears & sneers...

smears & jeers...

fears & tears.

But I'm enjoying the ride, thankful for the food I eat, the water (and coffee!) I drink, and the air I breathe...

AND

I am hopeful in spite of all the odds, all of the oddballs, and all of the hateful thinkers and speakers.

This country and myself are still as good as we want to become.

As a young person who lived hungrily during the crazy, beautiful, turbulent days of the sixties and seventies---and maybe these adjectives describe every decade with more or less emphatic accuracy---I am still hopeful.

YES WE CAN:

Improve.
Innovate.
Educate.
Intregate.

YES WE CAN.

YES WE WILL.


Dum Spiro Spero

BREW AND BROO HA-HA

THE CHARACTERS:
Sergeant James Crowley
Professor Henry Louis Gates
Barack Obama



BO:
Welcome gentlemen. The beer is on its way. I'm having a Budweiser. Sergeant Crowley, I believe you've asked for Blue Moon, and Professor Gates, I believe you've asked for Becks or Red Stripe.

PG:
Sounds good to me.

SC:
10-4.

BO:
First, let me say that I have great respect for both of your professions.

PG:
Thank you, Mr. President.

SC:
10-4.

BO:
Ah, here's the beer. Gentlemen, let's make a toast.

PG:
Sounds good to me.

SC:
10-4.

BO:
Here's to reconciliation and understanding.

PG:
O.K. But I'd also like an apology from this honky for arresting me in my own house.

SC:
Not a 10-4.

BO:
Sergeant and professor, I've got an idea. Let's play some one-on-one. The loser has to apologize.

PG:
Sounds good to me, but can we make it a game of pig?

BO:
Sergeant? Is this all right with you?

SC:
10-4. Except make it a horse instead of a pig.

BO:
O.K. The winner will be the one who wins best of seven.

PG:
Sounds good to me.

SC:
10-4.

BO:
First, let's have another beer.

PG:
Sounds good to me.

SC:
10-4.

Q & A

Should fattening foods be taxed like tobacco?

A big fat NO!
Soon, our toes, our tongues, our eyeballs, and our belly button lint will be taxed.
Where will it ever END?
Well, that will be taxed too.
In fact, I believe it's being taxed [off] right now.


What’s behind the steep drop in President Obama’s approval rating in the past several weeks?

Citizens are fickle, finicky, and feisty.
Obama has had a lot "on his plate", and the jokes about him being a "messiah" haven't helped.
Americans probably expect too much too soon.
The rise and fall of approval is like the rise and fall of tides, and will forever occur as long as there is life on this planet.
One thing for sure, Obama's popularity will fall even more if the economy is not improved after one year, and then, look out, here come the Republicans!


Are you more or less concerned about global warming than you were a year ago?

I am more concerned.
I am also concerned about those who still contend that Global Warming is not occurring, or that man is not one of its main causes.
Look at the temperatures occurring today in Oregon and Washington State.
Sure, this might be only an aberrant or cyclical occurrence, but what if it isn't?
And what about the recent news that thousands of Pacific islanders will need to relocate in the near future because of rising tides?
Self-denial will not remove the inconvenient truth of Global Warming.