So Much News, So little Time.


Iraq Prime Minister Agrees that Blackwater should be banned and suspects in Saturday's shootout should be tried in Iraqi Courts.

There was a meeting in Iraq to eveluate the Interior Ministry's decision to ban Blackwater and everyone aggreed they were right, except the US I'm sure. There are 48,000 private contractors in Iraq, about 1,000 from Blackwater. Iraq is declaring independence from the US and starting to govern itself. Good for them.

The Puppet [government in Iraq] talks back


The Jim Webb Amendment to Protect the Troops gets filibustered by the Republicans.

The Troops in Iraq are under stress 24 hours, 7 days per week. Even when they are sleeping, they are worrying about rocket attacks. This kind of stress is terrible for the health of our soldiers. Currently they spend an average of 12 months at home for every 15 months in Iraq, that's the average some are coming home for only 6 months. This amendment said that US military personnel should spend at least as much time at home recovering as they do in Iraq. it even allowed the president to bend the rules if he makes a valid case to congress (you know the branch that declares war) if the troops are needed. British troops spend 6 months at war and a year at home. This is a bare minimum step to protect the health of our military troops and make sure that that they can reintegrate themselves into society.

The bill got 56 votes and the republicans filibustered it.

What a bunch of heartless lemmings. The Republicans are a disgrace, why are they protecting Bush and this failed policy. This is completely offensive to me. There were 3 republican co-sponsors, and still the rest of the senate gave the troops a big "fuck you" by ignoring the consequences of these extended deployments. Their hegemonic ideology is not sustainable, and they are ignoring the human concequences, just so they can play they international empire war games. None of it is making us safer, and it is abusive to our troops.



Detainees in the "War on Terror" can be detained indefinitely, without charge.

They have no rights to know why they are being held, nor challenge the charges against them in court. They can just sit in jail until they die, without ever knowing what they did. There are a lot of innocent people in these prisons, being tortured, and they have no chance at all to prove their innocence. If we tolerate this position we may as well just give up on America. The rule of law is just a bunch of bullshit if the president can throw somebody in jail unilaterally without ever charging them with a crime, let them be interrogated, and die there. Innocent until proven guilty my ass. What's to stop them from throwing anybody they choose in jail, how about a guy trying to form an Oil Workers Union in Iraq, or anybody the US disagrees with. This is an atrocity. Americans have learned nothing from history.

56 senators voted to reinstate Habeas Corpus, the others, all republicans, are traitors, what else can I call them.

This inalienable right is known as, the Writ of Habeas Corpus, if you are thrown in jail you have a right to know why, and see the evidence. This prevents the king from locking up anyone he doesn't like, for no reason, besides the fact that he doesn't like them. This protection has been the bedrock of modern law since the Magna Carta in 1215!!!! But I guess nothing in history has been as bad as 9/11, and now we need a strong man to take away our rights for our own protection. It's for our own good. What the hell is wrong with this country, why are we following an authoritarian off a cliff?



So Much for the Middle East Peace Process

Condi Rice shows up to hold a peace summit in Israel. And hours before her arrival Israel declares the Gaza Strip an "Enemy Entity" and says it's going to cut off utilities to the occupied territory. Rice didn't make a single comment about. And she's not sure if countries like Egypt will be coming to her summit. That's right folks, one Safer world coming right up.



The best thing you can do, if all of this stuff makes you angry, is call your representatives and tell them that you will not vote for them if they don't do something about it, their job is to protect the constitution. I don't want to make everyone upset and leave you no options about how to fix it. Congress people get scared when constituents call them, it's more effective than voting. go to congress.org to find your reps, or there are links in my sidebar to the right.

This stuff is out of control. We are giving up everything that makes America great.

Crucial news stories are trickling out from Iraq. You may have missed these, because it's buried under the mass of a new OJ trial of some sort. Here is some of the real news.



Bush's new Iraq Ally gets killed.
When George bush went to Iraq two weeks ago. He went to Anbar Provence, which is so safe even the president can go there. That's the message anyway, Success in Anbar. And who do we have to thank? The troop surge of course, and a man named Sheikh Abu Risha who brought the warring factions together to fight Al Qaeda. Bush is seen shaking Abu Risha's hand in the above picture. Now the people in Anbar can go about being a stable democracy, and "an ally on the war on terror" as bush says.

Abu Risha shook Bush's hand, and a week later was killed... by Al Qaeda of course, just hours before Bush gave a speech on the wonderful things happening in Iraq. Tragic end to a wonderful man? Not quite. One journalist took his Camera to Anbar for the BBC and chronicled the progress and the uneasiness there. They found Abu Risha, the man of mystery, and got an interview out of him, one of the things he said was "I have worked with All of the Iraqi Tribes and they are All under my leadership." a blanket statement that makes the bullshit alarms go off in my head. All of the tribes? really? They are "All" under your leadership. Well how come nobody ever heard of you before now, he was nicknamed the "ghost of Anbar" by the Iraqis, because nobody had heard his name until recently, and few have met him. But he showed up just in time for Bush to stage a photo op, and try to sell the Iraq Policy again. And Abu Risha was killed in true mob fashion, he got greedy, he conned the Americans into giving him some money, then he fled to jordan, but he did not escape the Iraqi mob, who sent a message to other con men who go meddling in their business and taking money for themselves.

Video, from Iraq
Part one
Part 2

In Depth Analysis, from Greg Palast


Abu Risha's obituary from the BBC




The other Big story "Will Iraq Kick Out Blackwater?"
If you've never heard of "Blackwater" you might be interested to know that the US military isn't the only American force fighting in Iraq, Blackwater is a private contractor, hired guns, mercenaries if you will. They do things like protect State Department officials when they travel about the country. They're heavily armed and get paid about 50 times more then the US military personnel (not 50% more, military pay x50). Anyway they've got at least 1,000 soldiers, er, people fighting in Iraq. And they're in a sort of legal limbo, unaccountable to the American Government, our military courts, or any other.

In a recent twist of events, Blackwater contractors were involved in a firefight on Sunday, which left a number of Iraqis dead or injured. The event was offensive enough that the Iraqi Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate in the country. They declared that all Blackwater personnel must leave the country, except those being questioned in the shooting, they will be tried in Iraqi courts. I didn't know Iraq had functioning courts. But anyway, that was the story, until the state department called Iraq's Prime Minister Alawi to demand a stop to this legal nonsense. Well actually Condi Rice called Alawi and said the the US was already investigating this matter, no need to worry, don't get too hasty. Alawi and his cabinet are going to have a meeting about it tomorrow. I'm very curious what will come out of it.

Kicking contractors out of Iraq... depending on how this plays out it could be a watershed moment. There are thousands of contractors operating in Iraq, a shadow military of some sort. There are 48,000 Military contractors in Iraq (corrected). What if they started kicking them out, establishing their own sovereignty, and thereby reducing the troop level without Bush's consent by reducing the number of contractors aiding the troops. What happens then? I'm rooting for the Iraqis on this one.

News accounts of the Blackwater Story:


More About Blackwater



P.S.
Alan Greenspan says oil was the purpose of Iraq War. So if you don't believe me, believe him. He's a republican stalwart who was there from the beginning. It's kind of like John McCain of Paul Wolfowitz confessing about the Iraq War. Greenspan briefed Bush on the idea as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

General Petraeus testified to the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday and today. The general was asked an interesting question by Republican senator John Warner, But his answer was the real eye opener.

Senator Warner: Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here, this strategy, do you feel that that is making America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Warner: Does that make America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted in my own mind what I have focused on and what I have been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the multinational force Iraq.


Is the Iraq War making us safer? The General couldn't say No, that would be a political disaster. But Patreus is also a bit to honest to say yes.

He can't say "Yes we should put all our available troops in Iraq because this is the war to save America."

The battle to protect innocent American life from extremists cannot be won by brute force. And it certainly can't be won by exhausting our military in Iraq. The general may be able to stabilize Iraq, over 10 years or so, but in the meantime, the danger to America is Growing.

This stupid war is being waged for Bush and Bush alone. Not America. Impeach that son of a bitch and bring some sanity to our foreign policy. We started a damn Arms Race, and now Russia has the "father of all bombs" and the world has its finger on the trigger. The war in Iraq is just a Jihaddist recruiting, training ground, and fundraising tool for extremists. Osama and Al Qaeda want us to stay in Iraq, because every dead civilian proves that they are right and America is wrong.

We will stop terrorist plots through good old fashioned law enforcement. Terrorism is a crime, not a country that we can invade. Law enforcement depends on international cooperation and intelligence sharing. To bad we currently have no friends, no trust, and thanks to Bush, no International Criminal Court.

Read "Why Terrorists Aren't Soldiers"


I don't know what the purpose of this war is, only Bush and his wealthy authoritarian friends in the Oil and Weapons industries know the real reason for this war. But it has not, and will not make America Safer.

When the founding fathers put impeachment into the constitution, they were thinking of George W Bush. A power hungry authoritarian who is willing to deceive the nation in order to take more power and money for himself. He has destroyed the fragile framework of Democracy by claiming executive superiority, and unilaterally granting power to himself. The big problem is that if he is allowed to get away with it, without consequences, what's to stop the next president, and every president after that. Bush thinks he can ignore the Congress and the Courts, disregard subpoenas, prevent whitehouse officials from testifying or swearing an oath, and violate any law painstakingly passed through congress.

If I learned one thing in my US history class, it's that the US is a great country, because we have checks and balances, three branches of government. Remember that? That's pretty fucking important. And if one arrogant president can start a war, trample the other two branches of government, and have no consequences... You had better be fucking worried. Call your congresspeople and demand impeachment, that's the power that you still have.

That's a great question, has this War, and this President, made America safer?




Keep your bullshit detectors on tomorrow.

Bush will address the nation and say say "Look I'm cutting troops, what more do you want from me?" and the papers will say, "Bush cutting troops, democrats still unhappy". "Bush to support troop pullback, Democrats want more out sooner" look for more headlines like that and remember it's another lie.

some 30,000 troops will leave Iraq by March. And it's all Bush's wonderful idea, how merciful. Yea, what choice does he have? to keep them there longer he would be violating their contracts by extending their tours. those 30,000 troops were just added in January for the "surge" he got the maximum time out of them, now he will go through normal troop rotations. All while claiming He has decided to find middle ground and compromise with those pesky America hating Democrats by withdrawing some troops.

A year and a half is not a "surge" it's an escalation. And withdrawing troops in March, is another way of Bush squeezing every bit of energy out of them without causing a revolt.

It was called a surge,
and the goals were clear.
Those goals were not met,
so bush's Pet, said
"give me a year"


I find it offensive that people are dieing in Iraq, and Bush is using the war as a political football. It seems that bush's only goal is to prolong the war for the next president to deal with, so that he will not be the one in the history books who failed in Iraq. Sure he botched the whole operation , but you can't lose a war that never ends. Like Vietnam, we lost that war because we left, that's bush's logic, remember in august "bush compares Iraq to Vietnam"

There are some BS news headlines floating around like "Bush to support troop pullback" so I have to clear the air a bit. The surge was called a surge because it was a temporary increase. But Bush and Petraeus plan to let the additional 30,000 surge troops go home by next summer. That's a year and a half. And bush says he is agreeing to troop cuts by letting the surge troops leave iraq. No, sorry, that's not a troop cut, that's back to where we started.

Next the numbers
Nothing but creative accounting practices to come up with fuzzy statistics. You know, like Enron. Car bombs don't count.

Most importantly, where are we now and what do we do next. Trust Bush to get er done. No.

Let's ask General John Batiste. I think this is a clear and concise assessment of the war. We have been adjusting the goals in Iraq for the entire war. Now bush has been telling us that as the Iraqi Government stands u, we can stand down. There's an inherrent problem with that and General Batiste put it into words

"Bottom line, we have put our strategic interests in the hands of an incompetent government in Iraq and we are 'waiting to see if Iraqi's can settle their differences.' This is unacceptable."

"America's national strategy for the global war on terror lacks strategic focus. Despite a remarkable performance, our Army and Marine Corps are at a breaking point with little to show for it; the current "surge" in Iraq is too little, too late; the Government of Iraq is incapable of stepping up to their responsibilities; our nation has yet to mobilize to defeat a serious threat which has little to do with Iraq; and it is past time to refocus our national strategy for the Middle East. The way-ahead is uncertain at best, but it is time to put America's vital interests first. From this point forward, America's strategy must focus on the mission is defeat world-wide Islamic extremism."

General John Batiste's full testimony


I can't say it any better than that.


More reading and video.







Sorry, gotta go to work.

Ok, there's a lot of news to comment about. I gotta start somewhere..

I want to talk about the Warrantless Wiretapping program. but first I want to mention the democratic primary and the debate last night on MSNBC.

I was fired up watching the debate. Speaking in front of a union audience in a football stadium. Many of the candidates were straight forward and passionate. Healthcare, campaign contributions, NAFTA, Iraq. The democrats talk about serious issues, and their solutions go the the root causes of the problem. Not all the candidates would make a great president, but some are outstanding, and I'm glad to have them all in public office working to protect me, and all the citizens of this country. Democrats have a great field of candidates to choose from.

I can't find a direct link to the full video on MSNBC, but if you go to this link you can see some of the highlights, and once the video player opens look for a video called "democrats face off in soldier field" that's the full video.


After watching the candidates debate here and on the Youtube debate, and hearing some interviews, I've narrowed it down to three.

Dennis Kucinich - Barak Obamma - and Chris Dodd

Why not the others? Bill Richardson can't handle foreign policy, he's a governor, and hasn't given foreign policy enough thought. John Edwards, I'm not convinced he will work hard enough to change things, though his ideas are good, he's just not convincing, I'm not sure people can rally behind him. Joe Biden is a bit too headstrong and I'm afraid his impulses might lead to some bad decisions. Hilary Clinton, though I'd love to have a woman president, she is too close to the power establishment, and has made a lot of terrible votes, she's soft on universal single-payer healthcare, workers rights, She is trying not to rock the boat, but guess what, the boat is Way the hell off course, and it needs to be rocked. However, after saying all that, she's probably my 4th choice.

Denis Kucinich is my favorite, I'm not convinced he would be the absolute best president yet, but he has the best track record, the best ideas, the most honest passion, and the greatest desire to turn this country around. He was the only one on stage repeatedly answering the tough questions by saying "Yes I support Universal, Single Payer, non-Profit Healthcare for all Americans. In Fact, I introduced legislation a few months ago..." Just paraphrasing his response there, but over and over, he answered questions by talking about a bill he wrote and exactly what it would do. How many jobs would be created, how many people this would help, etc. He's done the work, and crafted legislation on every important issue. Kucinich rocks, our rights and our safety would be best taken care of by him. he is careful deliberative, and driven to do public service for the sake of the public. I'd say he's the most selfless candidate. I'm not sure how other countries and the American people would accept him, but he would make the best decisions on the issues, and he would push hard for the serious change that this country desperately needs.

Kucinich does not parse his words, he's not digging for happy terminology and 8 second sound bites, he knows he is right and speaks straight from his heart. Obamma is a close second here he would make great decisions and be an excellent leader, he's just a little too political. He chooses his words, and tries to tailor his ideas so that people can accept them at face value. The difference is that Kucinnich is always looking out for our best interests, and he doesn't care if you don't agree at first, because it's the right decision. and in a Democracy when you have a free flow of ideas the right decision comes out on top. Open up a thoughtful discussion of any issue and you will see why his ideas make the most sense. He's not affraid to be drastic, this country needs drastic change. That would be the difference between Obamma and Kucinich.

Chris Dodd is third, he stands up for issues that are important to working families. I can't find anything to criticise, though I think the other two would take more risks to do what's right for the country.

I wish out voting system made more sense, so we could continue this robust discussion past the primary season. I'm worried about what will happen when our "2" parties get back to bickering instead of thoughtful debate.

Here's a video from the debate.


I guess that's my synopsis. There's more to talk about but I ran out of time. Wiretapping, Voting, and funding infrastructure, will have to wait for another day.



i should mention one thing though. about the Warantless Wiretapping stuff that congress passed last Friday. It's unconstitutional, 4th amendment. It's illegal search and seizure without a warrant. It's called checks and balances. You know the reason our powerful country has survived over 200 years without tyranny. The executive branch needs to tell someone when it's going to go through your stuff, or else they will abuse that power, no matter who the president is.

Brian Higgins voted for it. He was the only Democrat in NY to vote for this unconstitutional power grab by the president. Why did all the Republicans in the US vote for it I don't know. Conservatives usually want to keep their rights. Whatever. Brian Higgins is a tool. I'm writing a letter, what on earth is he thinking, this is worse than the Bankruptcy bill he voted for. He probably thinks Guantanamo is alright too. Anyway the president can now monitor your computer and phone communication without a warrant. The constitution is in trouble.

Here's the vote


Here's a good summary of why it's so terrible.



Thanks, take care all, talk to you soon.