CRAZY !
OPEN ALLIANCE: US, ISRAEL & SAUDI ARABIA (vs. Shia Iran):David Ignatius (in DPost28Jan) says this alliance (long real, but concealed) is now going public.

Imagine the rage at this news among Shia Muslims (a large minority in Mideast countries; a large majority (under Sunni rule) in Bahrain, a strong majority in Iraq, a strong force in the oil-rich regions of Saudi Arabia!

Iran will have new allies (ready to sabotage Saudi & Bahrain oil facilities,etc.). This news will speed up deFacto secession in Iraq of a separate oil-soaked Shialand ministate, allied with Iran.
If Iran is bombed, their devastating retaliation will be against the Sunni oil-sultans, the Hormuz straits, Israel, and US troops in Iraq !

If Israel and/or US then 'nuke' Iran, oil-prices will skyrocket. (Good! just as price-spike for heroin or meth would be good.)

 
KNIVES inMONKEY-HANDS:
Today my wife was driving 15MPH in a left-turn lane. She was leaving a big space between her and the car ahead. In the lane just to the right, a guy SUDDENLY decided to turn left, turning in right in front of us. We hit him amidships. He sped off (Hit-&-run is now the fashion in Fort Collins !)

The only damage we suffered--aside from our nerves!--was rt-turn-light out. (We won't repair the fender; we have on our old car no collision-insurance. We see car as ugly necessisty; the uglier the better.)

Ten minutes later, we were well into an intersection on a green light, when a car in side-road pulled right out on red light, nearly hitting US amidships--ON MY SIDE ! I shook my fist impotently at him; he grinned.
-------------------
Explanation? MEGATECH. How?
Technology generates huge worldwide excesses in productive capacity. Sane People with money would not pay for that much junk. So corporations have to MAKE people dumb enough to buy insanely. (reread BRAVE NEW WORLD.)

A while ago, pundits predicted that, low as was the rate of personal savings, that was because a large proportion of our populace was young. As boomers neared retirement, they'd sensibly start savings. But now it turns out the rate has kept dropping; people are now spending more than they're earning--well-to-do educated people as well as the ignorant. This hasn't happened since THE GREAT DEPRESSION (when people had no money to save !) Insane spending habits.

Unfortunately, the clever communications-technology that makes this possible makes people crazy in every dimension, not just consuming-conduct. 120,000 Ohioans put crazy Bush back in office,thinking they could thereby condemn gay marriage.

For 3 generations now, (since about 1945) US children have been raised to be, not adults, but kidults. And now megatech has made it possible for METH to be produced cheaply. (I suspect that this second driver was on something--at noontime!)

This is a college town. As a prof I encountered many youths with hard, fit bodies and soft, flabby minds. Ultimately, it's all due to megatech.
----------------------
So what? I for one would never want a very-bright, creative child to go into a technical-science field.(A mediocre scientist probably does little harm.)

He/she would have to do research in lines FUNDED by corporations or Pentagon.
I wouldn't want my genius-child SHAMED in that way, whether they realized it or not.

Invention of the auto meant beginning an irresistible temptation for humans. It's now firmly agreed by experts that global warming is caused by oil & its products. An inhabited island has already been drowned by rising seas. It's estimated that 2000 of the 18,000 islands of Indonesia will be drowned.

And seemingly harmless advances can do unpredictable damage. How could the inventors of SONOGRAMS foresee this? that these devices would be hauled from village to village in China, India, etc., to facilitate the abortion of females--so that now there are 120 Chinese males for every 100 females. (Excess males often tend to become gangsters or militiamen.)
==============
"Knives in the hands of monkeys' is a gross understatement of the biosphere-wide catastrophe likely from putting megatech advances under the control of typical humans.

 
WILL BUSHIES--or Israelis--BOMB IRAN?
" If someone tries to ...stop us from achieving our goals..we will stop them." says Bush.
And again, "I AM THE DECISION-MAKER !" (he may be nearing the edge.)
He moves a second Carrier into the region.Is this a preparation or a (staggeringly expensive) bluff?

If speculators even suspected an upcoming attack, they would IN ADVANCE spike up oil-futures..which has not yet happened. So it looks like a bluff.

One might think they wouldn't dare bomb Iran without Congress declaring war--but they've been bombing Somalia without a peep from craven Congress. One is reminded of Roman emperors' contempt for Roman Senate--especially when Caligula named his horse a senator !

 
ANOTHER GERIATRIC ATTACK ON YOUTH:
The other day at the mall eating at the food court,an old man kept staring at a teenager sitting next to him.The teenager had spiked hair in all different colors: green, red,orange, and blue.

The teenager would look up and find the old man staring back every time.When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically asked,"What's the matter old man, never done anythingwild in your life?"

The old man did not bat an eye in his response,"Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock.I was just wondering if you were my son."

 
THREE ROCKETS SLAMMED INTO GREEN ZONE ! Wow!
Maliki & a Sunni Muslem exchanged insults & threats over the TV.
(NYTIMES25Jan)

Suppose a rocket hit our $500,000,000 embassy there, containing 1000 functionaries of which ONLY SIX are fluent in Arabic.

Actually, small loss!

Also nearly 50 (mainly Shia) casualties elsewhere in Baghdad. But who cares?HoustonChroniclehttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4498577.html

Turns out, at least one hit Embassy grounds. Sooner or later...
Reuters

Again, small loss...

 
SAUDI KING DENOUNCES SUNNI CONVERSIONS TO SHIA:
REUTERs
King says these conversions will never happen--but if he weren't worried, he wouldn't have brought the matter up.

A clever little book (hard to read !) called LANDSCAPES OF THE JIHAD says that boring Sunnis have been stealing 'look & feel' of dramatic 'high-church' Shia--with shrines, saints, self-flogging, ayatollahs.

Backlash is that ordinary Sunnis might turn Shia, to get 'high-church' drama first-hand.

Analogy: Low-church Anglicanism has disappeared, from boredom. Even Lutheran churches now have Masses & Holy-Water fonts. Backlash: Protestants are turning Orthodox: high-high-high church--THEOTOKOS MARIOLATRY, but Popeless.

 
MIDEAST SUNNIS WORRY ABOUT SHIA REVIVAL:
For centuries, Sunnis have ruled over Shia even where Shia are large majority. Naturally, Sunnis came to think this was the natural order. But then stupid Bushies preached 'democracy' for Iraq--very likely, they DIDN'T KNOW that Shia were 60% of all Iraqis--that Shia Arabs outnumber Sunni Arabs in Iraq by 3 to 1 !So all Iraq ended up THEORETICALLY ruled by a Shia government.

(In fact, Shia have no ambitions of ruling over the Kurds in the North. So the issue is only the domination of ARAB Iraq.)

The Jordanian Sunni king unwisely expressed Sunni worries by referring earlier to a rising 'Shia crescent' from Teheran to the sea. More and more, says a GUARDIAN writer, this seems a real issue.

Sunnis worry NOT JUST about Shia trying to rule over Sunnis in Anbar province (fat chance!) but about Shia seceding to form a separate 'Iraq' ministate: with most Iraqis, most of the oil, an airfield, and Iraq's only seaport, and including Baghdad, it seems !

This ministate would naturally be aligned with mighty Shia Iran. (This writer notes the obvious fact that US-hated Iran is 'THE MAIN WINNER' in the war started by loony Bushies.) Sunni observers say this might lead to a regional '30-years-war' like the bloody early conflict between Catholics & Lutherans in Europe.

What they really mean is that the large minority of Shia scattered all over the Mideast might start to demand a fair shake !

But there's nothing anyone can do to stop the Iraq Shias from deFacto seceding; thatt's permitted by the constitution FORCED on Iraq by the stupid Bushies !

 
NATO nations support SERBIA/KOSOVO SPLIT:
Kosovo is now mainly Muslim; Serbia frothing-nationalists just did well in election.
Montenigro has already split from crazy Serbia.
ChinaVIEW

The same solution WILL happen in Iraq: 3 ministates.

This solution is practically ignored in US--because Bushies can't face alliance between oil-rich Iraq Shialand & hated Iran.

But they can't stop the process; deFacto secession is already accomplished by Kurds; it's allowed by the constitution we forced on them !

 
'US CHALLENGES ALLIES TO HELP MORE IN AFGHANISTAN':
Don't you love these euphemistic headlines?

More realistic "US DESPERATELY BEGS PHONY ALLIES TO HELP MORE IN AFGHANISTAN--MORE HELP NOT EXPECTED."

EUROPE REFUSES MORE TROOPS / [ guardian ]

US & Brits broke it; we now own it.

Afghans threw out 3 Brit invasions in 19th century;
in one episode, NOT A SINGLE INVADER SURVIVED.

Afghans drove out mighty Soviets recently.

 
FINALLY, SPLIT-OPTION RECOGNIZED:
David Brooks starts out h is column (rMtnNews26Jan/no link) by saying the Iraq civil war is just warming up. Then he issues a proforma denunciation of Dems 'bugout' proposals. But finally the unpprincipled hack comes up with the only proposal that makes sense: a 'soft' partition of Iraq into Kurdland, Shialand and SunniArabLand ministates.

He's the first pundit to endorse this partition, and he has the courage to mention it only in his last paragraph--so he can say later, when inevitable partition happens, "I told you so."

'SOFT partition'? That means that a semi-fictitious central govt. would remain to handle oil $ & a natl. currency. He doesn't say how a powerless central govt. could wrest some oil $ from Kurds and Shias to give to hated Sunnis.

If this proposal were endorsed by Bushies--unlikely (!) you can bet Dems would not object to leaving GIs there long enough to guard convoys of minority Shia and Sunnis moving to their majority regions.
==============
'The WIDER Sunni insurgency is being defeated in Anbar' gloats an editorial. 'Al Qaeda is about all that's left. The Baathists are fleeing Iraq.'

Another way to put this: "Sensible SECULAR Saddamites (who, we had hoped, would sign a separate peace with US)are fleeing. Crazy AQ fanatics are taking over in the Sunni region."This is a reason to gloat ? ! ? !

 
JIM WEBB'S REBUTTAL of BUSH made him a 'new star', says UnitedPress
http://upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/

Speaking with authority from his own veteran status, and a son whose Iraq term has just been arbitrarily extended--Webb said that most USmilitary now opposed B's war.
---------
He also denounced B's economic policies; average worker used to make 1/20th of CEO's pay; now it's 1/400th ! College grads now threatened by outsourcing.

Understandable that middle-class just shrugs when wealthy trample the poor--
astonishing that m.c. just shrug when THEY are threatened !

 
MALIKI FORCES SAY 30 INSURGENTS KILLED IN HAIFA ST.BATTLE (US silent).
We learned in Vietnam that what counts is NOT how many guerillas are killed,
but HOW MANY ARE LEFT !

 
PRESCIENT PRE-INVASION ANALYSIS: by Army thinkers, warning of fierce insurgency.(Misleading prediction: 'If we pulled out, civil war !" Well, civil war WITHOUT our pulling out !

UnitedPress

Why didn't generals (who read this analysis) FORCE IT on their bosses' attention?
It's not unheard of for top generals (like Roman Bishops cringing before Vatican bureaucrats) to generally lack balls.

 
TALIBAN VS. NATO: BIG BATTLES COMING AFTER THAW:
an AsiaTimes article lays out a long, detailed,seemingly objective picture of the state-of-play now.
Taliban claims they're going to take back Kandahar; Nato says they'll just have to continue road-bombs,etc.

 
BUSHIES SET WORLD AGAINST US:
Three out of four people in the world disapprove of our dealings with Iraq!

Half think we play a mainly negative role in the world.
Fewer than 1 in 3 say our role is positive.

Half disagree with Bush that climate problems are not necessarily connected with global warming. BBC poll cited in rMtnNews24Jan

 
BUSH PREDICTS UNHERALDED DISASTER if we fail in Iraq--but everyone knows we will fail--are failing--in Iraq. So..look for unheralded disaster.

Actually, when we bug out, Shia will secede as Kurds have done; the 3 ministates will not be great,but not an unheralded disaster either.

 
ANOTHER COPTER DOWN OVER BAGHDAD? This would be copter of a private-corporation (hired for security) allegedly downed by machine-gun over central (Sunni) Baghdad !
SeattlePI

 
COUNTERINSURGENT EXPERIMENT? (for,say, regime-change in Venezuela?)

'COUNTERINSURGENCY' DETAILS
30 or 40 'miniforts' in Baghdad neighborhoods.300-400 GIs in each of 9 military regions in Baghdad.ABC/NEWS
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=2811835

One expert says this will mean higher casualties at least for a time.

The goal is not territory, but the population's support, alienating them from insurgents hiding out among them.

Since GIs do not 'do' Arabic (nor their officers!), written HANDBILLS will be given out, e.g., apologizing for seeming rudeness of home break-ins.

Actually only 2/5ths of new troops will be sent in early; 3/5ths will wait till it's seen how the first 2/5ths fared.

To hold areas 'cleared' of insurgents, GIs will be divided among 30-40 miniforts. Previous moves like this have left GIs open to ferocious insurgent attacks.(Areas 'cleared' of insurgents can be mortared from other neighborhoods !)
===========
One wonders if perhaps the RATIONAL goal of this exercise is NOT to prevail in Iraq or Baghdad (where the US war is lost) , but to experiment with this METHOD to see if it might work in other insurgent-threatened nations. Someone has said that the method implies working with a functional indigenous (puppet) government, which is NOT found in Iraq !

They go on about the absolute necessity of good intelligence: "Without it, counterinsurgents are like blind boxers flailing at unseen foes !" Very true.

But they never mention the obvious PRIOR requirement that the invaders must speak/understand the LANGUAGE of the conquered people harboring insurgents !!
When a Senator asked Petraeus if they had enough translators for this new Iraq project, P. said HE DIDN'T KNOW !
====================
(Of course if they invade VENEZUELA, many Spanish speakers can be found in US.)

Let's play with this 'V.regime-change' idea: it would never work as an open invasion. But if we could set up a military junta to seize control, and if, thru enough ruthlessness, they could set up a 'functioning' indigenous regime, then this theory might be thought plausible against the inevitable insurgency. Americans would certainly approve of ousting this foul-mouthed Commie insulter, who somehow managed to get his land on top of our oil !

What counters from Chavez? Not burning his oil-fields (Saddam tried that!) But he could threaten now to plant dirty bombs in the oil-fields... Eventually the invaders would leave, the Junta would fail, and leftist forces be left in control.

Also, antiUS Latinos abound now. If we made this move vs. V.,we might have Latino terrorists to worry about in US !

 
CATASTROPHE CAN BE AVOIDED>

Col. Roth (usatoday/letters23Jan)
is right that,after we pull out, IF the Shia supermajority tried to rule Anbar Province, they'd have to slaughter many crazy Sunnis, and that might bring SaudiArabia into the war.

Let's hope that Shia have enough sense not to try this, to settle rather for deFacto secession of the Shia region (probably including Baghdad). This will presuppose complete trades of minority populations between Sunni/Arab areas and the Shia region; U.S. could protect convoys of refugees, to minimize bloodshed.

No big US pols except Sen.Biden have endorsed this inevitable split into 3 ministates. That's because the zionist hawks can't stand the thought of an oil-rich Shialand being more or less allied with hated Shia Iran. But the split is inevitable; the only question is whether we help to minimize the bloodshed.
===============
A guy named G. Achkar was interviewed on ZNET about Iraq. He seems well-informed, though his answers are very wordy and detailed. One place he's wrong: predicting a prolonged conflict over Kirkuk oil between Kurds and SunniArabs. US will withdraw troops into allied Kurdland, and will side with Kurds vs. Sunnis. If they can just figure out how to block sabotage of Northern oil-fields, Sunnis will be out of luck. Even if Kurds can't, that won't get any oil to Sunnis. We could hope for a compromise, allotting some of Kirkuk oil-lands to Sunni/Arabs.

He notes that US is trying to turn Shia against each other, with Iran trying to block such a split.

Achkar tries to lend plausibility to US propaganda that Sadr is 'the most dangerous man in Iraq.'
He admits this is NOT true yet militarily, but as a combination of politics and armed men....
But Bushies are trying to convince us that Sadr is a TOP MILITARY threat, trying to make us forget that the main victims of bombs are Shia, and that by far the main killers of GIs are Sunnis.

 
ANOTHER COPTER DOWN OVER BAGHDAD? This would be copter of a private-corporation (hired for security) allegedly downed by machine-gun over central (Sunni) Baghdad !
SeattlePI

 
TWENTY GIs KILLED IN 24 HOURS !(including those in copter)
(later announced that TWENTY-FIVE WERE KILLED ON SATURDAY.)

ANOTHER BLACK-HAWK DOWN; 13 DEAD; CAUSE UNSETTLED JerusalemPOST
Pentagon almost admits it was shot down; an insurgent gp. claimed they shot it down.
ABC/TVNEWS, 20Jan

Later, an anonymous source leaked the fact that a tube was found near the fallen copter like those on shoulder-fired missiles. (Iraq sources never doubted that it was shot down.)
GUARDIAN
-------------------------------
A big worry is that our war in Iraq gives insurgents target practice to teach them to aim heat-seeking shoulder-missiles at our aircraft. This skill (with cheap, available missiles) would help them down airliners in America."The heat in those suckers would drag these missiles right off the assembly-line !"

These missiles helped primitive Afghans drive out the mighty Soviets.
--------------------
Israel installs anti-missile decoys on all its civilian planes. We can't afford this luxury, what with our tax- breaks for the wealthy and over $1200 MILLIONS EACH DAY to Pentagon.

 
Nearly 300 SHIA casualties today ! SeattlePI

This confirms nuttiness of US claims that Sadrites are responsible for 'MUCH' of Baghdad slaughter.
(Tame NEWSWEEK ran a cover-picture of Sadr labelled as THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN IRAQ !)

Most victims are Shia ! Sunnis kill Shia WHOLESALE (with bombs); Shia kill Sunnis retail, with guns.
==============
Note that I headline number of CASUALTIES (killed plus wounded), while US media headlines only the number killed. Seriously wounded Iraqi ,with no real medical facilities, may be worse off than Iraqi killed.

At least US media tell how many Iraqis wounded as well as how many dead. About GIs they tell only the number killed. United Press estimates that 4 GIs are SERIOUSLY wounded for every GI killed. US media admits 23,000 wounded, but leaves reader to guess that these are NOT SERIOUSLY wounded. But likely there are over 10,000 SERIOUSLY maimed or wounded.

Many of these (e.g., brain-damaged) may be worse off than those killed.

 
BRAINS OF UNSELFISH PEOPLE MORE ATTUNED TO INTENTIONS OF OTHERS:
Forbes

Either: a) they're more unselfish because problems of others are more vividly real to them;

OR(b) they have not trained themselves (as selfish people may have done) to ignore problems and plans of others.

In either case, their brains have extra survival value (learning better to cooperate and compete with others.)

For my theory that selfishness is ILLOGICAL, click on

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~dlyons/appen.htm

(The section IS EGOISM IRRATIONAL? begins about one-fourth down (with the marker on the side) in this essay. It's a long, complex argument--necessary because it's a MINORITY view among contemporary philosophers.)

 
FERAL MANLINESS: COLORADOAN 22jAN, finally noted a story I mentioned long ago; some of our noble Iraq-Army allies demonstrate their toughness by tearing apart a live rabbit with their hands and eating its still-beating heart.

I noted one drawback to this test for combat-readiness: human foes tend to shoot back.

 
Chas.Krauthammer (rMtnNews22Jan/no l ink) FINALLY suggests we should pull our troops back into friendly Kurdland,to cut our casualties--and let civil war prevail in Baghdad.('Blame Maliki & Run!!')

He doesn't note that this 'Plan B' would hand our half-billion dollar 'GreenZone'embassy over to the Shia, who will end up ruling Baghdad.

He doesn't even note the most likely change, plan 'C', which would short-circuit the civil war: facilitate the split into Kurdland, Shialand, and SunniArabLand. US should protect convoys of refugees to make the ethnic cleansing (already ongoing) involve as little bloodshed as possible.

Why do these neocon hawks ignore the 'split' possibility advocated by Sen.Biden? Because they can't stand the thought of an independent, oil-rich Shia ministate possibly allied with the Shia Iran they hate.

But this ministate will inevitably be instituted, when Shia give up the dream of controlling all of Arab Iraq--Shia govt. controlling crazy Sunnis in Anbar? C'mon ! Our bugging out to Kurdland will just speed up the Shia secession.

 
THE MOST IMPRESSIVE HUMAN I'VE EVER MET (Sister Philomena) ---------------
(Most sensible people--like myself--are not very dedicated; most heroically dedicated people--like bin Laden--are not sensible. Rarely do you meet a person both heroic & sensible.)

Fifty years ago, in 1952-3, I was stationed at an army office in Inchon, Korea (after Inchon was reconquered from the Chinese.) On a hill was the 'French Church'. The 8-foot statue of the Virgin-with-child in front was shot up by bullets, with the Virgin's face missing and the Baby's head blown off; the roof on the church was blown in.

Next to the church was an orphanage for little girls, run by a French order, the Sisters of St.Paul of Chartres. This institution was actually run by a stout Irish nun of that order from Belfast, Sister Philomena, in her 50s, with a half-dozen Korean nuns assisting.

Before the Korean war, French nuns were in charge of the orphanage, with Sister Philomena merely the music director at the church. These nuns had been in Inchon since before the 1930's (Sister Philomena since 1934); they were placed under house-arrest by the Japanese occupiers during WWII; they nearly starved; then, when liberated, their metabolism was so improved that they swelled up obesely when the Americans swamped them with food; they had to be hospitalized to adjust finally.

THE KOREAN WAR: When the Communists took Inchon in 1950, they killed all the French nuns. It just happened that Sister Philomena was on an errand in Seoul that day; she was flown out by the Americans, and later returned, assigned to run the orphanage--after Inchon was retaken by the Americans.

(Note that Philomena came back, even with the French nuns murdered, and the Communist Armies only 30 miles away!)

"I really should find the burial places for those nuns; they count as martyrs", Sister Philomena told me, " but I figure live orphans are more important than the bones of martyrs." I got to know her right away, fascinated by her brisk attitudes toward life. Here are my disjointed memories of this woman.

There were about 50 orphans there, from new infants to 6-year-olds. The infants were in cardboard boxes on the floor in the halls, sucking on beer-bottles- with-nipples. There was a 'lazy-Susan' front door. The whores would throw out the half-American babies into the streets; Good Women wouldretrieve them and carry them up to the orphanage, where they would place the baby in the 'lazy Susan', ring the doorbell and run. I was there when the doorbell would ring and half-dead babies showed up.

A hospital ship in Inchon harbor treated wounded allied soldiers helicoptered in from the Front Line, about 30 miles away. The hospital personnel were forbidden to come ashore, because the air in Inchon was infected with various diseases. (Typically, I was sick as a dog for my first week in Inchon; since then I've been immune to almost all germs.)

(Korean farmers then used human excrement as fertilizer; it was picked up by 'honey-buckets', for instance from GI toilets, then hauled out to the country in 'honey-carts'. The smell was an awful 4th dimension of experience that I never got used to.)

However, one doctor did get to know Sister Philomena, who arranged that her agents in boats would pick up the rich garbage from the hospital ship and sell it (to be fed to pigs or people) with the money going to the orphanage.

This doctor got the idea of feeding the new babies on milk mixed with outdated transfusion-blood from the hospital ship; this mixture had almost-magic properties for reviving the discarded babies; she said he was writing a research paper on the subject.

The Korean parish-priest at the 'French church' was jealous of the money that went to the orphanage from GIs. When he heard of this baby-saving strategem, he protested to Philomena that St.Paul had forbidden the drinking of blood. She looked down at him and replied, "Yes, St. Paul said a lot of dumb things about women, too!"That ended that.

They also tangled when she managed to get a few American officers to adopt the more beautiful infants; he said that Canon Law forbade her to hand Catholic infants over to Protestant parents. She said, "Right--but Canon Law does not insist that I have these children baptized at all. If you interfere with these adoptions, I'll wait to baptize the children until they're older; then the young infants can be adopted by anyone." The priest was reduced to fuming silence.

One of her adoptions made a story that ended up as a movie. She temporarily housed a small boy rescued from the front line; he was 'adopted' by a whole Navy ship. In the end, a Navy doctor had to leave the service to adopt the boy--who grew up to be an American doctor.

SENTIMENTAL? The captain in my office sneered at my admiration for this nun. "Sheer sentiment!" he snapped, "Instead of caring for orphans, she should be handing out condoms to the whores!" I said that she was about as sentimental as a supply sergeant.

In fact, when I reported his remark to her, she said,"Sentimental! If I gave in to sentiment, I'd drown these half-breeds, as indeed some of the Korean nuns have suggested; only Catholic principles restrain me. No Korean man will ever marry them; we are nuns raising whores. The French take in their bastards; the Americans deny the whole problem."

I finally got the captain to visit the orphanage; he had never seen his own new baby at home; he got one look at the babies in cardboard boxes, burst into tears, and fled. "Emotional!", commented the nun later, "Those emotional types never come back."

One day she told me, "When I see these Yanks marching to their ships to go home, my eyes tear up. But when I think of the babies they've left me, my eyes go dry."

She had read of the 'Bellevue' case, where orphans who got no cuddling actually died just of the deprivation. So she and her overworked assistants tried to find time to cuddle each child a little each day.

The older girls (up to age six or so) seemed normal; when any man showed up, they ran to touch your hand or tug at your pants-leg. The nuns taught them how to dance gracefully, so they could perform for visiting Yanks who might contribute. (It occurred to me that such skills might help also in their later unsavory careers.)

I never heard where the older girls went, or where boy-babies were sent (I heard these were sent quickly to another orphanage somewhere.)
-----------
SHREWD PROVISION: Sister Philomena worked assiduously every possibility of outside help. She got some army official to secure for her an army 'APO' post-office address. That way, she was sure of mail reaching her--"When mail is addressed to you in the Korean system, that just gives you a 'first-bid' privilege"--and also people in America could send her supplies with cheap postage.

I gave her my mother's address, and soon Mom received a nice letter citing certain pages in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue that specified exactly what supplies she and her friends at home might send. (Some supplies were sent to me to forward; when a box of heavy linoleum tiles arrived on top of other soldiers' cookies, there was trouble.) Skimming through the Sears catalogue, Philomena said, "I don't understand how middle-aged American women can spend so much time standing around in their corsets."

MY BAD DECISION: I decided to help the fund-raising by doing some off-key PR work. Knowing the fascination U.S. Protestants then felt for sinful nuns, I spread the word that she was really known as 'Hot Phil', and ran guns which she cadged from American soldiers--she smoked cigarettes, and showed a little leg.

This ploy worked: soon, many GIs and officers were trudging up the hill to the orphanage out of curiosity; there they didn't meet 'Hot Phil', but they met this interesting woman who served tea and cookies (to the officers who were likely to make real contributions)--she herself drank only the tea: "We don't eat between meals."

This PR work (and her own personality) brought in a lot of money; soon she was able to build a big new orphanage which was finished just before I left; I heard later that the orphanage in later years handled at least 400 orphans, with 33 nuns.

Indeed, the movie featured a tough 'Sister Philomena' who played poker with the sailors; I figured that this legend was my doing. However, I should have expected that such a bizarre story would eventually have some unpredictable bad results.

As the money came in, the awful Korean government got interested, and a functionary showed up to announce the orphanage would be taxed. Philomena looked down at him, and said, "You tax this place and I hop a plane to Belfast the next morning, leaving you with all these orphans." He backed away.

She didn't win every battle. Other 'orphanages' nearby complained that she was getting all the lucrative garbage from the hospital ship--U.S.garbage was incredibly rich!-- whereupon, of course, the ship commander heard about this deal to his horror and ordered all the garbage to be thrown into the sea. "Ordinarily, I would never wish spiritual misfortune on anyone," she confided bitterly, "but I really resent those phony orphanages who interfered, and that officer who took the easy road."

She and the Koreans didn't get along very well. "I've been here for 20 years, and they still won't admit I can speak the language!" she would say, and then shout "EEDEWAH!" (COME HERE!) to some hapless child, in a heavy Irish brogue.
---------------
TOUGH STANDARDS: She held the American army in genial contempt. "No discipline", she remarked drily..she admired the Japanese army which ran things efficiently until 1945 (even though they had half-starved the nuns!)

For instance, the Japanese just rounded up any wild children in the streets and sent them to a 'pound'; the parents could reclaim them; otherwise they were raised with iron discipline.

The GIs on the other hand, would hand out food and candy to the kids in the street--so the wild boys would not stay in any orphanage; they ran away and then perished in the streets from malnutrition and the cold. "These soldiers love the admiration they get from the children," she said, "just like they'd get from dogs."

She thought the American Navy was foolish not to have a 'grog ration', since the sailors showed up in Inchon obsessed with alcohol. "Over the years, I saw the French sailors head right for the whorehouses; but the Americans get so drunk so fast they often never get to the whorehouse; they're piled like cordwood and loaded back on the ships."

"I hear that every Christmas all your sentries are drunk," she said. "These GIs have apparently never heard about George Washington and the Hessians! You're lucky I hate the Communists; I could tell them how to take Inchon back. When I think that this army is all that stands between me and the Communists-- I have my running shoes ready beneath my bed." (After all, she had narrowly escaped once before.)
-----------------------------------
AFTER THE WAR: After 16 months I was able to leave Inchon and return home. My family and I continued to send her supplies for a while. We didn't hear from her, so we eventually lost interest. I heard from another ex-soldier that, after the war, she had come through Boston, on a sort of triumphal tour of all her fans there, and also to place five half-breed orphans there for adoption. Then the story was that she returned to Inchon. (He sent me her picture, which has an honored place on my wall.)
----------------
But around 1957 I was in Chartres to see the cathedral, and my eye fell on a building labeled, in French and English, "Sisters of St.Paul de Chartres: Motherhouse". I went right up and asked for a nun who spoke English; I asked her whatever happened to Sister Philomena who ran the Star of the Sea orphanage in Inchon, Korea.

"It was terrible," the nun replied with a grave face, "Some awful person spread the rumour that she was a criminal, a gun-runner--after all her good work there, she was expelled from the country!"

Receiving this fist in the belly, I staggered off, wallowing in shame and guilt. I hadn't foreseen the intensity of American bigotry and Korean resentment, which used my preposterous myth to eliminate her.

Indeed it was years before I could tell anyone this story. I didn't even think to ask what happened to her later; I did find out much later that she worked for years in America before she died.

Later I consoled myself that this way, Sister Philomena didn't die on the job, but spent her last years in comfort. But she didn't return in triumph. Not that the nuns believed the slander, nor her family, but still...
I plan now to send this shaming story to her Order, to clear her name altogether. (Only the nuns of that Order never replied to my inquiry.)

I can only hope that, facing this final humiliation from my bungling, Sister Philomena grew from a hero into a saint.

 
It turns out that TWENTY-FIVE GIs died on Saturday.
------------------------
News was leaked that Maliki is withdrawing protection from the Sadrites, under pressure from US & Sunni leaders of neighbor-nations.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq.html
Questions are:
--Do Sadrites (with 60k to 100k armed men) NEED Maliki's protection?

--Who will protect Maliki (with no militia of his own) from the Sadrites?

 
GROWING UP WITH DIES IRAE:
My wife & I both grew up in Irish parishes (she in Chicago, I in rural Iowa); we were both taught by 'BVM' nuns--often right from Ireland; both were pastored by arrogant Irish priests.

One feature outsiders might not realize: our intimate acquaintance with the mighty hymn DIES IRAE. We were pious enough now and then to go to 'daily Mass'; now the priests got money for saying Requiem Masses for the Dead--so almost every day they were in black vestments discussing Death. $1 for a said Mass, but $5 for a sung Mass (at a time when you could buy bites of round steak for 8 people for a quarter.). So they hired some little old lady who could pump out simple chords on the organ and wail the simple chants; you can bet she got a very small share of the $5.

The tune was NOT Mozart or Verdi; it was the simple chant--which was hauntingly beautiful enough to be plagiarized by many composers. We had missals with Latin in one column and English in matching column, so we soon got familiar with the meaning.
What meaning did I get? That the world was temporary, sure to end in fire.** Big Sinners like Hitler were 'flammis acribus addictis'--sure to burn forever like faggots. Little sinners like ourselves would just go to Purgatory...we didn't think much of the fires there, just of the fact that after purifying suffering, the souls there were destined for heaven.

Terrifying Guilt was for the Big Sinners; weaklings like ourselves were subjected to constant humiliation (e.g., at having to confess every dirty thought, let alone...)
And even the Big sinners could theoretically repent at the end: 'Between the stirrup and the ground, he mercy sought and mercy found.'/ He repented 'inter pontem et fontem'--between the bridge and the river. True, in practice, you needed a priest at the end--but if you made the First Fridays and wore the scapular, and asked the Mother of God to look out for you 'at the hour of our death', etc., you were guaranteed to have that luxury--if you showed the proper subservience to priests !

Since I outgrew (or fell short of) Catholicism, I've decided that limited humiliation is proper for all humans; we are the species that can conceive of sky-high ideals (partially exemplified by the great artists, musicians, and saints); but the rest of us couldn't live up in any near approximation to these ideals.

Even the saints and geniuses feel humbled: Michelangelo because he didn't quite catch the staggering beauty he perceived dimly; Thomas More and Aquinas because they ascribed all their virtues to Grace, their faults to themselves--and they raised their sights to--and fell short of--a vision of human moral perfection we groundlings can't even imagine.

Or on the other hand, WHY DON'T WE PRIDE OURSELVES at conceiving of such noble, unreachable ideals ? People say that only humans blush OR HAVE REASON TO..
NONSENSE ! leopards commit unspeakable cruelties on captured deer just for the hell of it..they should blush, but never do. And we despise humans who act like leopards.

Of course when our failures are less important, we snicker and laugh. Aristotle said that the ridiculous was the 'ugly which is not painful'. We see so much ugliness only because we have such visions of beauty for contrast.
--------------------
I still remember at the age of 5 when I started at Assumption school. On the radio at home, we had only stupid songs like '3 little fishes'. In the little basement chapel, I learned the sublime ADESTE FIDELES.

No wonder I took so long to 'see through' Catholicism. Whatever its credibility, its moral stupidity about sex, this worldview offered much wisdom and good taste.
================
**I've often wondered what it would be like to be raised Chinese, with no view of an inevitable end of the world. What is it like for a Chinese to convert to Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, and hear about this end for the first time?

 
COULD Maliki prevail ?
Everyone speculates on whether we can pressure Maliki to go after the Sadrites, his political supporters. But nobody asks whether Maliki, with no militia of his own, with army and police-force infliltrated by militia-sympathizers--whether Maliki CAN put down the civil war.

Obviously he can't, nor can any Iraq leader--not even with the help of the puny force of 160,000 GIs.

As one observer put it, the civil war won't end except by the exhaustion, years from now, of both sides.Or [ a possibility discussed hardly at all] by completed ethnic cleansing, with Iraq split into 3 separate ministates: Kurdland, Shialand, and SunniArabLand--this would be most humane solution; but Bushies won't have it, fearing an alliance between oil-rich Shialand and hated Shia Iran.

Eventually the split will happen anyway.
=============
But suppose US COULD at least mute or contain the mutual slaughter (at least enough so SaudiArabia didn't think it had to intervene to save Sunnis from Shias)--then we face the paradox: if we DO contain the slaughter, there's little pressure on Iraq's neighbors to help out, or at least to stop making trouble.
===========
As one expert observer said, 'Iraq drains our resources, distracts our attention, and distances others from us. The American era in the Mideast is over, because of Iraq."

Bushies have indeed made history.

 
IMPOTENT AIRPOWER:
PAKISTAN INTELLIGENCE AGENTS ARE (PLAUSIBLY) ACCUSED OF HELPING TALIBAN, indeed forcing young Pakistanis to fight with Taliban. [NYTIMES, 21Jan]

We call Musharref our ally,but either he's betraying us or he can't control his own govt.
SO WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
We can't invade, or assassinate M. (his replacement would likely be even more hostile to U.S. !)

Our trump card is supposedly our quasi-infinite bombing capacity. But suppose we bombed Islamabad; this would weaken central govt. and strengthen independent anti-US groups. (Most Pakistanis are hostile to us.)

Suppose we bombed city of Quetta, the alleged Taliban stronghold in Pak. The austere Taliban would cheerfully retreat into the mountains, attacking GIs across the Afghan border with even more ferocity.

This illustrates a general point: as Israel found out in Lebanon, bombing is of little use against thousands of INDIVIDUAL fanatics.

 
1918 FLU presaged 9/11 crisis:
This virus triggered immune-overreaction which destroyed lungs especially of the young and healthy!
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-01-17-flu-finding_x.htm

Analogously, downing of Twin Towers by itself did not greatly damage America. But it drove many of our people (already unstable) mad, and licensed govt. (as 'immune system') to subvert our Republic.

Plato predicted that democracies would fall when potential tyrants persuaded Demos to eliminate protections of liberty because of 'threat' from outside & inside.

 
NUTTY BUSHie 'STRATEGY': UnitedPress
They're sending over right away only 7000 new troops.The 14k extra troops won't be over for months.To secure Baghdad alone, they'd need 140,000 GIs. (& some of these extra troops are going to Anbar!)

When Sadrites rose up vs. US in '04, it took 20,000 troops just to put down this open challenge. (This time of course, Sadrites will snipe at GIs from in hiding!)Some say armed Sadrites now number about 100,000 ! And many govt. army & police personnel are sympathetic with them.

Petraeus succeeded in Mosul, with friendly Kurds around. Trying same tactic again in far different Baghdad is prescription for disaster.

And remember that Casey says, EVEN BEFORE ANY EXTRA TROOPS ARRIVE, that they could be pulled out in months !

 
PAY WHORE MORE TO DEFEND THE WAR !
Rt. wing columnist-for-sale M. Malkin (rMtnNews20Jan) offers a completely unserious attempt to defend Bush's 'new way forward'. She admits she was pessimistic until she got herself 'embedded' with some GIs in Baghdad. (We don't know if she ever left the Green Zone; tho she did notice that some GIs are 'brawny'. )

She now thinks they will attempt to put Bush's new 'winning hearts and minds idealism' into practice. (Till now Bush seems to have been minded to 'grab 'em by the balls; their hearts and minds will follow'. This slogan had great success in Vietnam, till they threw us out on our ass.)

She notes--with NO evidence offered--that the GIs DON'T want a bugout. She praises the new 'counter-insurgency' doctrine of entering a neighborhood, STAYING THERE, making friends there (tho not speaking their language) and reconstructing the local economy. She notes that this will take months or years; apparently nobody told her that Gen.Casey says--before the new troops have even arrived!--that the extra troops could be withdrawn in a few months!

Marx said that war-history often goes thru a tragic stage, then ends up in black farce.So it is today. The 'Dr.Strangelove' movie is the scripture for this project.

 
'XTRA GIsHOMEbySummer' says Gen.Casey
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Gates.html
'By then, Baghdad people will feel safe.'

But not for long ! Good news for insurgents & Sadrites...thanks to this TIMETABLE, they need 'lie low' only for a few months ! Then, with extra troops gone, they can start killing again.

This must be Bush's way of backing down covertly on the xtra-troops caper.

The fake will be costly in terms of $ & casualties. But who cares? They're not HIS billion dollars! They're not HIS children!

 
BUSHIES CAVE IN TO N.KOREA: After months of refusing, Bushies DID hold BILATERAL talks with N.K. And N.K. says they came to agreement !http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Koreas_Nuclear.html

 
WHEN WILL WE TAKE 'NO' FOR AN ANSWER?
NEW REPUBLIC cites instances of Maliki defying US, going after Sunnis only, not after Shia militia.

(He'll let AMERICANS incur potent Sadrite wrath.)

Actually, he's doing us a favor. It's SUNNIS who are causing most GI casualties.

 
IRAN 'INTERFERENCE' IN IRAQ ?:
Pent.claims that Iran is contributing weapons (presumably sophisticated car/road bombs) that are killing GIs:

--Now ,nobody would claim that Shia Iran is helping the SUNNI insurgents, who are killing thousands of Shia !
--Iran did not DESIGN these bombs; they were used in Ulster decades ago; SO..

--EITHER this is basically a lie--there are few SHIA insurgents, so few Iranian bombs killing GIs ; in this case, US is stupid to attack Shias, stirring them up..
--OR Shia insurgency is already well underway; in which we face already a TWO-FRONT WAR--one we certainly can't win, one which will slaughter more and more GIs!

--especially US is nutty to attack the SADRITES, with 60,000 armed men (ununiformed & anonymous) ! So far, they're killling Sunnis only by individual assassination. But if we pick a fight with them, they will be killing far more GIs !

 
RICE'S MIDEAST TOUR A FAILURE: Bush has to send another envoy to clean up the mess.(One hopes the Arab leaders did not hold against Rice her being a dark-skinned woman!)

The leaders CORRECTLY criticized Bush's refusal to talk to Syria & Iran, & Bush's pretence to help out with the Israel/Palestine conflict.
SeattlePI
But very big among the complaints pf Sunni leaders is the way Iraqi Shia are killing the Sunnis. Also, the 'sectarian domination' of the Iraq govt. (which was elected, in a country where Shia are 60% of the population, outnumbering Sunnis 3 to 1.)

Of all the nerve! Apparently no word about how Sunni insurgents have been slaughtering Shia WHOLESALE; Shia kill Sunnis only retail.

And of course these Sunni leaders offered only criticism, not any real help.

 
OF COURSE CONGRESS COULD STOP THE WAR !
(column by Law Prof on p.13A,USATODAY 18jAN--link not available..sabotage?)
Congress stopped Viet war ! Const. gave House power of purse PRECISELY to curb Exec.branch excesses !

So why are Dem pols saying that real interference with Chimp-in-Chief would be unconstitutional ?!

They're not afraid of Bush--but they probably ARE afraid of Pentagon! Pent. could spend some of its UNTOLD BILLIONS to sink any pol.

Peaceniks should inform their Congressmen that there'll be no money for Dems in '08 if they DON'T stop the war !

 
SENATORS (including several GOPs) WILL PASS 'MERELY SYMBOLIC ' RESOLUTION REJECTING ESCALATION.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6352457,00.html

(Of course Rice says it ISN'T escalation, merely augmentation!)

GOPs opposing resolution may pay price in '08.

Remember: the Congressional 'approval' for war was also just a symbolic resolution,
vague as hell.
They never had the nerve to DECLARE WAR.

 
EGYPT BROADCASTS DRAMATIC ANTI-AMERICAN FOOTAGE:
We shovel billions every year to Egyptian govt. Yet their state-run station--in spite of US protests--runs violent anti-Us footage (e.g., showing triumphantly GIs crumpling to the ground when shot, showing children killed by US). Go figure!

This may be to show Egypt's siding with Iraq Sunnis (& therefore insurgents) against the Shia govt friendly to Shia Iran.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=2800099


Negroponte finally pointed to the 'elephant in the living-room', PAKISTAN'S COMPLICITY WITH TALIBAN . Ever since the Paki govt. signed a peace treaty with 'native tribes' (actually with Tal.leaders), attacks across the border into Afgh. have mutiplied. US dilemma; Musharref is not really a reliable ally--but there is no more reliable Paki who could replace him.http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070115-102619-5668r


And of course even our puppet Maliki feels free to contradict us !
====================
CAPTURED TALIBAN SAYS AQ honcho Mullah Omar is being protected by Paki intelligence agency in Quetta, Pak ! RadioFreeEurope
=============================================
It's striking how 'powerful' is US in terms of weapons and bribe-money, and yet how WEAK we
are in getting other nations to comply with our wishes.

Perhaps our DIPLOMACY is stupid?

 
SUNNI LEADERS ENDORSE OUR ESCALATION, BUT OFFER NO HELP !SydneyMorningHerald
SaudiArabia cautiously endorses GOAL of our escalation, but worries about whether means will be effective. (Precisely !)

S.A. leaders say NO outisde country benefits from Iraq 'morass'. (This seems to contradict Bushies' hints that IRAN & Syria are helping to prolong the morass!)

 
OIL-PRICE DIVES AS SAUDIS BLOCK PRODUCTION-CUTS: [The Age ]

Saudi Arabia can punish fellow-OPEC-members who cut production against Saudis' will, by upping their super-cheap production. So they control OPEC oil prices.

Why are they lowering oil-prices?
--first , they want to sabotage the consuming nations' newly-serious efforts at energy-conservation and developing alternative-energy-sources;

--also, they may want to reward their pawn-Bushies for staying in Iraq to block Shia dominance; only this US-harming folly probably WON'T block Shia deFacto secession, setting up an oil-rich Shia ministate allied with hated Iran;

--OR: they may want to block the spike in oil-prices if speculators guess that Israel/Bushies (joined at hop) really intend to bomb Iran ! But a mere continuation of present production will NOT much mitigate this spike if speculators guess that these threats are real, not just a bluff.

 
IF SPENDING ISN'T ON PLANES, WHAT THE HELL?
A rt-wing writer complains about the obsolescence of our planes. But Pentagon gets over $400 billion each year, spends only about $100 billion a year on its 2 wars. http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070116-073617-6346r

I had supposed the rest went for fancy new (useless) planes & missiles. If not, where is the extra $200 billion or $300 billion going? ! ? !

 
JAPAN SAGA:
N.Fergusson says that the age of empire ended around 1900 when the Japanese astounded the world by whipping the Russ invading their fief. No longer did '3d-worlders' hold '1st-worlders' in awe.

Then Japan fulfilled Greek scenario: success ->conceit->disaster.(WWII)
Then Japan succeeded tremendously in economic power.

Then China far surpassed Japan economically. And China has NUKES !

Japanese militarists are trying to drop pretence of a peace-obsessed nation.
But if Japanese go into weapon business, they will quicklyUNDERSELL U.S.
on the world weapons-market !

They have few young people for an army. But they lead the world in robot-design.

A fascinating nation.

 
EXPERT: "REMEMBER, 79% of Iraquis have negative view of US in Iraq; nearly TWO IN THREE APPROVE OF ATTACKING GIs ! ' No Iraqi govt. seen as US puppet can get Iraqi allegiance.The only solution: turn Iraq supervision (on paper at least) over to UN."
UnitedPress

How can we say we must stay to help Iraqis when they [Sunnis & Shia!] want our GIs attacked ? ! ? !

 
BUSHIES VS. IRAQ GOVT:
Bushies say Iran & Syria are 'part of the Iraq problem', supplying weapons to insurgents or militas and even (Syria) harboring Sunni insurgent leaders.But Iraq govt. makes nice with these nations, saying, 'Our interests are not the same as US interests' !!

Such differences strengthen hand of the 'bug-out' pols in America!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_US_at_Odds.html

 
'SEA/AIR ATTACK ON IRAN IN APRIL '07 (before Blair leaves office) '
says Arab Times
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16169.htm

HOWEVER, can we believe the oil speculators don't know about this? They're NOT spiking up oil-futures price, as they would surely do if they even SUSPECTED such an attack was imminent.

So far it looks like a very expensive,dumb bluff.

Over the weekend,oil-prices went from $51 to $53 a barrel GLOBE & MAIL
But then they sank back below $51.
----------------------------
IF our Sunni oil-sultan 'allies' wanted to facilitate an attack on Iran, you'd think they'd INCREASE OIL PRODUCTION and lower oil-price, to mitigate spike when or before we attack ! (If they surprise everyone and raise production, lower price drastically--THAT would be a tipoff to an upcoming attack on Iran.)

 
Ashley Brillian'ts 'POT SHOTS', as is often the case, came up with a wise sentence recently:
"Considering how many things can go wrong, it's amazing that anything goes right!"

This echoes one of the wisest sentences from Aristotle: he argues against the idea that natural energy, not guided by wisdom, will be likely beneficial--by noting that (for going systems) there are always more ways to go wrong (blindly) than to go right.

Don't try to move uphill a boulder by a blind explosion. Entropy(chaos) is like gravity. It's a 'downhill world.'

Know-how without know-whether is a weakness. Courage, self-discipline, cleverness, and sincere, unselfish dedication--without wisdom, all these qualities are vices, not virtues (binLaden has these qualities a-plenty!) These qualities involve implementing the correct means for attaining whatever goals you have chosen.

Wisdom involves choosing the correct GOALS to want, to pray for, to work for.

This insight sets up a good case for luddism (technophobia): sudden, dramatic changes (facilitated by megatech) are likely to be blind changes, which will probably do more harm than good.

Some sneer that technophobes would have opposd the invention of fire ! But think it out:
at first, careless use of fires in caves probably suffocated people. The survivors learned from these tragedies how to handle fire safely. But we're now experimenting, pretty blindly, with the whole biosphere. If things go wrong, there might not be many survivors to learn from the tragedy.

Of course nobody with these truly-conservative views would ever approve of a war 'of choice,not necessity'. War always has unpredictable consequences, as the Bushies have belatedly discovered. Six mighty empires rushed happily into World War I: not one survived.

For further elaboration of these views, see ch.2 of DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS, AND FREEDOMS
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~dlyons/chaptwo.htm

 
GEN.PETRAEUS is apparently an intelligent man. He took over in Mosul as deFacto mayor, and his sophisticated 'counterinsurgency' theory worked, until Rumsfeld pulled him out and Mosul fell apart again. Now he's to work his magic on Baghdad.
And Joe Klein, of TIME mag (20Jan,p.25/no link) respects him and wishes him well. But Klein explains succinctly why this won't work (why nothing will work) in Baghdad.
--They'd need 120k GIs to pacify Baghdad. At the most they'll have 35k.

--The troops aren't trained to knock on doors instead of kicking them down. And they're overstressed already.

--The 'counterinsurgency' doctrine tells how to help a responsible native govt. fight insurgents. But there IS no such govt in Iraq--certainly not Maliki's !

--We face both an insurgency (still killing and maiming our GIs efficiently)
AND a civil war.

--Even if it worked, this approach would take MANY YEARS to work..and we don't have many years..At the very latest, we must be out of there before the end of '08, the time of the next election!
===========
The only (very slight) good news is that the catastropic failure of this new SURGE will put an end to presidential hopes of that fool McCain.

 
BRAIN SCAN MAY PREDICT ALZHEIMERS years before symptoms show up.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8280488/

In places where assisted suicide is allowed, a person who suspected he had Alz. could wait until he was sure. But in other places, the person would have to consider suicide before he was sure--once the disease took hold, he might forget what he planned !

(That happened to a relative of mine. And some ALZ patients bungle the attempt. And I heard of a woman who lived 15 years with Alz !)

 
POWER & WEAKNESS:
PARADE Magazine had an article (14Jan) saying we Americans were the most 'powerful', with the top weapons, the most H-bombs,etc.

Plato in GORGIAS was the first thinker to analyze the concept of 'powerful'. He noted that many 'powers' are trivial or worse--a person who had a trivial power linked to an important weakness should be counted as weak, not powerful.

Power is like '20%', a term whose meaning is purely relational, having in itself no fixed meaning.. 20% of one million is far more than 90% of 100. Power is 'able-to-do-x', and
only 'able-to-do-worthwhile-things-well' should count as making one truly powerful.

POWER TO DO TRIVIAL THINGS OBSCENELY WELL IS 'ABLE TO EXCEL IN RATRACE.'

KNOW-HOW WITHOUT KNOW-WHETHER IS A WEAKNESS--it's unlikely this know-how will be used beneficially.

Having the most H-bombs has not made us able to persuade other nations to comply with our wishes, let alone able to benefit ourselves or others in the long run.So this destructive excess does NOT make us count as powerful.

Killing is too easy for the ability to kill to count as true power. A brutal man bragged to St. Augustine, "I can kill a man needing no weapons ! " Augustine replied, "So can any bad mushroom. You're no stronger than a bad mushroom."

As we may soon find out, a 'primitive' nation--or agency--with no nukes--may be able to kill millions just by spreading war-germs. US has a huge but trivial power to kill, tied to lethal weaknesses in intelligence, diplomacy, and spying; we should in fact be counted as a weak nation.

Superman has not noticed all the kryptonite lieing around.

 
BUSH PERSONALLY OKd detaining 5 Iranians in a semi-official liaison office in Iraq.
US military says these had 'ties' to groups helping Iraqi insurgents.
AS IF our lousy intelligence agencies could be trusted to say this !

Iraq govt. protested.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-13-bush-iran_x.htm

Russians were also furious over this incident, saying that US illegal violation of international diplomatic immunity made questionable their UN mandate to occupy Iraq.

 
In FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sept/OCT) the brilliant Scots historian Niall Fergusson ascribes to economic volatility and the collapse of (invisible) US empire the danger of world war spreading from MiddleEast.

And he says US is not 'willing' to stand up as hegemon.
But elsewhere he has noted that US is not ABLE to play this role, because of our lack of a dedicated, informed, educated elite who could serve as imperial staff.
"Americans would refuse to live in these places; diarrhea locations are non-starters."

He's too polite to note that even if (say,due to sky-high pay) Americans were willing to serve in such primitive conditions,they are simply unable to serve competently. Of 1000 functionaries in our half-billion-dollar embassy in Iraq, ONLY SIX are fluent in Arabic! And Bush just fired the only Arabic speaking general, Abizaid !

And of course even those few who can stumble along in Arabic (33 in our embassy), almost none are knowledgeable about mideast history or culture..as F. noted in the TV lecture, our invasion was one of those interventions displaying the LEAST amount of historical knowledge in history. "I thought they were all Muslim!" said W; and the new Dem head of Congress intelligence said he thought that most AQs were shiites !
----------------------------
So we had better brace ourselves for next World War. It will be one where bombers are useless against thousands of INDIVIDUAL terrorists--each anonymous until he strikes--eager to die while killing Westerners--especially Americans.

We need a 'circling of wagons', a zone defense of our Homeland. But the staggering Pentagon budget guarantees that we can't afford one.

 
WHY A NAVY AVIATOR IN CHARGE OF IRAQ?
http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070111-062151-6630r
Puzzling in a confusing ground war
2 explanations offered:
1)--No army general would accept such an assignment for this escalation, nor touch it with a barge-pole!
They objected to it, and were overruled by neocon civilians in Pentagon.

--AND/OR: (2) Bushies may be planning to bomb the hell out of IRAN from carriers. (Two now in region). OR they may be going to let Israel bomb Iran; then, when Iran tries to strike back vs. our GIs in Iraq, THEN our naval aviators will nuke them.
--------------------------------
On the other hand, speculators have not yet spiked price of crude-oil futures--as they surely would if they even suspected an attack on Iran. So all this may be an expensive bluff. The war may be run by knowledgeable ground-general Petraeus, with the admiral just window-dressing.

 
A new book unwittingly illustrates the often-irrational nature of the code of honor.
----------------
HONOR by T.Bowman, starts right out worrying that honor has here been more or less rejected. He uses the national reaction to the Iraq invasion as an example.

He seems offended that,"A president EVEN WHEN FACED WITH AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY ,[has to] seek obvious and prophylactic reasons to justify any resort to arms." ('prophylactic' presumably means 'causing good consequences") Imagine ! Before invading a country and bombing the hell out of it, and risking awful consequences for US, the President has to sink to the level of showing that such a 'resort to arms' would have beneficial consequences ! How sissy !

"It seems never to have occurred to anyone that such a move..should be justified by an appeal to honor. To that primitive [honor] way of thinking, it was necessary to show (1)the Arab enemies of America and the West that they couldn't expect, when (2) they got us, that we wouldn't get them back--and (3) anyone even remotely connected with them. Those who complained that the invasion did not punish alQaeda for 9/11 missed the point (as the honor tradition would have seen it.)
Precisely BECAUSE (4) Saddam's connections with AQ were tenuous, it would have made sense (to honor cultures) to (4) make an example of him, and so (5)to warn others, vulnerable to our arms and tempted to support terrorists (even(4) slightly and secretly) not to even think of it."

This paragraph is a wonderful example of how abstract and vague any defense of this invasion must be:
1) 'Arab': he doesn't distinguish between Shia & Sunni Arabs, between Arabs in Iraq, and those, say, in Saudi Arabia. Most of the 9/11 gang WHICH ATTACKED OUR COUNTRY were Sunnis from Saudi Arabia, as is binLaden. Instead of bombing Sunni S.A., we bombed Iraq which is 60% Shia and 20% friendly Kurds, along with a large minority of Christians. But an Arab is an Arab.

2) 'they' : This amorphous pronoun is just a subliminal appeal to 'us / vs. / them' instinct.
But there are lots of different 'THEMS' !

3) 'and anyone even remotely connected with them' / wow. We didn't attack S.A. which was INTIMATELY connected with the 9/11 gang. We didn't attack other terrorist-sympathetic countries..(the 9/11 caper was applauded publicly in Palestine and elsewhere! Conversions to Islam spiked up in Holland because of 9/11. Millions of babies all over the world were named Osama.) Instead, we attacked a country which Bushies were planning to attack long before 9/11. This sounds more like a cold calculated move (tho spectacularly ILL-calculated ! )than a hot Honor move. But of course, Bowman might be explaining, NOT why Bushies pulled this stunt, but why so many Americans immediately supported the attack.(More on this later.)

4) "We invaded BECAUSE Saddam's connection with AQ was 'tenuous' (i.e., invisible). !!!!!!"
(This sounds like earlier hawk attempts to justify Viet war just BECAUSE it was crazy; we were showing the Soviets how crazy we were, which was necessary since we had committed ourselves to commit crazy mutual suicide with Russia if they attacked Europe !)

'We set out to MAKE AN EXAMPLE of the Saddamite regime',--the actual example we set, and should have foreseen, was one of US incompetence and Arab brave tenacity.)

5) '..to scare off other terrorist sympathizers so they wouldn't even 'think' of similar attacks on the West.' Well, of course, terrorist attacks around the world have mutliplied greatly since 9/11; experts say we are helping terrorist leaders RECRUIT AND TRAIN thousands of new volunteers around the world to die and kill 'Crusader' Westerners. And all this should have been foreseen.
(Note that this sounds like a prophlactic, consequential consideration. But not seriously; more like the bellow of 'I'LL TEACH YOU !" when teaching is neither planned nor likely.)
--------------
Now Bowman might admit all this graciously, and say that HONOR is a FEELING, a SENSE, not a theoretical position. The way I put it is that 9/11 froze Americans in cold outrage that the 'mightiest superpower' should be so humiliated by the destruction of our greatest phallic symbols by 19 'rughead' Arabs with box-knives.
Schooled in the silly slogan that 'the best defense is an offense', enraged Americans were determined to attack SOME ARABS--never mind which ones.

People said Americans, after 9/11, were beset by fear. Nonsense: fear is rational, worried about future consequences. It's RAGE that strikes out blindly: when a caged rat gets an electric shock, it promptly (irrelevantly) bites a rat nearby..

HONOR is closely connected with rage, and proverbially 'anger is a bad counsellor'; rage makes you stupid, (as it made Shakespeare's Laertes stupid.)

Small wonder that brighter, better informed Americans, in a nuclear age, see that we can't afford any longer to indulge this primitive,often senseless, 'sense of honor'.

(Of course there are subtler definitions of honor**; I'm discussing here just that sense which would have justified the Iraq invasion even knowing that Saddam had no provable connection with 9/11.

In fact, millions of Americans-- tho Bush himself has denied it-- still choose to believe Saddam was intimately involved with that attack ! "Since we attacked him, he must have been guilty !" Honor/Rage has made them stupid.)
---------------
This book is (a) expensively made and (b) incredibly cheap to buy and (c) is sponsored by some 'non-profit' orgn. When reading it, I'll be looking to see if it is really high-brow, militaristic, HIGHLY SUBSIDIZED propaganda.
===============
For a balanced disucssion of honor, see STRUTTING & FRETTING by Benson & Lyons.

 
HERE'S A WITTY, INSIGHTFUL PIECE (sent to me by the Slausons-thanks!)
IT'S TOO GOOD TO EDIT.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy By Greg Palast GregPalast.com
Thursday 11 January 2007
George W. Bush has an urge to surge. Like every junkie, he asks for just one more fix: let him inject just 21,000 more troops and that will win the war.
Been there. Done that. In 1965, Tom Paxton sang,
"Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war, We're sending 50,000 more
To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese."

Four decades later, Bush is asking us to save Iraq from the Iraqis.

There's always a problem with giving a junkie another fix. It can only make things worse. Our maximum leader says that unless he gets to mainline another 21,000 troops, "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons," and terrorists "would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people."

Excuse me, but didn't we hear that same promise in 2003? Nearly four years ago, on the eve of invasion, this same George Bush promised, "The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed."

Instead of diminishing the threat from terrorists, Bush now admits, "Al Qaeda has a home base in Anbar province" - something inconceivable under Saddam's rule.

Four years ago, Bush promised us, "When the dictator has departed, [Iraq] can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation." Just send in the 82d Airborne and, lickety-split, we'd have, "A new Iraq that is prosperous and free."

Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Here's my question: Who asked the waiter to deliver this dish? Who asked for the 21,000 soldiers?
We know the US military didn't ask for the 21,000 troops. (Outgoing commander General George Casey called for a troop reduction.)
We know the Iraqi government didn't ask for the 21,000 troops. (Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is reportedly unhappy about a visible increase in foreign occupiers).
So who wants the occupation to continue?

The answer is in Riyadh. When the King of Saudi Arabia hauled Dick Cheney before his throne on Thanksgiving weekend, the keeper of America's oil laid down the law to Veep: the US will not withdraw from Iraq.
According to Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi who signals to the US government the commands and diktats of the House of Saud, the Saudis are concerned that a US pull-out will leave their Sunni brothers in Iraq to be slaughtered by Shia militias. More important, the Saudis will not tolerate a Shia-majority government in Iraq controlled by the Shia mullahs of Iran. A Shia combine would threaten Saudi Arabia's hegemony in the OPEC oil cartel.
In other words, it's about the oil.

So what's the solution? What's my plan? How do we get out of Iraq? Answer: the same way we got out of 'Nam. In ships.
But can we just watch from the ship rail as Shia slaughter Sunnis in Baghdad, Sunnis murder Shia in Anbar, Kurds "cleanse" Kirkuk of Turkmen and so on in a sickening daisy-chain of ethnic atrocities?

No. There's a real alternative. And it isn't more troops, George.
Let's imagine that somehow we could rip away the strings that allow Cheney and Rove and Abdullah to control our puppet president and he somehow, like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, suddenly grew a brain. His speech last night would have sounded like this:

"My fellow Americans. Iraq is going to hell in a handbag. So the whole shebang doesn't collapse into mayhem and madness, we need to send in 21,000 more troops. So I've just wired King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and told him to send them."
"My missive to the monarch reads: Dear Abdullah. It's time your 16,000 princelings got out of their Rolls Royces and formed the core of an Islamic Peacekeeping Force to prevent mass murder in Iraq. The American people are tired of you using the 82d Airborne as your private mercenary army. It seems like the Saudi military's marching song is, 'Onward Christian Soldiers.'"

"Well, King Ab, we're out of here. We're folding tents and loading the wagons. For four years now, Saudis have been secretly funding the berserkers in the Iraqi 'insurgency' while the Iranians are backing the crazies in the militias. Well, we're telling you and the Persians: you're going to have to stop using your checkbooks to fund a proxy war and instead start keeping the peace. It's time you put your own tushies in the line of fire for a change."

"If the African Union nations, poor as they are, can maintain a peacekeeping force to stop killings in Sudan and Senegal, you Saudis, with all the military toys we've sold you, can certainly join with your Muslim brothers in Jordan, Iran and Turkey to take responsibility for your region's peace."

"And when you get to Fallujah, don't forget to drop us a postcard."

Well, that's my fantasy. But instead, War Junkie George will get his fix of another 21,000 American soldiers.
It reminds me far too chillingly of a Pete Seeger tune written when LBJ was saving Vietnam from Vietnamese. It was based on the true story of a US platoon in training, wading into the rising Mississippi, whose commander ordered them to keep going, deeper and deeper - until they drowned.
TODAY: We're knee-deep in the desert sands, and the little fool says PUSH ON !
---------
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse. His reports on Iraq and oil for BBC-TV and Harper's Magazine can be viewed at http://www.gregpalast.com/.

 
NATO BRAGS THEY KILLED 150 TALIBAN; bomber hits allied cars near Kabul; 600 civilians are asserted killed by NATO in '06.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Afghanistan.html

ONCE AGAIN: What counts is NOT how many guerillas we've killed, but HOW MANY ARE LEFT, & how many new guerillas are recruited by our (necessarily indiscrimate) airstrikes?

 
IS THIS SPLIT THINKABLE AT LAST?
Cokie/Steven Roberts [rMtnNews12Jan/No link ] have finally brought into open Sen.Biden's sensible proposal to let Iraq split into Kurdland, Sunni/ArabLand, and Shialand--as the least bad option. They point out that the 'Iraq' our GIs are dying for--an artificial 'nation' invented and imposed by Brits!--this is NOT the center of loyalty for Iraqis, who are loyal to their tribes or sects.

They point out that Bosnia was pacified by splitting, and that Greece & Turkey long ago exchanged minority populations and have since lived in relative peace. Slovakia and Czech Republic split peacefully, as did Serbia and Montenigro. And the Soviet Union split up pretty peacefully.

The world remembers with horror the bloody ethnic cleansing in India when Pakistan seceded; but this came partly from the negligence of Brits, who should have guarded the two migrating populations from each other.

America could guard the migration of Sunnis and Shias today. But the Bushies won't do this; they won't facilitate formation of Shialand ministate, with most Iraqis, most of the oil, & the only seaport, and (horrors!) allied with and protected by mighty Iran ! (Separate Kurdland is already a fait acoompli; it will be protected from growling Turkey by US & Israel.)

The Baker commission just dismissed this 'split' option as not worth discussing. But here's the kicker--this is NOT OUR DECISION TO MAKE! Present Iraq constitution (which we forced on them) allows deFacto secession of Kurds & Shia from Iraq, with the 2 new ministates controlling the oil in their region--with Sunni/Arabs left residing in an oil-starved desert.
And to revoke this permission would require amending the constitution--absolutely impossible without consent of Shia and Kurds ! The split will happen; all that remains to be seen is whether the Bushies will minimize or augment the slaughter involved.

(No doubt the present all/Iraq govt. will PROMISE to give Sunni/Arabs a fair share of oil money; but who will enforce this on the 2 oil-rich ministates who hate Sunnis?) Instead, both fortunate ministates will drive out all Sunni/Arabs from their territories, and set up defensible borders to protect them from intransigent Sunni/Arabs in middle region. (Shia outnumber Sunni/Arabs
3 to 1.)

 
POLLS: rMTNnews readers must be pretty right-wing and hawk generally; yet 82% said that Bush's new lunge will NOT be successful. (rMTNnews12Jan)

New AP poll: 70% oppose troop escalation, think 'more troops' will NOT stabilize Iraq. 62% say:"Invasion was mistake." only 32% approve Bush's job overall.

Of course his handlers probably don't let facts like these worry his pretty little head.

 
TESTOSTERONE POISONING OF MIND IS REAL !
One poster at NYT 'readers' opinion' site keeps chanting, "Kick at the Darkness until it's forced to yield the light !"
A silly slogan; a better view of enlilghtenment is this :'Sit before Facts like a humble child."

This macho slogan, not that uncommon an attitude here, shows either excessive testosterone OR a frantic desire for MORE.

You can beef up your testosterone now with a rub-on cream. Every guy can be Jack Palance.
But you'd pay a mental price.

 
'CRITITICISM COMFORTS ENEMY' read the headline of a familiar hawk mantra in USATODAY(12jAN)

On the contrary, we've always believed that free discussion minimizes the chance of stupid mistakes.

Our enemies must be upset at the strong criticism from so many informed sources , of Bush's zany new 'strategy'' for Iraq: these enemies were counting on a continuation of the string of awful Bushie blunders in combatting terrorists.
Our enemies can console themselves, though, that the Bushies never HEED floods of criticism from all over.
=========================
BRIT GOVT. IS OUR ONLY REAL ALLY; BLAIR IS BUSH'S POODLE--BUT
almost no Brits now trust US wisdom in world affairs.[ VanityFairOCT'06p.158 ]
Note: Brits don't just distrust Bush; they also don't trust wisdom of US populace !
After all, 'Americans' voted twice for Bush !

Such worldwide distrust for US wisdom is bound, eventually, to cut the appeal of our (already puny) exports.

 
Bushies VS. blind elephant:

In criticizing the Bushies for meddling aggressively in the MiddleEast, acting on almost no reliable intelligence about the region, I have compared them to a blind elephant lunging dangerously around near cliffs.

However, a blind elephant would know it's blind, and would act very cautiously, acting on the sound maxim "When you don't know what you're doing, don't just do something--Stand There!"

But human ignorance is the disease that conceals itself--these Bushies don't think they're ignorant ! So they lunge around with foolish self-confidence, willing to sacrifice tens of thousands more US casualties in Iraq as they 'dance near these awful cliffs'.
=============
MIDEAST MEDIA SKEPTICAL OF BUSH PLAN: "As long as this is a fight between organized army and gang-style militants, US will fail!"
Sunnis also doubt Maliki's real cooperation.
SeattlePI

Sunnis fear Maliki is aiming for a Shia-dominated all-Iraq govt. He'd be a fool to want this; we hope he's sensible enough to be aiming for a deFacto-seceded ministate Shialand--with most Iraqis, most of the oil, the only seaport, and backed by (US/hated) IRAN !
The real issue is whether this inevitable Shialand will include a Baghdad purged of Sunnis!
(and surrounding our half-billion-dollar embassy) !

 
BAD NEWS / GOOD NEWS:
Recent events have made Sunni Arabs more furious vs. US / Israel. That's the bad news.
The good news: Sunnis have also gone into often-frothing rage vs. Shia (esp. Iran).
GUARDIAN

Nothing would suit Israel /US better than a war (hot or cold, proxy or direct) between, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran !

Saudis would surely lose. Iran has a war-hardened army. SaudiRoyals can barely defend themselves vs. internal terrorrists !

 
"I WAS IMPRESSED BY [BUSH'S] PASSION. HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO HAS DECIDED NOT TO FAIL." said a GOP Senator. ABC NEWS

If only passion could make up for a lack of brains and good sense. If only one could just DECIDE not to fail !

Bush's epitaph: The weakness of his intellect was matched only by the firmness of his will.

 
US AIRSTRIKES IN SOMALIA: It was supposed to be an attack vs. alQaeda based on 'credible intelligence' (snicker).When it was all over,Pentagon said "We may never know who we got."ABCtvNEWS

That means they didn't really know whom their explosives (the actual missiles, not their dreams & hopes.) actually hit. Perhaps a convent of contemplative nuns?
----------------
NEW UN HONCHO is 'concerned' lest the US attack 'escalate' hostilities. Also he is concerned about reported civilian casualties. SEATTLEPI

 
RET/GEN KEANE (Bush's present mil. spokesman)gives on TV the unfortunate impression of senile rage. A recent quote from him confirms this impression: "You tell me that there's a capital city in the world that the world's foremost army cannot protect the citizens? That's just rubbish !"
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/IraqCoverage/story?id=2778309&page=1
We'll see about that 'foremost army' line, when our wretched GIs are forced to live in small groups in hostile neighborhoods, not speaking the language, being picked off one by one by terrorrists.

One is reminded of the ancient Greek formula for human cycles: arete ->hybris -> nemesis:
SUCCESS -> CONCEIT -> DISASTER.

 
'WHEN ? 'does make a difference !

JAY AMBROSE IS QUOTED IN rMtnNews,8Jan, as calling war-critics inconsistent: first they reproached Bush for not sending enough troops; now they reproach him for wanting to send more.
HOWEVER: HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF US TROOPS might have made a difference early on: to stop the insurgency from organizing, to sequester tons of loose ammo.

But NOW the insurgency is mature and undefeatable; the tons of explosives are hidden away for insurgent use..the war is already lost..NOW the Bushies want to send in tens of thousands more GIs to wreck our ground army's resources, to provide more 'sitting-ducks' for insurgents to hone their attack-skills on. What a set of loons !

 
Senators in '02 who are still there: ABC asked them if they would still back the use of force in Iraq: 77 to 23 for war has switched to 57-43 against war.ABC http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story?id=2771519&page=1

Sad thing is that there are 43 in that august group who still have heads of pork.

 
IS 'TROOP INCREASE' A TRAP?
Dem honcho Pelosi says Dem House 'might' refuse funds for more troops in Iraq,if Bush insists on sending them. But SenBiden says it would be 'unconstitutional' for Congress to 'micromanage' a foreign war 'authorized' by Congress. HoustonChronhttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4452815.html

This is absurd: Congress never declared war on Iraq. Congress cut funds for Vietnam and hawks still say that's why we lost. Constitution gave appropriations power to House precisely to prevent zany waste by Exec branch. And this troop buildup would be VERY zany waste.

Anyway, if Bushies claimed the refusal was unconstitutional, and their tame Supreme Court backed them up, then Dems would get credit for TRYING... and the disastrous failure of this new scheme would fall right on WhiteHouse.

Maybe Biden is worried about Bush's loony plans really being a trap for Dems. The end-game may be this: we have to pull out, but now--who gets blamed? If Dems refuse to fund the troop-increase, Bush could say they are responsible for us having to bugout.

Even so, we can hope that Pelosi is not bluffing, and that enough Americans will see what's going on, so blame for defeat falls correctly on Bushies and compliant GOP.

 
INSURGENTS GETTING MORE SKILLED AT KILLING/MAIMING GIs:
100 were killed (meaning 400 seriously maimed or wounded) last month alone!

http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070104-010122-9671r

And they died for LESS than nothing. They're doing more harm than good over there.
Most Iraqis want them OUT.
Congress wants them out.
60% of Americans want them out.

But Bush intends to send thousands more IN,
and to prolong war so that tens of thousands more casualties will suffer.

Can nobody stop this loon?

 
'RICE WARNS N.KOREA OF FURTHER ISOLATION:'
She'd do well to warn Bushies of further isolation of Bush/US ! We're seen round the world as the worst threat to peace, and Bush is seen as the biggest villain, by far.

(He's not; Cheney is biggest villain; Bush is just his loony pawn.)

 
ADVANCED HYPERSONIC WEAPON: to implement Pentagon's goal of striking ANY TARGET IN THE WORLD IN ONE HOUR.
http://www.mail-archive.com/serbiannewsnetwork@yahoogroups.com/msg02819.html
Such a capability will make OBVIOUSlY obsolete the more than 100 expensive manned bases all over the world, tieing up thousands of GIs (who can't be sent to Iraq, necessitating repeated re-use of exhausted troops!)

Expenses at these bases count as imports, which our puny exports can't match. Thus these bases contribute both to our FEDERAL deficit (which should be called our Pentagon deficit, since Pent. budget roughly equals deficit figure !!) and also to our Trade deficit !

 
TO A FRIEND-INTERLOCUTOR:
About your point that "if foetus human has 2d moment, it must have 1st moment, so those who deny that conceptus is fully human must say at what precise point it BECOMES full human."

That's like saying that person who claims that hot water comes from cold water must tell the exact moment when it becomes hot..if there's a 2d moment of hotness, there must be a first moment.

Not so...there's no ONE SPECIAL MOMENT when cold becomes hot; yet there is huge difference between cold & hot water. There's a RANGE of plausible moments: -20 degrees Fahrenheit and 220 degrees Fahrenheit are implausible moments for when cold becomes hot.

Similarly, moment of conception is one plausible moment we COULD DECIDE TO COUNT as transition from pre-human to full-human; but much more plausible is 7th month when authentically-human brain-waves first show up. (Moment of unfertilized egg in new infant girl is implausible, as is also 20 yrs old--no matter what parents of teens might think. There is a RANGE of plausibility.)

About the LIFE of this individual human: already back when 'it ' was unfertilized egg, it was authentically this human life--many definining individual characteristics are already present (necessary condition, not sufficient) --and we wouldn't be that astonished if a female egg turned into a foetus on its own, as happens with some reptiles.

Even after conception, events during pregnancy can change identity of foetus--some say that interuterine events determine sexual preference--conceivably, even male/female identity, or the difference between genius and retard.