U.S. to Pull Out All Troops from Iraq

Dear Readers,

It's about fucking time. The Obama administration has succesfully ended our ill-advised occupation of Iraq without unnecessarily endangering the lives of any U.S. military personnel or any Iraqi security forces, or even more importantly any innocent Iraqi civilians or U.S. contractors. Let us all come together as loyal Americans to celebrate this milestone in our history. The gift of freedom was given to the Iraqi people at an enormous cost to our own nation. One that sacrificed America's best and brightest and cost us untold amounts of our treasure that very nearly brought our own economy and that of the world to its knees. Libertarians, gun nuts and anti-war hippies can all agree that this is a wonderful thing. I think that all patriotic Americans can come together at this moment and salute our brave president and recognize the sacrifices and duties that have been performed by our Army, Marines and Navy.

There are ruminations from certain quarters that this is a dangerous or deluded decision? Goddess forbid. Let me preface this rant by giving credit to certain notable exceptions to this unfortunate trend. Ultra-hawk and graduate of Annapolis Naval Academy, John McCain, has issued no statement criticizing the president, his administration or the Pentagon for this momentous decision. Apparently publicly silent on this decision are Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and even the lovely and talented Sarah Palin. Maybe she decided not to run for president because she's sick of stupid republicans placing personality and personal hatred above public policy. Obviously W is not going to say anything mean. This is in a very real sense a vindication for him and Cheney. Again, let's come together as Americans and celebrate.

Romney personifies the disingenuous, duplicitous and sickeningly immoral republican of today.

President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women…The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government. The American people deserve to hear the recommendations that were made by our military commanders in Iraq.

You stupid hypocrite. We have been listening to the commanders for several years. We don't really need you to interpret their words for us. You have no value. If you have no loyalty to your president, what loyalty can we expect from you as American citizens? Worthless piece of shit. You sir, are no American. You are a horrible, alien outsider who has nothing to do with the country I love.

Bachmann? Who really cares? But here goes...

[The president should] return to the negotiating table with Iraq and lead from the front and not from weakness in Iraq and in the world.

Obviously she would never have the respect to actually call him the president, but the rest of the words are hers. Maybe she should return to a middle school American history text if she desires to run for the republican nomination for president in New Hampshire or Virginia, for that matter.

Today’s announcement that we will remove all of our forces from Iraq is a political decision and not a military one; it represents the complete failure of President Obama to secure an agreement with Iraq for our troops to remain there to preserve the peace and demonstrates how far our foreign policy leadership has fallen…President Obama’s decision represents the end of the era of America’s influence in Iraq and the strengthening of Iran’s influence in Iraq with no plan to counter that influence. We have been ejected from a country by the people that we liberated and that the United States paid for with precious blood and treasure.

What do you really care about American lives or treasure, Michelle? Go away. Please don't come back. We honestly don't need you. For anything.

Jon Huntsman. The voice of sanity? Perhaps. That doesn't make him nice or loyal to his boss either one.

On the occasion of the announcement that U.S. forces will withdraw completely from Iraq by the end of the year, we should take a moment to reflect on the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform. We are forever grateful for their service to America, and are eager to welcome our troops home.

Nice statement Jon. Take a bow. Oh, there's more?

President Obama’s decision, however, to not leave a small, focused presence in Iraq is a mistake and the product of his administration’s failures. The president’s inability to reach a security agreement leaves Iraq vulnerable to backsliding, thus putting our interests in the region at risk. An ideal arrangement would have left a small troop presence that could have assisted with the training of Iraqi security forces and vital counter-terror efforts.

I think it would be a huge mistake to elect you our next president. Again, no loyalty. Reality check. Many people in Iraq and the Arab world resent an American military occupation. Just thought I would point that out in view of various terrorist organizations that are diametrically opposed to U.S. interests and had their rebirth in the hatred and resentment that grew out of Bush's unjust war in Iraq.

I don't want to go into U.S. misconduct of the war. I will recap on this much: The Navy shelling and bombardment which began the war March 17, 2003. The siege of Fallujah. Abu Ghraib. Bagram. Rendition. The American policiy of rounding up every young man in a community and imprisoning him to ask questions later. The American policy of entering a house with a hand grenade and then storming in to take prisoners. This war was the greatest shame ever brought on the American people. It is a lie that there has always been this type of warfare. Let's just all be happy that this unfortunate chapter in our history is finally over.

The Face of Evil

When the news item on the debt ceiling battle leads with a spot from Rush Limbaugh, you feel the hatred and stupidity. You see the viewers barraged and badgered with the same propaganda techniques he pioneered on his radio show. A phony liberal tries to blame republicans for threatening SS and Veteran's benefits with government default while a chorus o banshees accuses the president of fear-mongering. Well... Fuck FOX News. If you watch it, you are a victim.

More to the point... Who knows what one might find if you turn over enough stones. You may just find yourself staring straight into the very face of evil.

Because I Still Love Sarah Palin

Some of you may remember my efforts to defend Sarah Palin and her right to be a conservative American. I stated that it was wrong to attack someone just for who they are. I am sure that I continued in this Quixotic hope against hope due to my firm belief in the brotherhood and sisterhood of all citizens of the United States of America despite our political and social differences. Needless to say Sarah has ruthlessly betrayed the faith I so naívely put in her love for her country. For one thing, she hates the president. She has sold out to the worst elements in our media. She has allowed them to use her as a vicious, partisan attack dog, trivializing her natural charm and beauty of spirit. That's not so patriotic. Yet in the spirit of love, I dedicate this post to her. Read by the great physician, historian, poet and patriot, Oliver Wendell Holmes at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society in the year 1869, a scant four years before the centennial of this important event in the birth of our nation.

A Ballad of the Boston Tea Party

No! never such a draught was poured since Hebe served with nectar;

The bright Olympians and their Lord, her over-kind protector;

Since Father Noah squeezed the grape, and took to such behaving;

As would have shamed our grandsire ape before the days of shaving.

No! ne'er was mingled such a draught in palace, hall, or arbor;

As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed that night in Boston Harbor!

The Western war-cloud's crimson stained the Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon;

Full many a six-foot grenadier the flattened grass had measured;

And many a mother many a year her tearful memories treasured.

Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, the mighty realms were troubled;

The storm broke loose, but first of all the Boston teapot bubbled!

An evening party, only that, no formal invitation;

No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, no feast in contemplation;

No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, no flowers, no songs, no dancing;

A tribe of red men, axe in hand, behold the guests advancing!

How fast the stragglers join the throng from stall and workshop gathered!

The lively barber skips along and leaves a chin half-lathered;

The smith has flung his hammer down, the horseshoe still is glowing;

The truant tapster at the Crown has left a beer-cask flowing;

The cooper's boys have dropped the adze, and trot behind their master.

Up run the tarry ship-yard lads, the crowd is hurrying faster;

Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush the streams of white-faced millers;

And down their slippery alleys rush the lusty young Fort-Hillers.

The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew, the tories seize the omen;

'Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do for England's rebel foemen.

'King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang that fire the mob with treason;

When these we shoot and those we hang the town will come to reason.'

On! On to where the tea-ships ride! And now their ranks are forming;

A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side the Mohawk band is swarming!

See the fierce natives! What a glimpse of paint and fur and feather;

As all at once the full-grown imps light on the deck together!

A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps, a blanket hides the breeches;

And out the cursed cargo leaps, and overboard it pitches!

O woman, at the evening board, so gracious, sweet, and purring;

So happy while the tea is poured, so blest while spoons are stirring;

What martyr can compare with thee, the mother, wife, or daughter;

That night, instead of best Bohea, condemned to milk and water!

Ah, little dreams the quiet dame who plies with' rock and spindle;

The patient flax, how great a flame yon little spark shall kindle!

The lurid morning shall reveal a fire no king can smother;

Where British flint and Boston steel have clashed against each other!

Old charters shrivel in its track, His Worship's bench has crumbled;

It climbs and clasps the union-jack its blazoned pomp is humbled.

The flags go down on land and sea like corn before the reapers;

So burned the fire that brewed the tea that Boston served her keepers!

The waves that wrought a century's wreck have rolled o'er whig and tory;

The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck still live in song and story;

The waters in the rebel bay have kept the tea-leaf savor.

Our old North-Enders in their spray still taste a Hyson flavor;

And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows with ever fresh libations;

To cheat of slumber all her foes and cheer the wakening nation.

"What I Believe" or "Why I Still Support Our President"

Too often I have failed to dream about what I would like to see happen in this country. I have become increasingly discouraged about so many things that I have seen happen around me in the last two decades that I have traded my optimism for resentment, blame and distrust. I tried to tell myself that my youthful hope simply evolved from a naiveté, unsophistication and lack of general knowledge about the true evils of this world. Now I believe I understand the degradation that has occurred before my own eyes. I think we all have a sense of blaming a willing coalition of politicians and conglomerates for the deregulation of the media, the diversion of valuable tax dollars to selfish schemes and the loss of so many protections for the common, hard-working people that have been the backbone of this country. Perhaps most disheartening of all is the deep divisions that seem to turn us blindly against each other. After the nightmare presidency of Bush, turning our precious notions of decency and responsibility upside-down, I was left with very little in the way of dreams.

But if I still could, I would dream of an America where our minds could truly be free, fed by the lofty aspirations and honest reporting of a society united by a common goal of caring for every citizen and keeping our commitments around the world. An America where the cold-hearted and insane ramblings of agitators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck were simply relegated to the trash can of ignorance and prejudice as they once surely were in my childhood. I would dream of an America where knowledge and achievement were valued above ideology and narrow-mindedness. I would dream of an America where school employment centers did not rest until every graduate had been placed in a position of gainful employment. I would dream of an America where even the great robber barons and captains of industry remembered the value of charity and philanthropy. I would dream of an America where conservatives and liberals alike could work together in a spirit of enlightened self-interest seeing our nation as a whole, not a tapestry of haves and have-nots. I would dream of building more libraries in more small towns and promoting life-long learning for anyone who would seek it. I would dream of an America where the accumulation of wealth would be balanced by care and protection of American families, singles and senior citizens, with pensions and health care and rewards for honest toil.

Will the Real Fascists Please Stand Up?

Fascism was originally an authoritarian movement started by Benito Mussolini in March 1919, which came to power in Italy in Oct. 1922. Later on it became the general name for similar movements started in other countries, among which German national socialism is the most prominent. By 1940 fascism could be regarded as a form of societal organization and as an attitude of mind which had its adherents in practically all countries of the earth. The original Italian name of “fascismo” is derived from the Latin “fasces,” bundles, denoting in ancient Rome a bundle of rods with an axe, borne before Roman magistrates as a symbol of authority.
The origins of the fascist movement in Italy are to be found both in the wave of disillusionment and at the same time in the exacerbated nationalism which swept Italy after 1918. Even before the war of 1914-1918, Enrico Corradini had propagated a doctrine of extreme and belligerent nationalism, which had fanned enthusiasm for the Libyan War of 1911 and for imperial expansion, and the poet Gabriele d’Anninzio had exalted in verse and prose not only the mission of a victorious Italy, but also the love of danger, adventure and war. In the military coup by which he and a legion of black-shirted followers gained possession of Fiume in Sept. 1919, and during the 16 months in which he as Duce ruled the city, d’Annunzio introduced a constitution foreshadowing the “corporative state” and all the rites, salutes, allocutions and mass shouts which later became characteristic of the fascist movement. Mussolini himself before 1914 had been a leading member and editor of the Italian Social Democratic party, but he had always represented the tendencies of revolutionary syndicalism with their emphasis on direct action and enthusiastic will. Against the attitude of his party, Mussolini supported Italy’s entrance into the war in the fall of 1914; on November 15 he founded his own newspaper, the Popolo d’Italia, in Milan, which called itself an organ of combatants and producers and carried the social revolutionary motto by Blanqui, “Who has steel has bread,” and Napoleon’s saying, “The revolution is an idea which has found bayonets.” Mussolini’s first famous editorial bore the characteristic title, “Audacity.”
In the social unrest and moral confusion which followed the war of 1914-1918, Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento on March 23, 1919, in Milan. The new group had no definite program; at first Mussolini was still a revolutionary syndicalist, who propagated the expropriation of the land, the mines, and all means of transportation. It was not until the beginning of 1921 that he allied his group openly with the propertied classes, with the landowners and the industrialists. But whatever his sociological affiliations, he was moved throughout by a fierce nationalism and by the love of violence and adventure. When he ran in Milan for a parliamentary seat in the elections of Nov. 16, 1919, he got less that 5,000 votes out of 346,000. But the deep social unrest prevailing in Italy in 1920 gave Mussolini a chance, and though the danger of any bolshevist or socialist success had entirely faded by the end of the year, Mussolini and his squads of violent young men appeared to the frightened upper classes as a guarantee of security. Thus, with the army conniving, Mussolini’s followers set for themselves the task of “restoring order” and breaking up the socialist movements and organizations. With a boastful ruthlessness, with the proud sacrifice of all ethical scruples to success, the local squadristis, under the leadership of men like Grandi, Balbo, Farinacci and others, set out for the conquest of power in the name of youth against what they called “the tottering parliamentarism” of the “senile” and undecided liberals. The lack of resistance on the part of the government, the army and the police, emboldened the fascists who had formed themselves into the national fascist party in Nov. 1921.
In the following year Mussolini completely abandoned his original socialist, anti-monarchist and anti-Catholic program. He had no definite doctrine to offer. “Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs, but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy, but men and will power.” On Oct. 28, 1922, the famous march on Rome was staged. Though the fascists and the nationalists were outnumbered in the Italian parliament by ten to one, and though with some show of resolute action the fascists could easily have been stopped, the king refused to sign the proclamation of the state of siege which his government had prepared, and on Oct. 29 invited Mussolini to form the new government. Though the new prime minister at first accepted a coalition cabinet and preserved some of the forms of the liberal state, within a very few years all the trappings of parliamentarism were gone, all other parties outlawed, all civil liberties and constitutional guarantees suppressed, and a full dictatorship established. The process was accelerated by the reaction of the country and of the civilized world to the murder of the socialist deputy Matteotti, in June 1924, on the eve of his exposure of the graft and corruption of the fascist party. Highest fascist officials were alleged to have been implicated in the murder. In his effort to save his regime from the outraged feelings of the country, which in turn was identified with its leader. Though he professed to fight bolshevism, he successfully adopted its methods, without, however, being able to carry them in the different climate of Italy as far as they were carried in Russia and later on in Germany. The different squadristi organizations had been reformed on Feb. 10, 1923, as the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale.
Fascism in its beginnings was not a doctrine and had no clearly elaborated program. It was a technique for gaining and retaining power by violence, and with an astonishing flexibility it subordinated all questions of program to this one aim. But it was dominated from the beginning by a definite attitude of mind which exalted the fighting spirit, military discipline, ruthlessness and action, and rejected contemptuously all ethical motives as weakening the resoluteness of will. Fascism is power politics and realpolitik in their most naked form; all theoretical considerations are subservient to what is regarded as the “inexorable dynamics” of the factual situation. Ultimately everything depends upon the ever-changing will of the leader, decisions which cannot be discussed, but are blindly obeyed and immediately executed. Thus fascism could present itself in a given situation as a bulwark of the social order against social revolution, against Marxism and the proletariat, and could in a different situation become the propagandist and spearhead of a proletarian world revolution against conservatism and wealth, against bourgeoisie and capitalism.

Merchants of Death

The other day, over at MikeB’s place, I was lamenting the fact that it was extremely difficult to prove that U.S. manufactured and purchased weapons were trickling over the border into the hands of Mexican cartels. It’s not that no one has attempted to report about this problem. But hard data is very rare and only comes about when a smuggling ring is indicted or a major killing of government officials takes place in Mexico with weapons that were purchased legally in the United States. Then, as I was waking up this morning, I heard on the radio about this heartless nineteen-year-old who would happily trade away the innocent lives of his fellow human beings south of the border for a handful of dollars. Just one week earlier, a twenty-year-old attempted to bring two automatic weapons across in Yuma.

It may have been this clarion call to action published by the NY Times on tax day 2009 that inspired Rep. Eliot L. Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere to order a special report from the GAO on U.S. guns entering Mexico illegally.

From the New York Times

John Phillip Hernandez, a 24-year-old unemployed machinist who lived with his parents, walked into a giant sporting goods store here in July 2006, and plunked $2,600 in cash on a glass display counter. A few minutes later, Mr. Hernandez walked out with three military-style rifles. One of those rifles was recovered seven months later in Acapulco, Mexico, where it had been used by drug cartel gunmen to attack the offices of the Guerrero State attorney general, court documents say. Four police officers and three secretaries were killed.

Although Mr. Hernandez was arrested last year as part of a gun-smuggling ring, most of the 22 others in the ring are still at large. Before their operation was discovered, the smugglers had transported what court documents described as at least 339 high-powered weapons to Mexico over a year and a half, federal agents said. “There is no telling how long that group was operating before we caught on to them,” said J. Dewey Webb, the agent in charge of the Houston division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Noting there are about 1,500 licensed gun dealers in the Houston area, Mr. Webb added, “You can come to Houston and go to a different gun store every day for several months and never alert any one.”

Our gun nut friends tell us that there is no “loophole.” Perhaps “superhighway” might be a more apt metaphor.

As a result, in some states along the Southwest border where firearms are lightly regulated, gun smugglers can evade detection for months or years. In Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, dealers can sell an unlimited number of rifles to anyone with a driver’s license and a clean criminal record without reporting the sales to the government.
At gun shows in these states, there is even less regulation. Private sellers, unlike licensed dealers, are not obligated to record the buyer’s name, much less report the sale to the A.T.F. Sending straw buyers into American stores, cartels have stocked up on semiautomatic AK-47 and AR-15 rifles, converting some to machine guns, investigators in both countries say. They have also bought .50 caliber rifles capable of stopping a car and Belgian pistols able to fire rifle rounds that will penetrate body armor. Federal agents say about 90 percent of the 12,000 pistols and rifles the Mexican authorities recovered from drug dealers last year and asked to be traced came from dealers in the United States, most of them in Texas and Arizona.

I know that the gun nuts have seen this 90% figure before and have been concocting stories to refudiate it ever since. (h/t to Sarah Palin.)

A review of cases over the last two years shows a pattern: the drug cartels hire people in need of cash with no criminal records to buy guns from legal sources, often just one or two at a time.
Once the smugglers have amassed a cache of weapons, they drive them across the border in small batches, stuffed inside spare tires, fastened to undercarriages with zip ties or bubble-wrapped and tucked into vehicle panels. In some cases, the drug traffickers and gun smugglers are linked.

Here’s your “loophole:” Never mind private sales and private dealers at gun shows.

The record keeping is not always perfect. In trying to track guns confiscated in Mexico last year, agents found that one in five of the guns could not be traced because the dealers had no record of the sale or had gone out of business and the records had been lost. Even when the original legal buyer is located, a gun owner in many states, can legally say “I lost it” or “I sold it to someone I do not know.”
Dealers are not obligated to tell the authorities about multiple sales of rifles like the AK-47, as they must do with pistols.

A lot of people thought that Obama and Napolitano were actually going to do something concrete to combat this problem, especially after the aforementioned report.

Reporting from Washington —
The United States lacks a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of weapons smuggled across its southern border, a failure that has fueled the rise of powerful criminal cartels and violence in Mexico, a government watchdog agency report has found. The report by the congressional Government Accountability Office, the first federal assessment of the issue, offered blistering conclusions that will probably influence the debate over the role of U.S.-made weaponry as violence threatens to spill across the Mexico border.According to a draft copy of the report, which will be released today, the growing number of weapons being smuggled into Mexico comprise more than 90% of the seized firearms that can be traced by authorities there. In the meantime, illegally obtained U.S. weapons -- including an increasing number of automatic rifles -- are being used to kill thousands of Mexican police, soldiers, elected officials and civilians, the report said.

But the GAO criticisms go beyond operational concerns. Some findings cited laws and policies in the U.S. and Mexico that could make it difficult to institute lasting reforms such as lax U.S. laws for collecting and reporting information on firearms purchases, and a lack of required background checks for private firearms sales.

But alas, Obama couldn’t risk his perfect record of kowtowing to the gun lobby and its maniacal cadre of gun owners. Fat lot of good it did him, since idiots like Zach Wamp still campaign on protecting our guns from Obama. Fear not gun owners, Obama doesn’t want to make you fill out any extra paperwork or register your guns with the ATF. That’s right. His idea? Send a bunch of National Guard troops to the border for a summer vacation. Great. That ought to dry up the flow of marijuana, amphetamines and heroin for a little while. Better stock up junkies.

Oh well, better luck next time!

May the Best Candidate Win

I applaud Sarah Palin for her decision to resign as governor for the greater good of her nation. By participating in the debate which will one day give birth to the new incarnation of the Republican party, she is an invaluable asset to all Americans. I do, however, see it as a sign of weakness that she would quit her job, an easy job, at that. It only can speak to her loyalty to the Republican party, or any party, or no party at all! Party on Garth and Sarah!

This has become the defining match of our time. I, for one am thrilled. I could not think of a better person to go up against Obama.