Dan Lyons
~ Thursday, June 30, 2005
 
BUSH CRITICS CALL FOR MORE GIs IN IRAQ! [ABC/NEWS]They're right that Rummy didn't send enough troops (he fired the Army Secy. who said sensibly that far more were needed). We should never have invaded,IF that's all the troops we could spare. Of course for that and other reasons, we should never have invaded.

They're right that we can't win against the insurgency with just the 130,000 GIs we have there now. (Nial Ferguson, the eminent Brit historian, points out that the successful Brit conquest of Iraq used the equivalent of ONE MILLION troops--allowing for the much smaller native population then. Fergusson said that we're outnumbered 174 to one, and then said wryly that those were about the odds against our success, the way we're going!)

But none of the critics say where we're going to get the extra troops. Enlistments are way down, and, though Bush pleaded for families to send their children, 52% of Americans say sensibly that they would NOT advise youths to enlist!

We have various troops elsewhere on the globe (nearly 40,000 in South Korea, 52 years after we signed a truce with China there!) There has been talk of moving these forces, but not, strangely, of sending them to Iraq. Bush flatly refused to increase troop-strength in Iraq.

The separate war in Afghanistan seems to be heating up..GIs there have about the same chance to be killed, maimed, or wounded as have GIs in Iraq.

So the talk of needing more troops seems to be a coded way to argue thusly: 1) We can't win without far more troops; & (2) we can't send far more troops; SO (3) we can't win--we'd better pull out.
-----------------
Of all the war-critics, Sen.McCain is the looniest. He agrees that the fight in Iraq is 'the front line' in our worldwide fight against terrorism"; "[Iraq guerillas] are the same guys who'd be in NewYork if we don't win in Iraq!"

Of course the enemies in NewYork would NOT BE 'THE SAME GUYS' as the Iraq guerillas! It's true that foreign terrorist handlers are using our goofy Iraq caper to train their neophytes in urban war tactics. But terrorists are no less likely to show up in New York if we win than if we lose in Iraq. (Other attacks on our Homeland are likely, whatever the outcome in Iraq.)

We should never forget that before the invasion, McCain predicted that the Iraqis would be SO GRATEFUL for our 'liberating' them that they would spread the word among Muslims worldwide that America was their friend. So far Iraqis have NOT seemed inclined to such gratitude, and polls show that Muslims worldwide still regard us rather coldly.

Bush also referred to the terrorists as 'making their stand' in Iraq. But there are so many potential terrorists in the world (more every week as we further enrage Muslims all over the world) that they can 'make their stand' in many places at once.

If only 1 in 10,000 Muslims turn terrorist, that makes 100,000 terrorists worldwide, of different colors, races, languages, and locations. Many Americans just can't grasp the extent of our peril, so they choose to believe that it's centered in Iraq. But every month more Americans wake up. Not, however, Mr. Bush.
----------
Zbignew Brzezinski, a senior U.S. geopolitics expert, says we CANNOT beat Iraq guerillas with only 130,000 troops. FinTimes
 
BRIT MED.ASSN quits opposing EUTHANASIA:
They now say that Parliament should decide this (and the patients & their doctors), while the Med.Assn. should work for proper safeguards (to make sure that oldies are not 'mercifully' hurried along by eager heirs). GUARDIAN, 30June

Bushies' America is feeling more and more isolated on these matters; we are a unique society: where else do a significant number of people await the Rapture, and think the world is only 6000 yrs old ( with the GrandCanyon carved by Noah's Flood?)

Of course American 'conservatives' have the Pope on their side: this is the man who says that AIDS should be countered by sexual abstinence (not condoms).
 
LETTER printed in rMtnNews: [301K CIRCULATION]:
The secret of publication is succinctness: they are always looking for a short piece to fit into a page.
 
A POLITICAL FRONT FOR INSURGENTS? A man holding dual-citizenship (U.S.A.,Iraq) has started a political front to negotiate for 'those insurgents who haven't killed Iraqis."

This reminds one of SinnFein, the pol.front for the IRA guerillas in Ulster; they have been negotiating-while-fighting for several decades.

It's interesting that one main demand from this guy is U.S. timetable for withdrawing troops--which Bush has just refused once again.

Insurgents just blew up another pipeline bringing nat. gas to cities. Iraqis use nat.gas for cooking.
SanFranChronicle

The religious-fanatic branch of the guerillas just announced a fatwa declaring OPEN SEASON for killing the guy who's trying to arrange negotiations between some guerillas and the Americans. Naturally--if such negotiations succeeded, the Saddamite guerillas might be bribed into turning on their Zarquawite allies.
~ Wednesday, June 29, 2005
 
CALL FOR SHIITE MINISTATE: I've been predicting all along that Iraq will split into 3 ministates (a stable Kurdish state in North, a theocratic Shiite state in South, and a for-now-chaotic Sunni/Arab region in the middle.)

Now there is an explicit call, among Westernized Shiites like Chalabi, for a semi-independent Shiite state in the South. They say they have 80/90% of Iraq's oil!
They don't want this oil controlled from Baghdad--not even by a regime that's nominally dominated by Shiites.

However, the religious Shiites might not go along.
For instance Sadr's group is expecting a Messiah shortly, and they somehow think that the 3-ministate might interfere--somehow? NYTIMES

(Not mentioned is the likely bloody relocation of Shiite populations from the middle region, that would end up dominated by Sunni former Saddamites. Already Shiites in that area might suspect they're being driven out.)
 
FINALLY, NOTICE IS OFFICIALLY TAKEN OF THE WAY OUR WARS OVERSEAS ARE LEAVING US MORE VULNERABLE TO TERRORIST ATTACKS AT HOME! REUTERS

At the important '9/11 Discussion Group', experts noted that Bushies' Homeland Defense Dept. budget is LESS THAN ONE-TENTH of the Pentagon budget!

"All we hear is that we've got to fight'em over there so we won't have to fight 'em here." (Whereas in fact, most Americans now see that our fight over there makes us IN NO WAY SAFER at home!) "We're out hunting foxes, but leaving open the door of the chicken-coop!"

The explanation for this zaniness is simple; the Pentagon budget has little to do with either war or Homeland Defense..it is concerned mainly to shovel tens of billions to the War Corporations.

In fact, Pentagon bombers and missiles are pretty useless against the thousands of INDEPENDENT INDIVIDUALS (from all over the world) who are eager to strike at our Homeland. God knows why they haven't attacked yet; binLaden says he's planning a move that will "make us forget 9/11" !
 
RUSS PRISONER CONFIRMS STORIES OF QURAN DESECRATION AT GUANTANAMO:
[ China View, cited by Google/News, 29June ]

Naive U.S. legislators have called for shutdown of Guant.
prison. But Rummy & Pentagon buddies realize that would mean the release of many prisoners who COULD TELL WHAT'S GOING ON THERE!
 
NUCLEAR FUSION PLANT TO BE BUILT IN FRANCE: $10billion plant would provide 'inexhaustible' energy from seawater, with no CO2 pollution and 'little' nuclear waste. (How much is 'little'?) . It would end world's domination by oil-producers. ZAMAN(Turkish)29June.

Celebrate? Not us luddites! Let me give a simple example: as I age, my muscle-coordination is shrinking much FASTER than my energy. Result? Things leap out of my hand.

It's always bad when energy-amount exceeds our ability/will to control and coordinate energy-use intelligently. Remember: the CALORIES that are causing us such health-problems are units of ENERGY.

Nobel invented TNT;he hoped the horror from such new energy would turn humans into pacifists.
Instead, TNT and worse explosives are used everywhere to kill people and destroy buildings and cities. (Timothy McVeigh created carnage in Okla.City, just by combining airplane fuel with farm fertilizer.)

Humans do NOT have the intelligence and good-will to use well an 'inexhaustible', cheap form of energy.

Samuelson made fun of pessimists who think "JUST YOU WAIT!" is an argument. But JUST YOU WAIT!
 
"WE CAN BEAT N.KOREA EVEN IF THEY HAVE NUKES" says U.S. general. "We can deter them from attacking S.Korea, AND WE CAN WIN IF THEY THREATEN SO.KOREA." M&CNEWS

Of course we can! They know that if they launch first-strike, our H-bombs will wipe them off the map.

Now, if WE launch first-strike (pretending that they threaten So.Korea), of course we can eventually 'win'--but not without Seoul & other S.K. cities (also some inJapan) being wiped out, and not without huge casualties among our tens of thousands of GIs stationed in S.K. and Guadacanal.

We have nothing to gain by a preemptive strike at N.K., and plenty to lose. That doesn't mean that the nutty Bushies won't launch a first strike!

Indeed, concerned that so many puny nations are defying our commands (e.g., Iran and So.Amer.nations), we may want to make our nuke-threats MORE CREDIBLE by 'playing the crazy card', showing everyone that we are crazy-ruthless--by destroying N.Korea.
----------
SouthKorea openly asks Bushies not to agravate N.Korea.
That means they are bringing into the open the zany campaign by Bushies to provoke N.K. to do something that would give them the excuse to bomb N.K. off the map.FORBES (Small wonder--in the process, S.Korea would get wiped off map also.)
 
POLLS JUST BEFORE B'S SPEECH, AND JUST AFTER: [usatoday]
Just BEFORE the speech:
51% want a timetable for our withdrawal.
--Only 34% think we're winning. (This is what counts!)
--53% say starting the war was a mistake.
--8 of 10 GOP support war; 8 of 10 Dems oppose it.
--Before, INDEPENDENTS were narrowly supportive; but this year, SIXTY PERCENT say it was a mistake.

Since THIS FEBRUARY, support among these groups--who in Feb. said the war was NOT a mistake!-- this belief dropped (poll taken just before B's speech)--among men, drop was 9%./Among the young, drop was 13% /among 'no college' group, drop was 13%/Among the well-to-do, drop was 10%/Among self-styled 'conservatives', drop was 9%.

The audience for B's speech were mainly GOP; the speech 'worked' among them, to INCREASE THEIR WAR SUPPORT. Among these listeners, support for keeping troops in ROSE from 58% to 70%. / Demand for timetable DROPPED from 42% to 35%.

HOWEVER, 51% of these hawks said either (a) that the war had not made any difference in the general 'war against terrorism'--or (b) that the war had made that war tougher for Americans. (They rejected idea that the war was helping.)
 
TALIBAN STRIKES BACK: They shot down a U.S. helicopter, killing 17 GIs. Last week they shot down 2 helicopters. REUTERS

30 GIs have died in Afgh since March. Considering that there are in Afgh.only 1/10th the number of troops in Iraq, that's equivalent to 300 dead in Iraq since March. A GI's chance to get killed or wounded in Afgh. is about the same as one's chance to become a casualty in Iraq.

(Dozens of Afghans have been killed by Taliban since March.)
------------------
It's true that U.S. leaders say we have killed several hundred Taliban--but:
--since these were mostly killed by bombings, we really don't know how many of the dead were merely onlookers, not Taliban (their surviving relatives might well turn terrorist).

--We don't know how many Taliban warriors there are, so we don't know how badly these casualties hurt them.
The ONLY WAY we could tell they were hurt is if their attacks dwindled--which so far is NOT happening.
-------------------------------
Americans tend to forget that the adventurous Bushies have involved us in TWO WARS AT ONCE!
----------
ABC.NEWS says 45 GIs have been killed in Afghanistan since March, and that there's a U.S. mil. team MISSING..apparently the troops in the downed copter were to search for these men.

45 dead among Afghan GIs is equivalent to 450 GIs dead in Iraq since March: 110 per month!
~ Tuesday, June 28, 2005
 
TWO VERSIONS OF CLAIMS ABOUT 'SADDAM'S WMDs':
Version 1: "He had, or was near to developing, nukes and/or gas and/or germs enough to THREATEN OTHER COUNTRIES." (That consideration just MIGHT have justified our invasion.) There was absolutely NO REASON to think version 1 was true--and of course it wasn't!



Version 2: Saddam had no nukes, of course. But he might have had enough stores of poison gas to punish invaders (gas which could kill by touching any square inch of skin--rendering gasmasks useless.)
Or else he might have had anthrax germs which could be showered on invading troops (perhaps when they were staging in KUWAIT, before the invasion!) without worries that they would infect all Iraqis.

Even I thought version 2 was the case. What a nut he was NOT to use this level of WMDs on us.

(We outfitted our troops with 'spacesuit' protection vs. poison gas. But it should have been obvious to all that, come the hellish Iraq summer, no troops could be expected to wear such spacesuits. So basically we sent in troops unprotected against gas or germs.)
---------
Note that while version 1 might have justified the invasion, version 2 was DAMN GOOD REASON NOT TO INVADE! We had undeserved good luck that the Saddamites didn't hit our invasion force with gas or germs!

(That danger is still real for our troops in Iraq--they could be hit by gas or germs any day.)

Bushies have had the nerve to cite the 'Downing St.Memos' to show that the Brits also believed in Saddam's WMDs. But the memos show they were worried about Version 2--again, a damn good reason NOT to invade.

See article in WashPost 28 June, cited by TRUTHOUT.
 
SURPRISE FROM KERRY: In an oped in NYTIMES,28jUNE, he actually came up with some ideas rarely discussed.

For instance, he said we should quit obsessing about an 'all/Iraq' security militia, and start supporting the local Kurdish & Shiite militias, so they can at least defend their own regions from guerillas.

This is admitting, between the lines, that any 'all/Iraq' government is a delusion. Mr. Ja'afri's regime can't control the Kurdish area (they are already in deFacto secession)--and it will be years--IF EVER-- before they can beat down the insurgency in the Sunni/Arab region.

Sooner or later, the Shiites will settle for a ministate like the Kurdish one; they'll have lots of oil; they have the ONLY seaport, Basri; and they have friendly Shiite Iran next door to support them. (The clever Bushies will have cemented an alliance between 2 anti-American big-oil partners!)

The Sunni/Arab region will be handed, deFacto, over to some of the guerilla leaders (the 'Saddam-lite' option) bribing them to turn on their more fanatic colleagues.
The only function of the Americans then will be to prevent an open invasion by the Sunni/Arabs of Shiite region.
This we were able to do before '02 by our airpower, needing no GIs on the ground.

The oil-poor Sunni/Arabs must be somehow guaranteed a share of the oil money; else they can go on sabotaging the Kurdish and Shiite pipelines. That guarantee is the tricky bit.
 
BOMBSHELL NEWS ABOUT NEW GENDER TEST: From now on, almost as soon as a woman knows she's pregnant, she can find out by a simple blood test whether the embryo is male or female--without even needing a sonogram! [ Boston.com ]

--Bad news: now there'll REALLY be a worldwide shortage of women! (One would like to think that would improve the bargaining power of those who get through the screen..but one hears that that just raises their SALE-price in parts of the Third World.)

--Good news: the surest way to cut birth-rates is to cut down the number of women.

--Good news: People in the shitty cultures where couples eliminate female embryos will find their sons have nobody to marry, and so they'll have no grandchildren. (That's already happening in China and India.)

--Bad news: when young males are not civilized by women, more turn to banditry and war.

--In America, a sensible couple might deselect Male embryos! "Your son's your son, 'till he takes a wife.
Your daughter's your daughter the rest of her life!"
 
MORE U.S. PLUTONIUM: It would be wonderful black humor if U.S. used Iranian 'nuke facilities' as excuse to bomb Iran--while U.S. with thousands of H-bombs already in its armory, is now starting again to produce the most lethal form of plutonium. INDEPENDENT

U.S. security is so sloppy that this plutonium might be used against us in 'dirty bombs', just as anthrax spores made in U.S.A. were used against leaders in D.C.
 
RONNIE IS 'GREATEST AMERICAN', ahead of Lincoln and Washington, and far ahead of Einstein.
That's fitting, considering the proud, self-confident ignorance of about half of all Americans. GUARDIAN
 
BLAIR BULLSHIT: He says that defeat for terrorism in Iraq will be defeat for terrorism everywhere.
[ ABC/NEWS (Australia) ]

In fact, the Iraq fiasco has given world terrorists a great recruiting tool, and also a place to train terrorists in urban warfare.

We're not going to defeat terrorism in Iraq (even Rummy admits it might take twelve years, and this defeat will NOT be from us!)

But even if we did, world terrorism would be stronger, not weaker, because of this catastrophic blunder by Blair and Bush.
 
PERSPECTIVE ON YEAR SINCE WE 'HANDED OVER POWER' TO IRAQUIS: [ USATODAY,28June ]

Before, 55 GI dead, on average, per month. In last 12 months, average 72 dead each month.

U.S. brags that now Iraqis get 2000 more megawatts of electricity than under Saddam; but 'unscheduled maintenance' subtracts 2000 mw. each day!

Rummy says: "Insurgents can no longer take adv. of sanctuaries like Fallujah.." But it turns out insurgents DON'T NEED such sanctuaries!

One observer: "Insurgency has bitten badly.People are not living well, not progressing well..because of insurgency."

Another observer: "I don't see much reason for optimism..I think things may have gotten worse."

Rummy says, "Other democracies have had to contend with terrorism.for a number of years..they've been able eventually to succeed." /NOT insurgencies as powerful as this one! And NOT in a country basically divided into 3 sectarian regions, which will turn into 3 ministates.
(Kurds will likely establish a democratic ministate, Shiites a theocratic one, Sunnis...?)
 
TOLL ON MONDAY:
--2D U.S. HELICOPTER THIS WEEK.

--43 CASUALTIES, INCLUDING ONE DEAD GI,
2D DEAD MP, ONE DEAD GENERAL.
GUARDIAN
These are bumps on what Bush calls his 'straight road to victory'.
~ Monday, June 27, 2005
 
NEW POLL SHOWS MIXED RESULTS: [ ABC/NEWS, 27June]
ABOUT IRAQ:
--57% see that Bushies intentionally exaggerated evidence about Saddam's WMD/s
--3 in 4 see that B's underestimated the challenge.
[So the Downing St. memos have already been assimilated.]
--25% ANGRY about war.
--53% 'War not worth fighting.'
--53% optimistic about progress in I. next yr; but 52% say war is going badly;51% 'not making progress toward civil order'.
--TWO IN THREE say this war has harmed our overall military readiness; and of these, 70% think that's a major issue. But 52% says they'd advise rel. or friend NOT to enlist.

--Only 25% think Iraq success will do a great deal to defeat terrorism greatly; but 51% think we can't succeed vs. terror if we DON'T succeed in Iraq.

--"Has war improved our world position?" Yes 25%,/ 'No, it's harmed our image" 66%!

--60% say NO PULLOUT TILL CIVIL ORDER RESTORED. (Only 13% say 'immediate pullout'). [This conflicts with other polls--difference is likely in phrasing of question.]
How long will this be? only 27% say 'a yr or less'. 45% say 'TOO LONG!"
--"Insurgency weakening?" only 22%.
==========
ABOUT BUSH:
51% disapprove, 40% disapprove STRONGLY (they outnumber by 13% those who approve strongly.) This is worse than WORST ratings of either CLinton or Daddy Bush.

56% disapprove of B's handling of Iraq (44% strongly--outnumber by 19% those who approve strongly.)
----------
36%: "we should decrease # of GIs in Iraq"
WashPost (That would be really stupid; there aren't enough there now to do any good; cutting the # would put the remaining GIs at MORE risk.)

Americans realize it will take more than another year to 'restore civil order'. Yet they're brave enough to bear continued GI sufffering for another 2 years or more.

But where will they get the replacements? Army recruiting is down 42% from target. Oh well, we can just keep in Iraq those there now, or drag returnees back.
 
IRAQ A BLOODY MESS: One year ago, U.S. 'handed over power' to Allawi, a U.S. pawn. Patrick Cockburn is a Brit journalist who actually goes out in the streets to get info (he speaks Arabic).. He says U.S. journalists often hover inside in GreenZone, relying on Iraqis to get the news.

Cockburn in INDEPENDENT itemizes the awful conditions succinctly: "Most of Iraq is a bloody no-man's land beset by ruthless insurgents, SAVAGE BANDIT GANGS, trigger-happy U.S. patrols, and marauding government troops." (Western media rarely mention the bandits; under U.S., totally lawless anarchy has prevailed.)

It's hard to believe that one year ago Allawi pronounced that Iraq would soon 'radiate with stability and security!'

All roads around Baghdad have been cut. Top officials have been assassinated, with insurgents displaying 'chillingly efficient intelligence'.

In the past year, foreign insurgents rose from 'low hundreds' to at least a thousand.The total number of insurgents is now estimated at 16,000. (Presumably this is the number of the core 'hard-men' willing to kill and die. Their supporters must be far more numerous!)

The 'transfer of power' is partly cosmetic. When the new Shiite govt. took over the interior ministries, the intelligence files there were quickly moved to U.S. HQ.

Parents have to pick up their kids at school, often getting hysterical with fear of kidnapping. Physicians are fleeing the country; their families are threatened.

People are short of electricity (no air-conditioning in blazing heat) and short of drinking water.

Cockburn thinks the 'talks between U.S. & insurgents' are simply signs that the U.S. knows it has lost. (Lyons has always predicted that U.S. will hand over Sunni/Arab region to some of the insurgent leaders. Then the Shiites can concentrate on defending their own Southern region as one of 3 Iraq mini-states.

There will be a very bloody relocation of minority populations. Kurds will of course insist on deFacto secession.
 
THE TIPPING POINT: A fashionable new concept in Sociology is 'the tipping point': public opinion moves slowly,usually--but sometimes it jumps quickly.

A Guardian writer suggests that point may have already been reached, re: public approval of Bush's war. (Bush is asking for more 'resolve'--the writer says drily that this war has become another 'faith-based inititiative'.)

"Should troop-level be maintained or increased?"Only 36% say yes. Over half see that the war has NOT made us safer! 75% say, 'too many U.S. casualties!'

People are beginning to suspect that, not only are things not going according to plan, but the plan may be flawed!
Americans don't care that much about the Iraqi suffering involved--except as the carnage scenes on TV show that WE'RE NOT SUCCEEDING! Americans are really DEFEAT-PHOBIC. (Lyons: that's why my signs say: Bush's war: WE'RE NOT WINNING!)

Cheney said, with dumbness remarkable even for him, that the insurgency was in its 'last throes'.
Then, when this remark was subjected to ridicule, he claimed to be using that phrase 'last throes' in an unusual, 'dictionary' sense. (Friday he reported in to a hospital. Maybe reality is starting to sink in.)
 
NO FULL EMPLOYMENT YET: 67% of working-age Americans are employed or looking for work. Three million more workers would have to be added to reach the participation level in '00, when Bushies first took over.

Strangely, employers are complaining about a shortage of SKILLED workers. REUTERS

That's not really a paradox. Goods-importation, automation, and outsourcing have cut the number of jobs available in U.S. But at the same time, our youth have been rendered so CHILDISH that they balk at any strenous training, even as pharmacists or auto-repairmen.

The childishness of our workers makes firms even more eager to automate and outsource; and the hopelessness of the job-situation makes our youth even more unwilling to invest money and effort in training (say in computer science, where hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared.)

Typical young Americans are in for severe financial distress. (GOP govt. is cutting help for the poor regularly.) Their best friends will be the people who strongly advise them to get over their absurd spending habits. Birth-control, riding buses instead of cars, sharing apartments, cooking at home--these are just the beginnings of the changes in life-style that will be needed.
-------------
By the way, Reuters notes that as wage-costs rise, worry about inflation increases. But what's never discussed is that, as money is shovelled away from ordinary people into the pockets of the very wealthy--who COULDN'T spend much more of their income than they do--the danger increases of DEFLATION and ultimately Depression. This is our real long-run worry.
----------
A columnist in FinTimes worries that money is flowing from poor to rich all over the world. That happened in the 20s, and it preceded a World Depression.
 
NUKE THREAT IGNORED: The former members of the '9/11 Commission' have formed a private discussion group to see how the Bushies have implemented their recommended precautions against another big terrorist attack on our Homeland.

Experts just told the group that Bushies & GOP Congress are 'complacent' about possibility of a full-scale, apocalyptic nuke attack. (After all, binLaden has warned that their next attack would 'make us forget 9/11.')

There's not much we can do now about the huge amounts of nuke material around the world that have 'disappeared'.
Reuters

But we could start inspecting more of the 25,000 huge SHIP-CONTAINERS entering our ports EVERY DAY, each of which could easily contain a full-size nuke.

Or we could start better protecting the waste-ponds of our 104 nuclear-power plants, from small planes loaded with explosives crashing into them.

But these precautions would be too expensive; we can't afford them, not while we're handing out luscious tax-breaks to billionaires, and shovelling each DAY $1200 MILLIONS to the Pentagon.
 
FIFTY HOUSE DEMS FORM 'BRING'EM HOME!' CAUCUS: That means they have despaired of any leadership in war-opposition from their party-leaders; they intend to pressure them AS WELL AS BUSH to follow the 3 in 5 Americans who now say we should pull out.
cited by TRUTHOUT
 
CHINA OUT TO BUY BIGGEST U.S. OIL COMPANY! (UNOCAL) This might make Americans wake up to the disastrous plight our Bushie radicals have inflicted on our economy.

Nicholas Kristof in NYTIMES gives a perspective view on our disastrous situation.
 
NEARLY FOURTEEN HUNDRED IRAQIS KILLED IN MAY, JUNE.

And, more importantly, another expensive U.S. HELICOPTER was downed by the guerillas.
GUARDIAN

U.S. always counts on 'airpower' in a war. If guerillas get good at shooting down helicopters, we're in even bigger trouble than before.

What's more, terrorists might take their training in shooting down aircraft back out of the country to raise hell elsewhere.

(In U.S. airports like Midway in Chicago, where the airport is nestled right in a residential neighborhood, it would be child's play to fire a shoulder-missile from a roof at a low-flying airliner, then duck inside.)
 
SIGN-WAVING:
MEETING THE PUBLIC: Yesterday was a 'Brewfest' in downtown Ft.Collins, when HUNDREDS of people paid money to get in to sample various beers. One would expect such a crowd to include many Hawks.

I was there, yelling 'Bring'emHome', to call attention to my sign which said simply, 'BUSH'S UGLY WAR; WE'RE NOT WINNING!"

I assume that half the Americans are not much bothered by the wickedness of the war. Because we don't really see foreigners as real (rather, as items on the TV) our people are pretty ruthless about foreigners. It's sadder that so many Americans don't seem to care much about the suffering of OUR GIs in this war. But again, these men & women are usually not THEIR relatives or friends...

But Americans hate to be NOT WINNING--even if they're not outright losing.And the distressed looks or glares that came after seeing my sign showed that I did pick the issue that matters. I also yelled "Bush bears GI suffering bravely; Do you?"

I also got people to accept 100 flyers, explaining my position more completely.I got a lot of smiles from pretty women, and support from many men. One woman brought me some water; and a man brought me some food. (I didn't eat that-it just might be poisoned. This is an intensely emotional issue.)

Two interesting encounters: one with a young man who had returned wounded from Iraq. He had no use for Bush--but since he had lost companions over there, he has convinced himself that we are doing more good than harm over there. The Sacrifice Trap once again; (he was thinking of returning)..rather than admit that our past sacrifices were foolish, we often sacrifice even more to a foolish cause.

Then, a black-humor encounter. An old man came up, and without a word, handed me $5. I accepted it, saying I'd spend it printing more flyers. But then: a man was sitting behind me on a bench. This old man started yelling obscenities at him, then stomped off. The guy on the bench said he had never met the old guy before. Apparently the old guy thought I was on the right side somehow, and the guy behind me was on the wrong side, somehow.

I was a little upset at how long many people took to read a six-word sign.

One right-hearted man said, "But what can we do about it?" I suggested that two awful hawks were coming up for re-election in Nov.'06: Marilyn Musgrave in our CongressionalDistrict, and Colo.Sen. Wayne Allard; we should get ready to work and spend all we could to beat them. He said he'd do that.
 
CARDINAL RATZINGER wrote in '04: "Not all moral issues have the same weight as abortion and euthanasia." [He's right there!] But then: "If a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Communion" [NewYorker, 16 May]

[Pope JPII several times specifically condemned our Iraq adventure as 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous."]
---------
What really distinguishes moral teachers is the different PRIORITIES they give to different issues. Ratzinger's priorities are loony, not just wrong.

He supported this emphasis on protecting fertilized eggs over the issue of mass killing in the usual Catholic-fundamentalist way: Going to war is SOMETIMES right, but abortion is ALWAYS wrong.

Killing full humans [especially going to War!] should ALWAYS be PRESUMED WICKED UNTIL it has been SHOWN to be necessary, and clearly likely to prevent more disasters than it causes (along with its inevitable side-effects).

We know that the Iraq war was NOT necessary, and NOT likely to do more good than harm--so the presumption of its awful wickedness has not been removed. We don't need any Pope to tell us that!
---------------
This man is now Pope. As has happened often before, [in the time of the murderous Borgias, or when LeoX sold indulgences, or back when there were 3 rival Popes!]
the gates of Hell HAVE now prevailed against the Catholic Church..temporarily, we hope.
~ Sunday, June 26, 2005
 
RUMMY ADMITS INSURGENCY COULD LAST 12 YEARS, COULD EVEN GROW. So--are GIs going to suffer there (25 a day killed or maimed or wounded) for that long? Oh, no..we'll be gone by then; the Iraqis will handle it. KRTE

Of course so far our native militia can't even protect itself. Observers say it will take AT LEAST two years to develop a functioning militia. (So--2 more years of 25 GI casualties each day?) And that's assuming that civil war won't break out, with our GIs caught in the middle.

What will our forces contribute? "We'll provide the ENVIRONMENT for Iraq recovery."

Just what is this 'environment' we'll provide? As usual, Rummy is crucially vague. And how will we provide it?
The ECONOMIST says our troops are mainly concerned with protecting themselves (not very well!). I suppose we'll continue to bomb naughty villages (thus recruiting ever more guerillas!)
----------
By the way, Rummy has admitted that we will 'bug out' of Iraq (i.e., we'll withdraw without victory) just as we previously bugged out of Korea, Vietnam, the Phillipines, Somalia, Lebanon.. What's shameful is NOT our bugging out of these wars we had no real stake in..the shameful thing is our government's awful habit of blundering into such goofy conflicts!

Rummy says we WILL bug out--the sooner the better, the later the worse.
 
FAN LETTER: A teacher gets so little response from former students that I must cackle over a letter in today's COLORADOAN.

However, logic courses warn only against fallacies likely to seduce BRIGHT, EDUCATED people.

Most Americans, in their childish way, can be deluded simply by brazen lies they want to believe. For instance, 45% of Americans still choose to believe that the 9/11 terrorist-team included one or more IRAQUIS! (even though Bush himself--quietly--denied this.)

Many Americans choose to believe that the world is only 6000 years old, that the Grand Canyon was carved by Noah's flood.

39 million Americans buy books about the coming RAPTURE--and those are the untypical fools who read!
-----------------
No logic course will help such people.
 
THE WEAKNESS OF THE BUSH MIND:
David Ignatius(DenverPost26Je) wishes Bush had the sense to swerve on some domestic issues--but he admires his stubborness on Iraq, even in the face of most Americans now saying "Bring'em Home!"

"What emboldened Osama [and his like] was the sense that America would buckle if hit hard. Bush is showing that it is unwise to bet on American weakness."

One American general said, "I kill one guerilla and thus recruit three more." Another said, "Guerillas are recruited by the belief that we're never going to leave." Other experts say that neophyte terrorists come into Iraq to get hardened and trained so they can raise hell in other countries.

The truth is that Bush's unswerving stubbornness on Iraq, defying the American people, is helping the terrorists. Wherever binLaden is, he's chuckling now at 'American mental weakness': the stupidity of Mr. Bush and his fans.

This movie-line (about a doomed admiral) fits Bush so aptly that it bears repeating: "The weakness of his intellect was matched only by the firmness of his will."
----------
700 have been killed in Baghdad in the last month--many more wounded--after our intensive campaign ('Operation Lightning') tieing up 10,000 GIs in Baghdad so the guerillas could operate freely elsewhere.
NYTIMES

Today, 26June, guerillas caused 53 Iraqi casualties and 3 GI casualties. NYTIMES Luckily Bush (himself virginal in regard to war) bravely bears this much of other people's suffering.
 
WHO ARE THE PIRATES?
'Redefine terrorists as pirates!" says one Douglas Burgess(; then we can grab them anywhere, with no legal restrictions.

In other words, first call someone a pirate, then keelhaul him.

Burgess wants international cooperation in this endeavor. NYTIMES

But Bushie vigilantism has alienated our former allies. Italy now has warrants out for a dozen CIA agents who brazenly kidnapped a guy off the Italian streets, to ship him somewhere to be tortured.

Richard Perle, an architect of the Iraq fiasco, has admitted that the war was illegal--but he says it was justified by the moral judgment of Bushie experts on morality.

Our government is now taking on the unsavory reputation for covert murders, etc. formerly belonging to the KGB.
...and a reputation in international law like that of the Nazis.
~ Saturday, June 25, 2005
 
TROOPS KNOW ABOUT U.S. SUSPICIONS: Gen.Abizaid (insisting that his troops all support the war fervently) told the Senate that they are wondering if the people at home support them. (Polls say that 3 in 5 want the GIs brought back home. Abizaid offers no evidence that they don't want to come home!)

Gen.Casey made a revealing remark. We have heard about all the ammo dumps our troops have uncovered--so one might think the guerillas will run out of powder.
Casey said there is enough explosive, strategically scattered throughout Iraq, to keep the guerillas going. [ Boston.com,25Je ]
 
EFFECT OF TIMETABLE FOR OUR WITHDRAWAL:

Bushies refuse such a timetable, saying that would encourage the guerillas to 'fight on'. (As if they NEEDED any such encouragement, when they're winning!)

Our Gen.Vines says: "Part of the recruitment of this insurgency is the perception that we're an occupying force and that we have no intention of leaving."
[LosAngelesTimes, cited by InformationClearinghouse]
 
27 Iraqis killed on Saturday; more wounded.
Guerillas fought an open, 3-hour battle with GIs in one town.

Our Gen.Abizaid says the guerillas are not weakening.
More foreigners are coming in--the main suicide volunteers.

3 times this month, over 5 GIs killed in one vehicle by one bomb. [ ABC/NEWS ]
----------------
When big U.S. honchos need to get around Iraq, THEY DON'T ride in vulnerable humvees. There are safer vehicles for the honchos, but they're not for the GIs.

700 bomb-attacks in May on vehicles.
73 GIS killed in May,June in vehicles.

Even fully-armored humvees can be destroyed by the new bombs guerillas are using. And thousands of GI vehicles are NOT adequately armored. Half use improvised, inadequate shields. Only one in six of Marine vehicles is completely armored. NYTIMES

It's understandable that Pentagon cannot provide safe vehicles for GIs. They get only $1200 MILLIONS PER DAY from Congress.
 
IRAQ ATTRACTS TERRORISTS: Bushies used to cite that as a benefit of their invasion: that Iraq now diverts terrorists who might otherwise attack elsewhere.
True, many come into Iraq to volunteer for (one-time-only) suicide bombings; but hundreds more return home, now war- hardened and trained in techniques of guerilla fighting in cities.

"The Bushies assumed the number of potential terrorists was finite; but Iraq MOTIVATES NEW PEOPLE to become jihadists." In other words, the Bushies have been recruiting new people as terrorists!

Some Europeans have gone to Iraq, then returned to Europe. They pose a special threat: as Caucasians, they can slip into U.S. more easily. FinTimes,25June
~ Friday, June 24, 2005
 
NO DRAFT! 7 IN 10 AMERICANS OPPOSE RESTORING THE MIL.DRAFT; 50% STRONGLY OPPOSE IT. GUARDIAN

Men, people over 50, and Republicans are least opposed.
But even among these groups, a majority say NO !

Bushies would have to arrange another 'Pearl Harbor' to sell the draft.

If the Bushies had waited a decade, they'd have had thousands of robot infantrymen to put down guerillas.
(These robots could also put down any dissidents in America; U.S. soldiers wouldn't fire on Americans; U.S. robots won't hesitate.)

But the Bushies were too dumb to wait.
 
RICE JACKS UP WARNINGS TO SYRIA: C'mon, you guys--bomb Syria or don't bomb them. Nobody cares for your huffing & puffing pretended justifications.
 
GUERILLAS CHOOSING ONLY EASY TARGETS?

That's what a hopeful journalist suggests: they're "foregoing [attacks on] US. forces, and even Iraqi militia, going instead for unprotected Shiite civilians." FinTimes

But then we read that in FALLUJAH (supposedly pacified by us long ago) NINETEEN Marines were killed or wounded today by one bomb.

Maybe the guerillas have resources enough to go for several types of target at the same time!
 
GOP DISENCHANTMENT WITH WAR:
When Rummy confronted the Senate this week, he faced criticism not just from Dems, but also from GOP!

--Our generals concede that the guerillas are at best NO WEAKER than a year ago. Where's the progress?

--Popular opposition to the war has skyrocketed, even in traditionally hawk states like SouthCarolina.
FinTimes
Of course Bush will not change course. One is reminded of a movie in which a doomed admiral is described this way:
"The weakness of his intellect was matched only by the firmness of his will."
 
'GREYING POPULATION': NO PROBLEM!

Someone has pointed out the obvious: that Japan, even though its population is aging and shrinking, even though it is repelled by the thought of admitting foreign workers--Japan will have no problem providing for its old people, simply by targetted 'free-trade' arrangements (e.g., with China & the Phillipines) and by increasing its productivity (total amt. of value produced ,divided by number of workers). REUTERS

Similarly, journalists gasp at the horror of OUR shrinking ratio of workers to retired people--but given the limitless power of computers, robots, and outsourcing, our aged will be provided for. (Some may have to put up with robot helpers in the Home.)

The problem will be, as it is today, finding decent jobs even for the less-numerous YOUNG! U.S. workers are simply not worth their keep; they don't add enough to firm's revenue to justify the high expenses they involve--not compared to the low-cost robots or foreigners who can replace them.

Let's hope that as workers' income shrinks, they abandon traditional spending manias--remembering that the most expensive luxury is CHILDREN, and the first, best way to economize is BIRTH-CONTROL.
 
VATICAN WARNING: Celibate Vatican bureaucrats are a little nutty about sex and abortion. However, when it comes to GEOPOLITICS, they are the most knowledgeable people on earth. They have agents in every country (the local Catholic clergy) who speak the local language and know the local customs.

Back in '02, the Bushies sent over a few right-wing U.S. Catholics to try to line up Vatican support for their Iraq adventure. But the Pope sent a special emissary to Bush to tell him in person that such an invasion would be 'unjust,
illegal, AND DISASTROUS!'
Bush and his handlers ignored this message, just as they ignored warnings from Powell and our State Department, and from various knowledgeable British officials.

One wonders what demon possessed them to plow ahead with this needless, pointless, winless war--in the face of all those warnings!
---------
Another similarity between Bushies and Nazis: Hitler must have foreseen that German cities could be bombed while he was 'blitzkrieging' Europe. He apparently didn't care, just as the Bushies apparently don't care much about defending our Homeland from terrorists.

Also, Nazis actually made important sacrifices of military assets in their eagerness to kill every European Jew! So also, whatever possesses the Bushies, they don't seem to mind that their Iraq fiasco is wrecking our military establishment. (Applications for the super-cushy AirForceAcademy are down by 23%!)
 
"KNOCK DOWN HOMES FOR WALMARTS!" says Top Court.

White married women in home-owning families went heavily for Bush in '04. They must have got a shock at hearing today that the GOP Supreme Court just ruled that a city can 'eminent domain' THEIR house to make way for a business, or for some other private enterprise. NYTIMES

Because these people own a (heavily mortgaged) house,they identify with 'us winners' instead of 'those losers' (Democrats). They just don't realize that if they get less than a million dollars a year, the GOP sees them as LOSERS--to be trampled as a matter of course.

And these fools have handed over ALL THREE BRANCHES of government to the GOP servants of the billionaires.
 
ONE MAN'S RECOVERY:
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then - to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home.

One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking .."
"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip a quiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled, as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.

They didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's". Folks are weaned of their addiction to current events and guided to Fox News. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed .. easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Today, I registered to vote as a Republican.
-----------------------
[From my clever nephew BobLyons.]
~ Thursday, June 23, 2005
 
THE ECONOMIST is a right-wing journal, more intelligent than most such rags. In an article trying hard to be upbeat, they admitted that U.S. forces concentrate mainly on protecting themselves, --Lyons: not very successfully!--and are spread too thin.

"They are still having a hard time winning Iraqi hearts and minds." (understatement!) "Even Baghdad, with heaviest U.S. presence, has regular bombings." (another understatement.)

So what good does it do to leave our troops there, doing perhaps more harm than good, with 23 a day evacuated as maimed or wounded?
 
U.S. MORE DISLIKED THAN CHINA!
In many countries, the Communist Dictatorship of China is FAR more approved of than Bush's America ! [ Boston.com]

This in spite of the large amounts of aid we gave after the Tsuanmi!

For details, click on USATODAY .
-----------------
Typical Americans may say, "Fuck 'em all!" But sooner or later, such worldwide loathing for America will mean a drop in the popularity of our 'brand-name' exports, like MacDonald's.

In fact, already we cannot sell anywhere near enough abroad to pay for our imports (in spite of the drop in the value of the dollar, which should have helped our exports.)

The corporate honchos who have backed Bush and the GOP may soon come to regret putting those loony, reckless radicals in charge of the country.
 
GREENSPAN PREACHES VS. TARIFFS:
Congress is discussing tariffs vs. Chinese textiles, etc.
Gr. notes correctly that this would just mean these cheap goods would come in from OTHER 3d-world countries. [ FinTimes ]
Yes--the solution is tariffs (import taxes) on SUPER-CHEAP IMPORTS FROM ANY COUNTRY!

Greenspan notes that such tariffs would make more expensive the junk we import from abroad. But the ordinary Americans' chance to get a job with adequate pay (which only extensive Protectionism can effect) is more important than their opportunity to buy junk cheaply!

A foreign observer once said, "Americans are devoted to the production and consumption of junk. It's not the junk I mind; it's the devotion."
 
HAWK RANT (ltr to rMtnNews):
One Larry Kinney (23June)says that antiwar people don't realize that we face 'an enemy'who will stop at nothing to wipe us out.Kinney is far too optimistic. Having antagonized one billion Muslims,we face thousands of such individual enemies throughout the world.

The question is what to do about it. Bombing nations won't help; usually the terrorists in a given nation rejoice and flourish when their government is weakened.
------------------
Kinney says that war-critics are giving aid to our enemies, encouraging them to keep fighting. But Iraqi guerillas don't need any 'aid' from U.S. war-critics; they'll keep fighting in any case BECAUSE THEY'RE WINNING!

The guerillas know the U.S. has little to gain from an Iraq victory, and little to lose from a defeat--so 6 in ten Americans now (finally!) say we should pull out.

Indeed, the longer we stay in Iraq, the more we strengthen world-terrorism. Our brainless bombing and shelling recruits new terrorists, as a top U.S. general just admitted:"I kill one guerilla and thus generate three more."Terrorist neophytes are sneaking into Iraq to get trained in terrorist tactics.

It wasn't the war-critics who caused or prolonged the Vietnam fiasco; it was the 'silent majority' of foolish hawks who kept us in a pointless war for ten years, sacrificing--for nothing!--hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties. Bushies learned nothing from that disaster; they've done it again!
------------
DUMMY RUMMY has deigned to notice the Congressional Resolution to set a deadline for our withdrawal from Iraq. [128 voted for a similar resolution on 25 May!]

In the usual Pollyanna Bushie way, Rummy says [WashPost]:

--"The guerillas have incurred increased casualties." But not enough increase to weaken their capacity to wreak havoc. We're used to Pentagon lies about 'body count', as in Vietnam, to distract us from the awful casualties on OUR SIDE ! A famous Brit historian just noted that we are outnumbered 174 to one..they can afford more casualties!

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY CASUALTIES JUST WED.NIGHT AND THURS. MORNING! [PolitInfo.
Com
]

--"They've been denied havens." Yeah, like we 'denied' them the haven in Fallujah. While we were 'denying them this haven' (wrecking Fallujah and recruiting many more enraged guerillas), they took control of the much-larger city of Mosul--and GIs are still being killed near Fallujah!
[NINETEEN MARINES (INCLUDING ONE OR MORE WOMEN) WERE KILLED OR WOUNDED ON 24 JUNE AT OUTSKIRTS OF FALLUJAH.]
GUARDIAN

--Rummy says: "They now have weakened popular support." One would imagine so, the way they have slaughtered Iraqis. But mainly they have killed Shiites, and the Sunnis who support them may not mind that very much. The point is that even the foreigners (who've come in to volunteer as suicide bombers) are still being hidden by Sunnis.

--"Setting a pull-out date would throw a lifeline to the guerillas." Cmon! IT'S OUR SIDE THAT'S DROWNING!

Cheney also says guerillas are on their 'last legs'. One is reminded of MarkTwain's sunny recollection of a fight he was in: "I thrust my nose firmly between his teeth, and threw him to the ground on top of me."
~ Wednesday, June 22, 2005
 
RICE BULLSHIT: As the guerillas showed their power by causing dozens of casualties Wednesday, Condo told a conference: "Terrorism can be defeated in Iraq; and when it is defeated in Iraq, in the heart of the MiddleEast, that will be the death-knell for terrorism as we know it." GUARDIAN
A string of meaningless words, just after two top U.S. generals said we couldn't beat the guerillas militarily. There's no sign that a constitution satisfactory to both Sunnnis & Shiites is even conceivable (How could the Shiites GUARANTEE a fair share of oil money to the oil-poor Sunnis?)

But it's important to notice that even if we DID beat the terrorists in Iraq, that would NOT be the death-knell of world terrorism.On the contrary, the brainless cruelty of our forces has recruited and trained hundreds of new terrorists who will carry their fervor and their skills into other nations, probably including our vulnerable Homeland.
 
THE PRICE OF NOT BUGGING OUT: The most optimistic of the 'don't-cut-and-run' crowd (e.g., McCain) say the guerilla war will continue for AT LEAST 2 more years.

We now have, over the long run, an average of 25 GI casualties EACH DAY (2 killed, 23 evacuated to Germany as legless, armless, eyeless, faceless, or
brain-damaged--besides the numerous 'whole' returnees who are shell-shocked.)

Two more years is 730 more days, or EIGHTEEN THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MORE GIs killed, maimed, or seriously wounded.

Those who still say, "Stay the course !" are admirably brave, able to bear stoically the suffering of these GIs and their families. However, the families of potential enlistees falter in such bravery. So where will we get youths to volunteer to make up the next 18 thousand casualties?
 
ARE WE ALREADY AT WAR WITH IRAN? Scott Ritter is a respectable expert on Bushie follies in the Mideast. He now says that Bushies are (a) already committing acts of war by violating air-space over Iran (nobody cares much about that), and (b) preparing for bombing and invasion (to take Teheran quickly). [ AlJazeeri,cited by TRUTHOUT ]

It's hard to believe the Bushies are THAT stupid. They are getting ready to 'protect' the Strait of Hormuz (a vital channel for oil exports) from Iranian retaliation. But can they protect from sea-mines planted by a neighboring Iran? and from anti-tanker missiles?

Bushies can take Teheran easily, just as they (pointlessly) took Baghdad. But the guerilla movement will be much fiercer in Iran than in Iraq: a much bigger (practically all Shiite) population, not divided as in Iraq, but all united in Holy War against the invader.

You can bet that Iranian oil exports (4th largest in the world) will be interrupted. (That may be why world oil prices have already risen to $60 per barrel.They'll really skyrocket after this war formally starts.)
Oil soared above $60 on 23June, plunging DowJones down 166 points. [ABC/NEWS]
DJ dropped again on Friday: 3% this week, mainly because of oil-worries. Reuters
One could make a fortune 'selling short'--betting on stock-drops--after each Bushie hint of an attack on Iran!
---------------------
How will Iraq's Shiites react? The new PrimeMinister alJa'afri is a very devout Shiite, one who hid out for years in Iran, a person generally accepted as a strong ally of Iran. Sistani was born in Iran. It shouldn't be too hard to get the Iraqi Shiites (60% of Iraqis) to open up a second front vs. U.S. in Iraq...this has always been our worst nightmare.)

And of course Iranians will be infiltrated to help out. Shiites are REALLY devoted to martyrdom; suicide bombings can be expected to spurt up in number. Huge amounts of explosive and money will come easily into Iraq.
-----------------
No wonder the top generals in Iraq are now openly complaining that (a) they're undermanned--imagine with a rival invasion in Iran! (b) they're undersupplied--(just as Bushies robbed the anti-Taliban effort, to launch the Iraq fiasco--so the Iraq project would be drained to provide for this new effort.)
-----------------
One possibility: Bushies may brazenly 'bug out' of Iraq, counting on dumb Americans being distracted by our new war in Iran. I suspect Americans are not THAT stupid.

(We'd still be entangled in Afghanistan. A large region there is Farsi-speaking, heavily influenced by Iran. You can bet our pathetic force in Afgh. would be swamped.)
---------------
Another possibility: we'll settle for bombing Iranian cities and supposed nuke sites off the map. (The fanatic mullahs might approve of having their sinful, westernized cities destroyed!) But then the whole Iranian force will descend on our GIs in Iraq, perhaps using poison gas (this gas kills touching any square inch of skin; it will simply be too hot this summer for our GIs to wear the cumbersome 'space-suits' necessary for protection.) Israel also will be shelled.
---------
By the way: faced with imminent threat of U.S. attack, does anyone think that the mullahs-in-charge will hand over govt. to Rafstanji (sp?) a guy who wants to cuddle up with America? The rival is a general, a veteran of the first revolution, obviously a hater of America. He WILL be the next Prime Minister. [And indeed, the hardliner 'won' by a landslide. God help any Iranian identified with Americans!]
=====================
One thing for sure: Bushie supporters who drive SUVs can expect to be bankrupted by skyrocketing gasoline prices.
They'll realize vividly that 'FREEDOM ISN'T FREE.'
Neither is Fascism.
~ Tuesday, June 21, 2005
 
I've been out of town for a week, visiting adored grandchildren in Chicago. But here we go again.
 
OUTRAGEOUS! A report by the Marine Insp.General says that TWO YEARS INTO THIS WAR, the Pentagon has still not provided the equipment needed by the Marines--for instance, many of their humvees are STILL NOT CORRECTLY ARMORED! Boston.Com

The top Pentagon honchos are likely not very concerned with this war; they're busy shovelling billions to their buddies in the war industries (who later hire the retired generals at lush wages).
 
NOT JUST IRAQIS: THEY CAN KILL GIs ALSO!

In May, 700 roadside bombs were set off vs. GIs.
71 GIs were killed, the highest number over a two-month period.

Bushies dream that they can keep down U.S. casualties, thus making Americans at home accept the continuation of our involvement. But 75% of Americans say the level of our casualties is 'unacceptable'--and they are told only of the 1700 dead, never of the horrendous rate of maimings and serious injuries (23 a day evacuated to Germany).

The guerillas have figured out new 'jamming-proof' ways to set off the bombs; they're shaping the bombs to penetrate even the armor that the Pentagon is FINALLY providing for GI vehicles; and they're using more powerful explosives than before. NYTIMES
 
ABOUT ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY IRAQI CASUALTIES ON MONDAY. Sabotage of water-pipes left 2 million Iraqis without water. There have been 1200 killed in the last 2 months. [ USATODAY,21June]
 
USATODAY editorial (21Je) hints that Bush's Iraq project is hopeless. It asks 3 questions:
--HOW MANY U.S.TROOPS are needed? Obviously more than are there now.But then the editorial correctly notes that a) enlistments are down (b) forces are already thin elsewhere and (c) the draft is a pol. non-starter. But then it's NOT said that we can't provide enough troops to prevail in Iraq.

--WHEN WILL IRAQ MILITIA be able to take over so our troops can get out?Getting them 'up to speed' will take at least 2 years..So if that's the criterion for getting out, we face two more long years (of 23 GIs per day being medically evacuated from Iraq, maimed or seriously wounded).

--HOW LONG WILL U.S. PUBLIC SUPPORT THE WAR? In April '04, only 37% said we should pull out 'some or all' of our troops. In 9 months this figure spiked up to 49%. IN THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS, it spiked up to FIFTY-NINE PERCENT. Based on these trends, by 2007,very few Americans will think we should have kept the troops in. That means that politicians facing election in '08 will have a tough time explaining why they didn't insist on earlier withdrawal.

----------
Then, of course, the editorial wimps out and says we can't bug out now.Why not?

--"Iraq might become a terrorist refuge!" But that's what it is now! Terrorists are being recruited in various nations and sent to Iraq for training! (Remember, binLaden got his military training in the Afghan war vs. the Soviets.)
[A recent CIA report says that Iraq is serving the terrorists in training recruits better than Afghan. served them in the anti-Soviet campaign ! NYTIMES

--"There might be a full-scale civil war (Sunnis vs. Shiites).." But that is what is on the verge now---and even if we can hold it off for 2 years, it's just as likely then..and just as destructive.

--"Hopes for democracy in the region will crumble." Those hopes are illusory now. Even peaceful Sistani said, "Nowhere in the Koran do I find the word 'election'." The Shiites and the Kurds accepted the vote because they were sure to win. The test of real democracy is when groups accept the procedure knowing they might lose.

True Majority rule would put the Shiites (a 60% majority!) in charge of all Iraq. But the Kurds insist on 'extensive autonomy'(i.e. deFacto secession).

And the Shiites have little chance of imposing their elected regime on the Sunni Arabs, the main backers of the insurgents.

Also, a Shiite-run Iraq would be allied with our old enemy,Iran! Is setting up this anti-American alliance worth two more years of GI deaths, maimings, and woundings?
----------
There has been little financial or other aid for Iraq from the other Arab nations. One reason is that they are practically all SUNNIS, and don't like the idea of Shiites dominating in Iraq. NYTIMES
----------------------------
What follows from the facts noted in this editorial is that we should pull our troops out of Iraq completely and immediately--pulling out 'some' would put the remaining troops horribly at risk.

GOP pols say that "Americans aren't the kind of people who cut and run." The hell we're not. We bugged out (without victory) in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and Lebanon. The Phillipinos ordered us out after decades of our occupation--and we went.

The shame is NOT in bugging out of foolish wars where we have no real stake worth the cost in money and GI suffering. The shame is in our government's wandering into so many needless,pointless, heartless, brainless and winless conflicts.
-----------
Well, on May25, 128 Congressmen went on roll-call record to insist that Bush offer plan for a quick withdrawal. Now there is a new resolution before the House,sponsored by a few Dems AND A FEW REPUBLICANS, insisting on the same.

As I said earlier, I don't believe there was ever such a demonstration of Congressional rebellion against the Viet war.
~ Wednesday, June 15, 2005
 
AFTER Monday slaughter, 35 of our NATIVE MILITIA killed on Tuesday, and another pipeline is exploded. SanFrancChronicle
52 killed on Wednesday GUARDIAN
[5 GIs killed Wednesday [Assoc.Press, cited in RMtnNews,16June]
-------------

"MILITARY OPTIONS WON'T WORK IN IRAQ!" our mil.spokesman there (one Donald Alston) admits; and he is backed up by George Casey, our top general there..

They note that while they could pacify Baghdad temporarily, the guerillas just attack elsewhere. "When I kill one guerilla, I create 3 !"

In other words, OUR ARMY CAN'T DEFEAT THE GUERILLAS !

Presumably that also means that our generals have given up hope of 'training our native militia to take over the fight'. They point out accurately that only a political deal between the Shiite govt. and the Sunni guerillas will end the conflict. [Scripps-Howard, cited by TRUTHOUT].

"There seems to be an endless supply of suicide volunteers--often from Saudi Arabia--and of explosives."Sen.Biden [USATODAY,15June] NOTE: the issue is not SYRIA!

What do Americans have to contribute in this situation? The Sunni guerillas are determined to make U.S. pull out. And why shouldn't we, since we can't do any good at this point, only harm? [ 'Kill one, create three!"]U.S.pullout might be part of the poltical deal!
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MORE SELF-CENSORSHIP: This bombshell announcement by Alston was noticed by a few small papers and a few websites, but not BY ANY OF THE BIG PAPERS! [google/search]

A search for 'George Casey' also yields no big papers!
[google.search]
 
IS TOM OVER THE EDGE? Friedman's column on 15June was incredible. "To 'win' in Iraq, we need to send over lots more troops."

First, we haven't GOT lots more troops. Enlistments are down, not just on the enlisted man level, but also for WestPoint and the other two academies. This fiasco has discredited the military.

Second, two of our top generals (Alston & Casey) have finally said explicitly that our army CAN'T BEAT THE GUERILLAS! "I kill one and thereby generate three new ones."

Third, luckily, we have very little AT STAKE in Iraq, besides the humiliation of the Bushies. We won't get the oil anyway. The Mideast is not going to 'go democratic' by our intimidation.

One worries about Friedman's sense of reality. Luckily only 7% of Americans would approve of increasing the number of our troops in Iraq.
 
SUNNIS EXCLUDED FROM WRITING CONSTITUTION: Would there be 15 Sunnis out of 85 on the writing Commission? Or would there be 25?

It turns out that there'll be only TWO! FinTimes

And Sunni spokesmen thunder about more violence..of course!
 
THE CHILDISH GENE: People who recognize that evolution has shaped our emotions somewhat, just as it shaped our bodies--such theorists talk about the 'selfish' gene: prehumans who cared as much about strangers as about their own welfare and that of their immediate relatives...such saintly prehumans didn't survive to breed. That's why we survivors are all so tempted to selfishness.

But it's also true that prehumans who cared about the distant future as much as the immediate present wouldn't survive to breed; so we are all tempted to discount the future--including our own future--excessively.
(With far-longer life-spans, we have far more future than primitive humans had, to worry about.)
[Investors are the most future-looking people in our society; they are smart, and they are gambling real money on what will happen. But even they (says a NYTIMES study) don't usually look ahead more than 5 years!]

It would be more accurate to refer to the 'childish' gene than to the 'selfish' gene. That term would bring in both of the emotional sets that were once conducive to gene-line-survival but now are not.

We SURVIVORS are automatically tempted to childishness; even Mother Theresa must have had evenings when she was tempted NOT to go out in the rain to bring in dying strangers to comfort them in their last moments. And also we're all tempted not to save enough money for our retirement.

But REASON tells us to resist these childish (selfish, improvident) emotions.So we're not all DOOMED to be childish.

The American tragedy is that our culture reinforces our dysfunctional childish emotions. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley showed how modern Capitalism, faced with vast excesses of productive capacity, must train our people to consume hysterically. That means training them to be generally childish. Spending madly, they 'can't afford' to think of others; genetic selfishness, as well as improvidence, is reinforced.
----------------
Some societies enforce conformity by threat. Ours uses mainly temptation; so one who learns to resist the temptation to greedy, reckless consumption--such a one can be really free in our society..

That's been true up to now, when our society has been absurdly wealthy. But now with automation, outsourcing, and 'free-trade' imports undermining the jobs of ordinary Americans, parents had BETTER raise their children ungreedy and provident--they're going to have to live through times like the 1930's, when most people were in want.
----------------
There are other primitive emotions that are really dysfunctional now:

--the 'my troop' instinct, and the corresponding instinct that makes me feel closer to my troop-mates when I have a 'them' to contrast with 'us'. (A Scot marooned on a desert island for years built two chapels--one that he DIDN'T go to!)

Strangely, this instinct has gotten reshaped into a NATIONALISM which probably dooms humanity and the environment.

--Within the troop, monkeys fawn on the strong and despise and bully the powerless. That's the instinct that generates Republicans.

--The sensible instinct of animals, when facing a strange, unknown threat or attack, to strike out at the animal nearest them, or the one their attention is called to.

Translated into our times, it means that, when attacked on 9/11 by Saudi Arabians (S.A. terrorists are STILL attacking in Iraq) Americans retaliate against Afghans and Iraqis !

When watching TV of our awesome striking power, we feel more secure, even though such planes and missiles are absolutely useless against individual terrorists. And many Americans (until now) have trusted Pentagon and Bushies on 'security', even though they have shamelessly neglected Homeland Defense.

Humans have reason, but most use it mainly just to figure out how to satisfy their animal needs,e.g., the need to 'feel good'. For instance, they indulge in WISHFUL THINKING, rationalizing that things are the way they want them. ("That lump in my breast is of course not cancer!")

(Only thirty-five % of Americans fear a 2d terrorist attack like 9/11, even though there is NO REASON to think one won't happen. Terrorist spokesmen announce that they do intend to strike again.

And there are many ways they CAN strike again at our oh-so-vulnerable Homeland. So prudence says we should expect and prepare for other attacks. But childish Americans have got bored with all those 'alerts'! )

85 experts told the Senate that there is a 75% chance that in the next decade, terrrorists will strike somewhere in the world with nukes, gas, or germs. What's more likely is a 'radiological' attack:
--a 'dirty bomb' (radioactive material shelled around high-explosives) rendering a vital area uninhabitable for a long time.
--or a small, explosives-laden plane crashing into one of our 104 nuclear-power waste-plants, with an effect like a 'dirty bomb'. [ USATODAY 23JUNE]
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Realizing all these primitive, disfunctional emotions we're tempted by, one can see that a malign Providence, trusting megatech to such hominids, did worse than handing a knife to a monkey.
 
"MRS.SCHIAVO: ATROPHIED BRAIN; NO HOPE OF RECOVERY!" said medical examiner after autopsy. REUTERS

That's a little embarrasssing for Dr. Bill Frist, prominent Bushie; he diagnosed her differently, from TV pictures.

Remember when Bush rushed back to D.C. to sign the silly bill calling for her to be SUBPOENAED by Congress(!) as one last resort to postpone the pulling of the tubes?

Nobody shows as much contempt for Bushie backers as do the Bushies themselves!
--------
And we mustn't forget the Vatican rushing in, when poor Mr. Schiavo had faced 15 years of his departed wife lingering with no brain; the Vatican rushed in to say that he had murdered his wife !
~ Tuesday, June 14, 2005
 
"Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives."

They've also displayed great fiscal responsibility.
 
GLAMOR GONE? WestPoint, NavalAcademy, and AirForceAcademy have always attracted plenty of elite youths. Not only the glamor of such graduation, but the free board/room/tuition, and the possibility of an elite military career as an officer...

But this year, applications for W.P. are down 10%.
That might be understandable if youths fear an ugly, dangerous term i n Iraq. But strangely, Naval applications are down 20%, and AirForce applications (the cushiest deal of all!) are down 23%. [ Boston.com,13June]

What the hell?

One explanation is that the whole idea of serving in the military is no longer so glamorous for intelligent youths.
Rummy's Pentagon has been exposed as ignorant, ruthless,
and corrupt.

As several generals have warned, the wholeAfghan/Iraq fiasco is working permanent damage on our military establishment--at both ends: the feckless youths entering as privates, and the elite youths trying for military careers.
 
BODY-COUNT: Recently U.S. claimed that its 'precision-missiles' killed 40 insurgents. Should we take such claims very seriously?

In this case, local natives said there were no guerillas around. Also, local hospital reported wounded children.
REUTERS,cited by LATIMES.COM
We take reports of insurgent-caused casualties seriously--who in Western Press would have a motive to exaggerate them? But we know the Pentagon has always lied, exaggerated the number of 'enemies' killed. (Of course the insurgents, and sympathetic natives, lie also through their teeth.)

It really doesn't matter, if the number of insurgent attacks continue high (70 a day in May!) If we're killing insurgents, we're not, obviously, killing enough of them.

In fact, one U.S. general admitted ruefully: "I kill one and thus create three more!"
 
OVER 110 CASUALTIES today, mostly by a PEDESTRIAN suicide bomber in Kirkuk. NYTIMES

--This fits a bad pattern: 10,000 U.S. troops and 40,000 Iraqi 'troops' concentrate on preventing strikes in Baghdad.
Guerillas simply move elsewhere temporarily. (Anti-guerilla forces don't have enough men to keep that many troops tied up in Baghdad.)

--Kirkuk is a hotbed, the most likely place for a civil war to start. The city is occupied with Kurds, Sunni/Arabs, and Turkomen( protecting whom could give Turkey an excuse to intervene).Of course the real issue is the sea of oil in that region.

(One supposes the 'all/Iraq' govt. dominated by Shiites will not have much voice in the final Kirkuk oil-settlement--although they THINK they will. They just fired 2500 Kurdish soldiers in that region, replacing them with 2500 feckless Shiites--who might be murdered both by Kurds & by Sunnis!)

--It's a mystery why guerillas NEVER RUN OUT OF SUICIDE VOLUNTEERS. This constant resupply (often by non-Iraqis) shows how much U.S. is hated in Muslim countries. Even though most victims are non-American, the purpose is to wreck American attempts to rebuild and stabilize (and thus take over) Iraq.

It's said that one in five Iraq suicide bombers are from Algeria ! [ Boston.com ]

--We can't prevail against such an army of super-effective suicide volunteers.Suicide bombers don't have to worry about a 'getaway'; also, they can't be tortured to give info about their handlers.
~ Monday, June 13, 2005
 
Americans, 4% of world's population, contribute 25% of co2 that promotes global warming. The peoples doomed by rising seas, from g.w., [e.g., many islands, plus millions in Bangladesh, Egyptian delta, and large parts of China] could regard Americans as aggressors threatening their lives.

But the punishment fits the crime. Americans doom Americans also by their hysterical consumption/pollution.
For details, see INDEPENDENT
 
TERRORIST ARRESTS ABORTED: Only 10% of people prosecuted in American for 'terrorist activity' have been convicted of terrorist activity! Bush misstated the case again; he said half were convicted--but he included those convicted of minor, non-terrorist offences. And they were realeased after about 11 months in jail! GUARDIAN

Either U.S. is incompetent in proving charges against real terrorists--or, much more likely, Bushies are just grabbing people almost at random, to look as if they're fighting terrorism.
 
BASRA MOVES TOWARD FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAM: Basra used to be known as a tolerant city. But now it is controlled by the Shia militia..the Brits ceded control in return for peace.

Women are afraid to drive, afraid to go out bare-headed.
A student-picnic was attacked, with many injuries, because men and women mingled. GUARDIAN

There is hope that things might get better. But women,especially, stand in danger of being much worse off than they were under Saddam.
 
SIX IN TEN SAY 'GET OUT'!': "Bring out all or some troops." [GallupPoll,cited byUSATODAY ]
But it would be goofy to bring out SOME troops! We don't have enough there now to put down the guerillas. If we pulled out some, the ones remaining would be put at even greater risk.

The WhiteHouse, of course, says we can't pull out our troops for a few more years, till we get the native militia trained and ready (we hope) to take over the fight.

The Bushies deplore the lack of stick-to-it in so many Americans. They applaud the 41% of patriots who, like the Bushies themselves, are still brave enough to bear the suffering of the 23 GIs who are medically evacuated each day to the German hospital, maimed or seriously wounded--also the suffering of the families of the 1700 GIs killed so far.
----------
On Monday, neither the rMtnNews nor the DenvPost NOR THE NYTIMES(!) saw fit to note this bombshell story, which ran as the headline story in USATODAY.

NewsGoogle shows that many small papers and websites, also MSNBC, noted this news, but no other big papers!
More self-censorship! People who want ALL the news had better read several papers--some non-American!

Even REUTERS & FIN.TIMES are so far silent on this story--just as they kept silent about the 128 Representatives voting 'Bring'emHome' on 25 May.

They say that 100 Congressmen are going to propose this week a 'bring'emHome' resolution. We'll see what the vote is this time, and what the media reaction is.
 
KURDS ARE UNITING: There are 2 main Kurdish factions. A few years ago, they were at war with each other. Now they're sensible enough to unite, to take over Northern Kurdland with great 'autonomy' (read deFacto secession/independence!)

The leader of 1 faction was elected President of 'all/Iraq' ( a nominal, purely honorary title.) The leader of the other faction was just elected President of Kurdland. [ FinTimes ]

Clear sailing for independence, and also a good omen for their takeover of Kirkuk oil.

All the more reason to think the Shiite-dominated 'all/Iraq' govt. will just be a fiction, with the Kurds seceding and the Shiites unable to beat the Sunni/Arab guerillas.

The Shiites will have to settle for a deFacto ministate in the South: with lots of oil, with Basra, the only Iraq seaport, and with friendly Iran next-door to back them up. Not a bad fate!
 
FOUR GIs WOUNDED IN AFGH.: REUTERS

Fewer GI casualties there, but only 1/10th the number of GIs there! A GI in Afgh. has about the same chance to be killed, maimed or wounded as one in Iraq.

People forget that Bushies leaped into Iraq war when already entangled in this other war. Four years into this war, Taliban are still striking--binLaden is still on the loose.
------------
SENIOR U.S. DIPLOMAT'S CONVOY ATTACKED:
He wasn't hurt, but 3 GIs were evacuated by helicopter.
U.S. spokesman said there was no reason to think he was targetted (meaning the guerillas knew his schedule!) but witnesses said explosion happened right after he left his compound. REUTERS

~ Sunday, June 12, 2005
 
U.S. CLAIMS THAT SYRIA STILLHAS SECRET OPERATIVES IN LEBANON. But Syria says plausibly that such claims are AS UNTRUE AS BUSHIES' EARLY CLAIMS ABOUT SADDAM'S WMD'S. reuters

Whether these claims are true or not, the general point stands: Nobody will believe any such 'intelligence' claims made by the Bushies any more!

If they insist on bombing Syria, nobody can stop them (though Syria might have some interesting retaliations in store--perhaps involving poison gas dumped on our GIs in Iraq)--but nobody will heed any Bushie justifications!
 
SOME MILITANTS WANT PEACE, says Shiite govt.
But they'll be eligible for negotiations only if THEY HAVEN'T KILLED IRAQIS (only Americans (!)). reuters
When previous such offers were made, U.S. objected.

How many militants would that be? Does Ja'afri's regime mean it about excluding Iraqi-killers?
 
STRUGGLE BETWEEN OIL LOBBYISTS AND AGRIBUSINESS LOBBYISTS over proposal to add much more ETHANOL (from crops) to U.S. gas.

Farm lobbyists say this would ease our dependence of foreign oil. Oil lobbyists say plausibly it would make almost no difference. REUTERS

But one big point is not mentioned: it has been said that U.S. farming is so mechanized that it should be described as 'turning gas into corn'. If this is anywhere near true,
then obviously the increased oil needed for increased crops (to make more ethanol) would balance out the slightly less oil needed to gas up cars!
 
FOUR GIs KILLED ON SUNDAY: REUTERS
We should revise the jolly old war-song, to tell about the SEVENTEEN HUNDRED GIs DEAD SO FAR:
"The Yanks keep coming, the yanks keep coming--
but these WON'T COME BACK
when it's over, over there!

The tens of thousands maimed or seriously wounded over there (missing arm,leg, eyes, face, or brain-power)
make perhaps an even sadder story.
---------------------
One Southern Congressman got SO indignant when France wouldn't endorse our invasion that he recommended that we quit saying 'FrenchFries' and refer instead to respectable 'FreedomFries' !

This guy just added his voice to those calling for our quick withdrawal from Iraq. "The reasons for the war," he noted, "weren't true."

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