Would You Buy a Nuclear War from This Man?

I want to nuke 'em, I want to nuke 'em NOW!

No? Well, congratulations! You already have! He's convinced Sweet Oxy-Condi to tag along on the nuke bandwagon, and pretty soon you, O Taxpayer of Little Faith, will be the proud owner of your Very Own Nuclear War! With that country about which I'm sure you know a whole hell of a lot, and for whom you feel the utmost ire & enmity, Iran!

Here's a slightly edited and worth-perusing excerpt from the "DownsizeDC" group, normally a libertarian group that endorses Ron Paul, is not so hot about socialized medicine, but really has it on the money on a number of issues, including the Department of Homeland Security and Patriot Act, two "Essentially Cheney" creations that really express his line of thinking ... and the American taxpayers are the catwalk!

Here's an area where both left, right, and middle may agree: duh... going to Armageddon and killing civilians unnecessarily is NOT a good policy.

"URGENT ACTION REQUIRED!

Subject: The immediate mortal danger of attacking Iran

There is increasing evidence that President Bush intends to bomb Iran. This would . . .

• Reverse the progress we have made with Iranian public opinion

• Further entrench the "hardliners" in the Iranian regime

• Further radicalize the Muslim population across the Middle East

• Recruit countless numbers of new terrorists
• Place us in a state of irreversible war with Iran and its people
• Threaten oil shipments from the Persian gulf

(Why would a Big Oil Administration want to threaten oil shipments?? Must be something even Bigger than Big Oil!)

(Regarding "radicalizing" - unlike the writer, I believe this is really alienating Muslims from a sense of free participation in world events, the response to which is to take action to "participate" from the "outside" - which is where they have been pushed. It becomes a case of Us vs. Them - and guess who started this? Us, of course! it's not "blowback" - it's just participation by those who are denied participation - by force, on both sides...)

The combined impact would be to destabilize the entire region, fostering bin Laden's goal of creating radical Islamist regimes throughout the area. Most chilling is the potential impact on Pakistan. If Pakistan's population becomes further radicalized because of U.S. attacks against Muslims the result could be the creation of an Islamist regime. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, and elements of Pakistan's security service has close ties to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, dating back to the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

If President Bush bombs Iran the result could be exactly what he thinks he's trying to prevent -- nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. In addition, bombing Iran could slow that country's nuclear program, but it would not stop it. The Iranians could just begin again, with more secure underground sites, just like the Nazis did in response to allied bombing during World War II.

What would we do then? Use nuclear weapons? Vice President Cheney is said to already favor this!


There is nothing to be gained by bombing Iran, and everything to be lost. And yet, there are more and more reports that President Bush plans to attack Iran before he leaves office.


Worse yet, he already has Congressional authorization to do so because of the loose wording of previous war authorizations resolutions.


The whole world is at the mercy of President Bush's notoriously bad judgment, unless ALL OF US take action to constrain him. There is something we can do, in the short term, to stop an attack, and many things we can do in the long term to stabilize the situation and bring lasting security.In the short term . . .

• We must demand that Congress pass a resolution prohibiting an attack


• We must demand this of the Democrats even if the Republicans would resist


• We must focus extreme pressure on Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid


• We must work to turn key Republicans in the House, and especially the Senate


• We must recruit more people to apply more pressure
  

Even if all we got was a majority vote in the House, because the Republicans blocked action in the Senate, that might be enough to stay the President's hand.

For the long term . . .We must compel Congress to recognize the truth of what Congressman Ron Paul and official reports of the C.I.A. and the Pentagon assert. Blowback against U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is the main problem, which means pullback is the answer.


We must eliminate our footprint in Islamic countries. When we do that the process of radicalization will recede. This is the best path to peace and security for the American people. Specifically . . .

• We should exit Iraq, leaving the surrounding Islamic countries to create a settlement there


• We should renounce pre-emptive war and regime change, and adopt a policy of retaliatory deterrence
  
• We should recognize the government of Iran and establish formal relations with it


• We should apologize directly to the Iranian people for the 1953 C.I.A. coup and our support of the Shah


• We should lift trade sanctions on Iran to foster civil society there as a balance against extremism
  

Many facts form the basis of our proposals . . .We have a history of regime change in the Middle East, and especially Iran. We overthrew a democratic and secular Iranian government in 1953, and established the tyrannical Shah. The Iranians remember this. We have also just changed the regime in Iraq and placed Iran on the same target list.

Given these facts . . .You would want a nuclear weapon too, if you were part of the Iranian government!

We must take every possible step to make the Iranian regime feel secure, no matter how much we may dislike their form of government. It is possible . . .

• The Iranian government has repeatedly said that the main thing it wants from the U.S. is respect


• The Iranians have offered to defund Hezbollah as part of a broader settlement with the U.S.


• The Iranians have offered to help us against the Taliban in Afghanistan, which they also dislike


• The Afghanistan government favors Iranian aid against the Taliban, but we have blocked it.


• Our government has repeatedly snubbed Iranian overtures. We must stop doing this.

We recognized and negotiated with the Communists in China and the Soviet Union to good result, and we can do the same with the Iranians. We must remove the MOTIVATION for the Iranian government to develop nuclear weapons, and give them strong incentives for peaceful relations!

We must also bolster our relationship with the Iranian people. They have come to dislike their own government and are tending to have a neutral or even positive opinion of the U.S. After the 9-11 attack Iranians flooded the streets, demonstrating in support of America.

Bombing Iran would once again make us the enemy in the eyes of the Iranian people, when instead we could restore and foster their good opinion of us. It is important to repeat that we can do this by . . .

• Taking Iran off our enemies list
  
• Apologizing loudly and publicly for the 1953 coup and our support of the Shah


• Lifting trade sanctions!

Trade sanctions do not work. They cripple civil society and permit oppressive regimes to blame their own failings on foreign powers. They are counterproductive. We should end the sanctions unilaterally and bring Iran into the world community.
We have it in our power to enhance the peace and security of the whole world. All we have to do is stop provoking people. This does not mean that the radicals will stand down, but it does mean that the process of radicalization will slow, and perhaps even stop. But first . . .We must prevent an attack on Iran. Here's what we need to do . . .

• Send a message to Congress demanding a resolution prohibiting an attack


• Call the offices of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and demand a vote on this issue


• Call Nancy Pelosi at this number: 202-225-4965


• Call Harry Reid at this number: 202-224-3542
  
• If one or more of your Senators are Republicans, call them too

Pelosi and Reid are blocking a vote on this issue because they're afraid of appearing soft. We must give them the courage to do the right thing. Republicans in the Senate are the key to getting a vote in that chamber. We must make them fear public opinion. * Send your message to Congress*

Note: There are many movements against bombing Iran, notably also Gen. Wes Clark's. Why don't these all join together in one big anti-bombing bloc??????

Iraq Slaughter Surpasses Rwanda Massacres

This just popped up on the radar. Let's pray it wormholes into the public consciousness and conscience. Another reason to work hard for withdrawal. Complete, total withdrawal. And a complete and total reversal of the anti-democracy efforts of the Bush Administration, which include, among other crimes, insanely wild warmongering.

New Poll Reveals:
September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered
In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:

- Q - How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78% One 16% Two 5% Three 1% Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance.

This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the brunt of refugees.

And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as “very/fairly good”, more than one in two (54%) consider them to be “expensive”.

Note: The opinion poll was conducted by O.R.B. and the survey details are as follows: •Results are based face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq.
•The standard margin of error on the sample size is +2.4%
•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.
•Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.
•Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx
•O.R.B. are full members of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules

Bush-Petraeus Spin Job Undercuts Admiral Fallon's Command

Not to mention the consensus of many other officers and military people on the ground in Iraq, and overseeing the whole War Operation, the global empire military enterprise dubbed "Global War on Terror", which is turning into "Global Terror Farming Operation".

If you're gonna have a war, at least let it be run by warriors, or military people. That's one more thing the Bush administration did NOT do, which has led to the total Disaster called the Iraq War. The latest in a long line of fiascos is Gen. Patraeus and the Surge Spinsters. No, they're not spin doctors, which would imply a certain level of expertise, not to mention human concern. Spinsters. They're on their own, they can't have children, and nobody wants to hook up with them. Welcome to Club Surge.

Here in this Club you have to say "My War, Right or Wrong". Now that's a new spin on patriotism. Now we have Admiral Fallon, the top dog on the ground in Iraq, in other words, Commander of CENTCOM, the superior, I repeat, superior officer over Gen Patraeus, saying the surge is a failure, it was wrong to begin with, and Patraeus is... well, let's hear it from the man in charge himself:

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.

The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".

Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to the sources. The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.

If you have the two top leaders in a war at complete odds with one another, and the one whose decision is taken is the underling, then you've got trouble. Real, bad trouble. Again, this means the Commander in Chief is basically using an officer lower in the command chain to circumvent his superior in order to spin out his own pet policy. It's not what Petraeus thinks is right. It's what Petraeus thinks is expedient to his own enhancement. It's called "ass-kissing." That is, Patraeus' spin job. But what Bush did is called "subordination", I believe.

Military guys, give me a clue. What do you call this messing with the chain of command? Is it the job of the Commander in Chief to not only set goals, but to set how those goals are to be achieved even though the consensus on the ground says otherwise? That's what military dictators do with their armies.

I used to think we were different.
"A Republic, if you can keep it." (Ben Franklin.)
Not with Bush and his like-minded "ass-kissers" in power.

We torture, that they may torture

Bridgethought of the Day: Action speaks louder than spin.

An important piece in Democracy Now!'s website entitled "UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour: The U.S. War on Terror is Constantly Being Used by Other Countries as Justification for Torture and Other Violations of International Human Rights Laws" shows another sinister consequence of our foreign policy of War Without Reason, War Without End:

"Torture, arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention in violation of right tocounsel, incommunicado detention, any country that wants to equip itselfeither through legislation or just through its practices with these kind oftools uses the example of the United States," Louise Arbour tells DemocracyNow! "If I try to call to account any government, privately or publicly, fortheir human rights records, the first response is: first go and talk to theAmericans about their human rights violations." ...

Louise Arbour is a former Supreme Court Justice in Canada, she is perhaps best known as the chief prosecutor of war crimes for the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
In 1999, she indicted Slobodan Milosevic for genocide and crimes against humanity when he was still the president of Yugoslavia. This marked the first time a sitting head of state was indicted by an international court. ...

Arbour states in an interview with Amy Goodman: "There are claims all over the world that the human rights agenda is a carrier of Western values." But "we see this very, very severe, profound attack on the very concept of universality of rights. " An attack coming, of course, from the United States, from the Bush-Cheney pro-torture camp.

She sees the root cause of instability and war worldwide, including terrorist attacks, as being the "severe inequalities in access to wealth or wealth distribution" within & between countries and regions. Now there's an assessment I can bank on! At least someone is telling the truth. And, she says, "at the end of the day we have a very unjust, very unfair world and very few institutions that permit a peaceful forum to address these issues."

Wtih our client states Saudi Arabia, a veritable mountain of human rights abuse, and Egypt, ditto, and of course, Israel - need I elaborate? is it not intuitively understood yet? - there should be no surprise that the marginalized and disenfranchised are attacking. But to view them as "fascist" is a complete cop-out, a conspiracy-theorist's wormhole. And a bold lie.

She adds that " I think the current US place in the world is perceived as so adversarial to many aspirations, particularly in the Arab world, that I think it jeopardizes the capacity of the United States to carry the message that I don't doubt the US is still very committed to." She notes the U.S.'s long-standing commitment to human rights, democracy, freedom, and, to a lesser extent, social justice. But she condemns "renditions", the policy of kidnapping and punishing terror suspects without due process of law as "completely" undermining the legal framework that protects are protected against illegal activities.

When Amy Goodman brought up "the US ambassador to the United Nations at the time, John Bolton, criticized your remark, saying, “I think it’s inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we’re engaged in in the war on terror with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers,” Arbour responds that " I think, as the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner, not only I have the right, it is actually my mandate to ensure the safeguard -- I’m the guardian of the Convention Against Torture." She states that her opinions are based on the "obvious" and openly known facts regarding torture and the principles against its use.

Well, first, let’s make very clear: the United States is not a signatory to a lot of important international human rights treaties and conventions. Now, in a lot of cases, the US would say, “Well, we don't need to ratify these treaties. Our domestic laws are even superior in terms of their level of protection.” But, again, the signal that it sends, I think, is very problematic, when the US is one of a handful -- I think maybe just two countries -- that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for instance, CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women."

When asked about what effect U.S. policies have had on other countries, Arbour says it's used as a justification for others to do what we do: "the same thing: recourse to torture, arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention in violation of, you know, right to counsel -- incommunicado detention, essentially. Any country that wants to equip itself, either through legislation or just through its practices with these kinds of tools, uses the example of the United States.
The other consequence, of course, is, if I try to call to account any government, privately or publicly, for their human rights records, the first response is, “First go and talk to the Americans about their human rights violations. Then come and talk to us.” This is invariable, accusing me -- and generically me, my office -- of bias by being, quote, “soft on the US” and very hard on others who have less means and less ability to comply with their obligations. So that’s the cultural landscape in the advancement of human rights in the context of the war on terror."

Actions, in other words, speak louder than spin.

Pretty soon it looks like we'll be moving toward the direction of Egypt: you can dance all night, drink till you're smashed, eat till you explode, but please ... let the government do whatever it wants, torture, kidnap, assassinate, invade, pollute, violate, whatever ... power to the executive, entertainment to the People!

Unless some People stop spinning and start taking action. People who never torture. Ever.

Cruelty to Children, thanks to U.S. foreign policy

Bridgethought of the Day: Democracy is not cruel, inhuman, or invasive. If actions speak louder than words, and they do, what does it say about us to the rest of the world? Our "democracy" is just another codeword for "hypocrisy." Or so it looks to everyone outside Island America. You can't bring democracy by force.

Case in point: the War in Iraq, and its devastating effect on children there.

Don't get self-righteous so fast, dems. In this eye-opening article on Dahr Jamail's website, you can listen to the Clinton Administration's own Madeline Albright in one of her many compassion-free moments:

By now Iraq has seen a generation of children pass with just survival a
major issue. During the period of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in the
1990s, more than half a million children died, according to the United
Nations.

In 1996, former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright was asked by
Lesley Stahl on the CBS ླྀ Minutes' show if she thought the price of half a
million dead children was worth it. She replied, "I think this is a very hard
choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it."

Worth it? And so, apparently, is the Iraq War and its untold millions of refugees, dead, hungry, thirsty, homeless, and virtually everything BUT democratized. Gee, didn't know democracy could be so cruel. But for a good cause! Democracy! Half a million dead children? Worth it!

And so Bush-Cheney just continues to fight the good fight, continue the dream. The casualties? Children...

Ahmed Ali's scathing article about how U.S. operations in Baquba have robbed children there of their childhood, describes how in Iraq:

According to an Oxfam report on Iraq released Jul. 30, "92 percent of
children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the current
climate of fear. Schools are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too
fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to
a recent estimate by Save the Children UK -- up from 600,000 in 2004."
The
Oxfam report also said that child malnutrition rates in Iraq have risen from 19
percent before the invasion in 2003, to 28 percent. "More than 11 percent of
newborn babies were born underweight in 2006, compared with 4 percent in
2003."

Not to mention the lack of toys, free time, safety or security ... so what can children in Iraq do in their "spare time" using energy gained from sparse rations? What else do people do in Iraq now that the U.S. invaded?

According to an L.A. Times Article, "More children are doing the bombings and killings in Iraq."

Boys, some as young as 11, now outnumber foreign fighters at U.S.
detention camps in Iraq. Since March, their numbers have risen from 100 to 800,
said Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, the commander of detainee operations.

And with perhaps 2 million + refugees coming out of Iraq, what does the future exactly hold for Iraqi children?

Democracy? Yeah, right.