Our unofficial taboo animal

Don't get me wrong, I'm an animal lover and something of an animal rights sort of guy, but please this is going a little too far:

The line of horses stepping toward slaughter at a DeKalb plant came to an abrupt halt Thursday after a federal court order that animal-rights advocates hope may mark the end of the killing and shipping of meat overseas.

Animal advocates hope permanent action comes soon enough that the last horse butchered in the U.S. for human consumption was in Cavel International Inc.'s "killing box" on Wednesday.

[H]orses enjoy a warmer place in American hearts than the other hoofed livestock. Yet horses at Cavel are slaughtered just like cattle -- with a handheld "penetrating captive bolt" device applied to the skull that opponents consider barbaric but regulators consider humane. The meat is destined mostly for Europe, where it is considered a delicacy.
John Biemer, Chicago Tribune.com

As India reveres the cow, now America reveres the horse. If you thought the Hindu prohibition against eating beef was odd, here we see the process that transformed a food animal into a god in action in this country. Let us hope than some incurible disease never ravages America's livestock of beef cattle, pigs and chicken, leaving us only horses to eat. We'd starve.

Gonzales case gets curiouser and curiouser

Until this morning I never heard of Monica Goodling or that she is a top official in AG Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. She is nothing more than Alberto's counsel and White House liaison. As near as I can figure out, she's the human conduit, or interface, officially masking any direct contact between the Attorney General's office and Karl Rove. One would assume that a person holding such an influential, though little know to the public, position would have a law degree from one of America's most prestigious law schools?

Goodling, 33, is a 1995 graduate Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., an institution that describes itself as "committed to embracing an evangelical spirit."

She received her law degree at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. Regent, founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, says its mission is "to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world."
Fort Wayne.com

Already Monica is making a difference in our world.

Christians promote holy war, religious hatred

I received this email yesterday:

A FORWARD!!

Can a Muslim be a Muslim-American?

My Friends..... I received this from a close friend who was engaged in the protection of our Country prior to his retirement. He was an Intelligence officer of some renown. This is something to ponder...Too many of our citizens think this is a minor problem, and if we ignore it, that it will go away...The threat is real !!!!!.........

Have you ever thought -- Is Muslim-American really an oxymoron? Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen?
I forwarded that question to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his forwarded reply:

"Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia. Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)

Scripturally, no Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically, no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Intellectually, no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically, no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or Autocratic.

Spiritually, no. Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 excellent names."

Therefore after much study and deliberation.... perhaps we should be
very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both "good" Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish.....it's still the truth.

If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above statements, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.

The religious war is bigger and more complex than most Americans
currently know or understand

After scanning over this...hmmm...what is a good one word term for religious bigotry...I don't think there is one...if there isn't we certianly need one. Anyway, after cursory reading I composed this reply:

I had a very good friend in college, Eddie M______ (I'm not sure how to correctly spell his last name, really, because I never asked him), he was from Cedar Rapids; he liked to drink, smoke pot and party; and he was a Muslim. In fact, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is home to the Mother Mosque of America, the oldest mosque in the United States!

But bullshit like this e-mail is why I'm an atheist! Fuck Christianity. Fuck Judaism. And fuck Islam. All three are sick, twisted and perverted. If I had my way I'd drop a nuclear bomb on Jerusalem, Mecca and Vatican City! That would shut these religious assholes up but quick. And if the fucking Mormons said boo about it, I'd nuke Salt Lake City to boot! And if that fat fuck Jerry Falwell opened his fat yap, boom-boom Lynchburg, VA and the Thomas Road Baptist Church!

Actually my atheism goes much deeper than merely being anti-organized religion or anti-monotheism, though monotheism is at the root of the world's many problems.

Growing up, I was taught that monotheism was the evolutionary culmination of human relgious thought: First there was animism, the childish belief in spirits or lifeforces in everything; then came polytheism, the ancient Greek and Romans' misguided and superstitious belief in many gods and goddesses; finally, with the ancient Hebrews first getting it right, monotheism! Now why having one all-powerful, all-knowing god was preferable to having many not-so-powerful, not-so-all-knowing gods was never really explained fully to my way of thinking, but I excepted the premise. This, I believe, is as good of definition of "faith" as any: Accepting any premise which cannot be verified or quantified, by empirical measurment or experimentation, as true.

As far as I'm concerned monotheism is mankind's worst invention ever. Here's my thumbnail history of monotheism: A thousand or so years before the "birth of Christ" an paranoid, delusional, megalomaniacal Egyptian king, Ahknaton, invented a "one-god" relgion. Ahknaton's motiving idea was to strip politcal and economic power from anciet Egypt's powerful priestly caste, especially the priesthood of Amun-Ra, therefore he invented one all-powerful diety with himself as its sole mediator. Ahknaton, and only Ahknation had the direct line to god, in other words, much as popes do in our age.

Now here's were things get murky. It seems that a Semitic tribe living in Egyptian territory at that time, gravitated to Ahknaton's way to thinking, for reasons known only to themselves. This Semitic tribe may have been the reminent of the Hyksos, a people who dominated the Nile Delta region of Egypt nearly a century before Ahknaton's time. And there are tantalizing hints that later pharoahs encouraged Semitic tribes residing on Egyptian territory to migrate into ancient Canaan, now the State of Israel. However, currently historians and archaeologists have no definitive evidence to backup these claims, the Israeli government and elements of the Christian church and Islam continue to stymie archaeological research on Israeli territory for religious reasons.

But let's leave the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Judeans and even Jesus behind and fastforward to the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine is called "The Great" because he was the first Roman emperor to sanction Christianity as the official state religion. The question remains, why? It is on record that his mother, Helena, was a Christian but he never really was. Even his deathbed christening was rather lukewarm, he was just covering all bases. But like old Ahknaton, the idea of holding the one direct line to one supreme god appealed to Constantine. Having this direct line to the one god legitimized Constantine's concentration of all the Empire's political power and economic resources in his hands. In other words, like Ahknaton's "religion," Christianity, with, as one of its central tenents formulated during Constantine's reign, of one and only one individual with a direct line to the one god, lends itself to authoritarian forms of government. Islam, a descendant of Constantinian Christianity, at least in its Sunni guise, lends itself even more so to authoritarianism (this is the only kernel of truth in the above rant.)

By its very nature, monotheism is hierarchical (the supreme one sits at the very pinnacle of the universe followed by kings, popes, priests etc., on downward to the rest of us,)dictatorial (every utterance of the supreme one has the force of law to be obeyed without question,) and authoritarian (only select humans, kings, popes, priests, etc., with the direct line to the supreme one know and understand its edicts which everyone else must obey.)

I stand by my assertion that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sick. I also stand by my assertion that the "holy spaces" of those three, great sick religions must be destroyed, not necessarily physically by nuclear weapons, though that would get the message across, but demythologized; leaving these so-called "holy cities" with no more religious significance than the Parthenon in Athens or the ruins of Delphi.

The Enlightenment of Eighteenth Century Europe was a reaction to the religous wars and civil wars of the Seventheenth Century. Our American Founding Fathers were products of that Enlightenment, and, as such, philosophically felt that relgion is an agent of disunity and discord, and therefore must be kept separate and distinct from civil discourse and the political realm. In other words, the supreme one orders the unknowable portions of creation while man orders the known. The supreme one rules the out-there, the cosmos, the unknowable future, the after-life; mankind rules the here and now.

But as you can see, from the above email if nothing else, there are now forces afoot, in Christianity, in Judaism and Islam, which wish to crush the past three hundred years of human achievement in the arts, culture and political democracy under the heel of a vengeful and dictatorial supreme one.

It is past time the human race grew up and cast off these dictatorial and imaginary supreme ones, be they Yahweh, Jehovah or Allah. They've been more trouble to us than they have been worth, and have been the root cause of much hatred, war and suffering over the course of two thousand years.

Jebby's boy joins Navel Reserve

Not exactly hot off the presses, but a little news story BuzzFlash.com and the HuffingtonPost.com failed to catch.

From Politico.com that:

George P. Bush, a nephew of President Bush who was a hit on the campaign trail, has been accepted in the Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer and has begun the process of being commissioned for eight years of service.

Bush, 30, said in a telephone interview from his office at a real estate development firm in Fort Worth, Texas, that he was moved to join the service in part when he attended the rainy commissioning in October of the aircraft carrier named for his grandfather -- the USS George H.W. Bush.

Bush said he had not intended to announce his plans. "Honestly, I'm kind of a little disappointed that the word got out," he said. "I was hoping to keep this as confidential as possible. I'm not doing it for political purposes or anything along those lines.

Bush wouldn't talk about any political plans of his own, but friends say they believe the family may soon be in store for another gubernatorial campaign.

George P. is one of "the little brown ones" gandpa George H.W. spoke so lovingly about to wing nut diety Ronald Reagan and Dragon Lady Nancy at the Repub national convention in 1988. He is the older brother of Xanax junkie Noelle.

Here's what one reader, fubar43, of Poltico.com posted at the site's comments section:

Young George enlisted in the Reserve knowing full well that not many Naval Reservists are activated. It's primarily the Army and Marines that they call up. He knows that Uncle George W. will do the same for him that George H.W. did for junior. He will never see combat. This enlistment is just to quiet all of the people that have been wondering why no one from any of the Bush families is serving in the military in this "noble cause". It's everyone else's kids. Well, we will see if he is as noble as say, Prince Harry, who has asked to go to Iraq with his men. That is real courage. We will see if this Bush as any. It seems none of the other Bush's do. Where are Jenna and Barbara? They should join their cousin.

Nuff said.

Alford agrees to ruin New Mexico basketball

After eight lo-o-o-o-ng season as the University of Iowa's head men's basketball coach, Andy Katz of ESPN.com reports:

New Mexico and Iowa coach Steve Alford have agreed to the final details of a contract and Alford will be introduced as the Lobos' new coach at a news conference Friday, multiple sources in both camps said Thursday morning.

New Mexico targeted Alford within the past two weeks while also waiting to talk to Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall, whose team was playing in the NCAA Tournament. But according to multiple sources, New Mexico told Marshall on Tuesday that it would be committing to another candidate.


The courtship of Alford started in large part because of new university president David Schmidly's previous employment at Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are coached by Bob Knight, who coached Alford at Indiana in the 1980s.

Sources close to Alford said he was looking for a new challenge following some stressful seasons in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes have had some issues off the court, notably Pierre Pierce's legal troubles during Alford's tenure. Once the Hawkeyes' leading scorer, Pierce was charged with assault in 2002 and then in 2005 sentenced to prison on an array of charges involving an incident with a former girlfriend.

Actually, Alford should have been fired for his handling of the Pierce situation, but that's just my opinion.

But the real reason I grew sick of Alford was that he does not know how to develop players. I mean, Alford aplogists say he couldn't recruit good players at Iowa. That's bullshit. He recruited some very good players, very talented players, then squandered their abilities. But his real failure is that he can't take the kid with raw, underdeveloped talent and teach them. He pampered his stars and let the rest of the kids flounder.

Republican-Lite Reps may torpedo Iraq War bill

Jesus Christ! read this:

(03-20) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Only two things are certain as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic deputies prepare for this week's House vote on a war spending bill that seeks the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2008.

The Democratic House leadership will need near-unanimity among its members to pass the bill. San Francisco's Pelosi and the deputies face a challenge winning support from a caucus that includes conservative Blue Dog Caucus members worried the bill may restrict the president more than they want(emphasis mine) and ardent anti-war Out of Iraq Caucus lawmakers who think the bill's restrictions don't go far or fast enough.
SFGate.com

Why don't these Blue Dogs just change parties? Or, better yet, a name change to Lap Dogs.

Overheard at the McAllen Airport

Jus' got in from Texas, babe. Nice weather, friendly people. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details of the trip. Suffice to to say it was nice.

But when I was leaving Thursday morning, I found myself sitting next to a pair of sales representative types, and there's nothing unusual about that. But I couldn't help but overhear their conversation.

One guy was telling the other about a video he saw from Iraq, I can't remember where he said he got hold of this thing. He said it was of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle exploding after hitting an IED. He mentioned nothing of the soldiers who may have been trapped inside, who may have been wounded or killed, just the ammunition boiling up like fireworks. He thought it was really, really cool.

I felt like saying something, but I took Falstaff's way out.

Talk about your disconnect.

My flight doesn't leave until noon

My bag is packed, so I'm just killing time until my ride to the airport shows. I just got a nice email from that o', so nice conservative gentleman, Richard Viguerie.

Poll at CPAC Shows Overwhelming Support for New RepublicanLeadership;
Few Believe Bush or Congress Learned From Mistakes;
Tancredo, Gingrich, Brownback Seen as Most Conservative

(Washington, D.C.) A poll by ConservativesBetrayed.com of 526 persons attending the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. showed that an overwhelming 81.7% believe the Republican Party and Congressional Republicans need new leaders. Only 7.9% supported the present GOP leadership with 10.4% undecided.

When asked if President Bush had learned from his mistakes and will now govern as a conservative, only 18.4% agreed, while 58.8% disagreed and 23.1% were undecided.

When the same question was asked about Congressional Republicans, 30.3% thought they had learned from their mistakes and would revert back to conservative principles, 58.5% did not think so, and 23.1% were undecided.

Respondents were asked if various candidates for President, if elected, would govern as a conservative. Counting only those who had an opinion about a candidate, the results were:
Tom Tancredo 88.1%
Newt Gingrich 87.9%
Sam Brownback 85.8%
Duncan Hunter 83.5%
Mike Huckabee 73.8%
Ron Paul 62.3%
Mitt Romney 55.2%
Rudy Guiliani 24.1%
John McCain 16.8%

The opposition to McCain was so strong that, when asked if they would vote for him if he were the Republican nominee, only 43.1% said they would. The rest would either vote for the Democratic nominee, support a third party candidate, not vote at all, or were undecided.

When the same question was asked about Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani, 57.9% and 58.3%, respectfully, indicated they would vote for them for president in the general election.

Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause, said the poll was bad news for the GOP.

“Only small percentages thought President Bush and the Republicans in the Congress had learned anything from the 2006 elections. It appears to be business as usual at the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. With less than 8% supporting the present Republican leadership, the 2008 elections could very well hand the GOP another thumping,” Viguerie said.

A separate poll conducted during CPAC, and a previous online version, asked which persons, groups, or factors were most responsible for the Republican defeats in the 2006 elections. Those results are posted on the ConservativesBetrayed.com website.

Tom Tancredo?! Hey, I hope he runs for president on the Republican ticket. He'd win. Close off the borders and then send all the welfare mothers to work in the lettuce fields, no health care, food stamps, Medicare or Medicaid, end the income tax, initiate a national sales tax (the so-called Value Added Tax), and meddle even more in the Middle East (After all, all Americans love Israel and those fuckin' Arabs are sitting on our oil!). With an administration like that this country would look like Mexico, without the Mexicans, in no time!

One comment before I leave

I'm all fired up for vacation, just about ready to finish packing and I read this:

WASHINGTON - In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats are advancing legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.

Democratic officials who described the measure said the timetable would be accelerated — to the end of 2007 — if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not meet goals for providing Iraq's security.
Yahoo.com

This appears to be a step in the right direction. As I mentioned the other day, setting a date for withdrawl is more meaningful that nipping around the edges.

However, with Congressional Democrats there is always the possibility of a fumble at the goal line, with the Republicans recovering and running the ball back for a touchdown.

Yet it also permits Bush to issue waivers of these standards. Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president into adhering to the standards. But they concede the overall effect will be to permit the administration to proceed with plans to deploy five additional combat brigades to the Baghdad area over the next few months.

This legislation sounds like a promising start. The hang up is with these unnamed "moderate" Democrats in the House. Will they screw the pooch?

[House Speaker Nancy]Pelosi and the leadership have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.

Mark my word, we are in for a season of Congressional dithering and the continued effusion of American and Iraqi blood.

Vacation

Off to warmer climes for the next eight days. But with global warming, by the time I get back to the Midwest it'll all be the same.

Not all Iowa vets are Neanderthals*

A letter in this morning's Des Moines Register speaks for itself.

Regarding Larry Disney's Feb. 25 letter to the editor, "Iraq Will Be Like Vietnam If Lefties Have Their Way": As a lefty, I will gladly accept blame for getting out of Iraq, if righties will accept blame for going into Iraq based on lies.

As a veteran of Vietnam, I recall that it was not just Democrats and the "left," but the American people who withdrew their support for that war. Funny how some on the "right" seem to leave that part out, just like their selective memory on how we got into the mess in Iraq.

I would also like to remind Disney that the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was already operating in division-sized units in South Vietnam, despite the best efforts of the U.S. Air Force to stop the infiltration via the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos and Cambodia.

Disney's closing point changes the parameters of his letter to the whole Middle East. If the whole Middle East explodes into violence, I hope that those of Disney's political persuasion have the courage to stand up and say we have reaped what we have sown.

- Mark D. Brooks,

master sgt. retired,

Carlisle.

We need to hear from more veterans like Mark Brooks. It's too bad we don't. I know they are out there.

*My sincerest apologies to any real Homo neanderthalensis who many yet be lurging in the mountains of southern France.

Army hospital cover-up on horizon

From The Huffington Post.com

WASHINGTON — President Bush has enlisted former Sen. Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to lead an investigation of problems at the nation's military and veterans' hospitals.

Bush was to announce his appointments Tuesday in a speech to the American Legion.

The president announced last Friday he had ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at the nation's network of military and veteran hospitals, which has been overwhelmed by injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The review came in the wake of disclosures of shoddy outpatient health care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, one of the nation's premier facilities for treating veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Can't comment now. Gotta run. But with these two in charge...well just look at all the discipline problems that cropped up with the University of Miami football program since Shalala took over as president there. As for Bob "I shot myself to get out of combat" Dole, his record of placing party loyality before the national interest speaks for itself.

What more can I say???

A tip o' the spoon, to Wonkette.com, who linked this from Michelle Malkin is an Idiot.com.
BTW, The Huffington Post.com, that freewheeling bastion of free speech has closed all discussion for this topic. It seems the HuffPo has grown a little gun-shy, and censorial, after commenters wished ill of Vice President Cheney after a terrorist bombing attempt during a trip to Afghanistan. Won't want HuffPo posters making unwarrented cracks about Ann Coulter's crack.

Xenophobic, racist joke

A "joke" I received via email:

Subject: The United States of America
A Somali arrives in Minneapolis as a new immigrant to the United States.

He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, "Thank you Mr. American for letting me in this country, giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care, and free education!"

The passerby says, "You are mistaken, I am Mexican."

The man goes on and encounters another passerby. "Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America!"

The person says, "I not American, I Vietnamese."

The new arrival walks further, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand and says, "Thank you for the wonderful America!"

That person puts up his hand and says, "I am from Middle East, I am not American!"

He finally sees a nice lady and asks, "Are you an American?"

She says, "No, I am from Africa!"

Puzzled, he asks her, "Where are all the Americans?"

The African lady checks her watch and says..."Probably at work."

Is this supposed to be funny? I'm sure it's the wit and wisdom of some officebound, ass polisher. You know the type of guy: Degree in business administration, thinks he's real productive and the hardest working among all his co-slugs, but spends most of his day coming up with lame ass jokes, such as this, on company time.

Enough with the "Walter Reed" B.S. already

Just received this email from my US Representative:

Dear Fellow Iowan,
As you may know, stories of neglect and substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were first reported by the Washington Post almost two weeks ago. Like most people, I was appalled to hear of the conditions.

The treatment and living conditions for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed and other VA and military medical facilities around the country is simply unacceptable.

This week, House Democrats will hold a series of hearings to examine conditions at Walter Reed and other facilities and the challenges facing wounded soldiers. Hearings scheduled include:

Oversight: Monday, 10:00 am
Veterans Affairs: Tuesday, 2:00 pm
Armed Services: Thursday, 10:00 am
Veterans Affairs: Thursday, 3:30 pm

I’m also pleased that the president will name a bipartisan commission to assess whether the problems at Walter Reed also exist at other facilities (emphasis mine).

Please be assured that I will work with my colleagues in the House to ensure our troops have the tools, resources, care, and support they need – both on the battlefield and when they return home.

Sincerely,

Leonard L. Boswell
Member of Congress

Gee, ain't this sump'in. Congressman Boswell had no idea conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital...oops...Medical Center were bad until he read Dana Priest's Washington Post stories. I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on Leonard, he is a nice guy after all and being Chair of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry must take up most of his waking hours. As a retired career US Army veteran, I'm sure Congressman Boswell is truly concerned that our boys and girls in uniform aren't getting the best possible medical care. But it's still all bullshit.

How could he not be aware of the 2005 federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission's recomendations? That was a bipartisan commission too. And, fuck, if a congressman or a senator wants to see if conditions at other military medical facilities are as bad as Walter Reed's, all he has to do is make a surprize visit. What the fuck's so hard about that? By setting up a "bipartisan" commission, and with Def Sec Gates firing Walter Reed's head honcho, that signals all the other roach-hotel commanders to tidy up their particular dump before the VIPs and TeeVee cameras show up. Nothing like telegraphing your punches, is there?

Look, these Republican fucks in the White House and Congress want any and all federal facilities, from the Postal Service to the VA, to fail, miserably. They'd like nothing better than to say, "The private sector can do it better," which we know it can't. The only function of the federal government these assholes want to keep intact is the military-industrial complex. And that's because they hold large shares of stock in defense-aerospace-secuity companies, not out of any sense of patriotism.

As for well-intentioned Democrats who want our boys and girls in uniform to have the best possible medical care and all the body armor and ammunition they could ever want at taxpayer expense, how will that hasten the end to our current engagement in Iraq? Shouldn't we be making the option of a military career so unappealing, so distasteful, that no one in his right mind would ever want to enlist in the All Volunteer Force?

Why we're in for the long haul in Iraq

A letter in this morning's Des Moines Register illustrates why this nation is doomed to stay in Iraq for a very long time and why, when we are inevitably forced to leave, the aftermath will be as predictable as it will be tragic. (Emphasis mine.)

I was appalled at U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack's statement that he was "amazed" by the spirit and dedication of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq. This was spoken by a true Democrat who would rather play politics than be open-minded, listen and learn from a firsthand experience.

As a 21-year veteran of the United States Air Force, I can assure you that we are trained to fight at war, and know how to accomplish that quite well. It is only when our elected leaders get in the way that we have difficulty accomplishing the mission.

What did Loebsack expect to see - men and women whining and complaining that there were no weapons of mass destruction, or the military establishment complaining that the enemy was not defeated in five minutes like this is a video game?

The military is a fantastic group of trained and dedicated individuals. They can and will win the war if "leaders" like Loebsack would get their politics out of the way.

- Tony Vola,

retired Lt. Col., USAF,

Des Moines.

Ah, yes, the old "politicians stabbed our boys in uniform in the back" meme rears its ugly head. Of course this always leads to more militarism and military adventureism until the country gets it right, which it never does.

USMC winning hearts & minds in Afghanistan

Ever wonder why the United States Marine Corp is held up as a paragon of American military virtue? So do I. Here's how our Fightin' Leathernecks are working hard to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, courtesy Editor&Publisher.com

JALALABAD, Pakistan -- U.S. Marines fleeing a militant ambush Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.

As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar. But Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, said those killed and injured may have been shot by the militants.

More than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest highways — a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles.

That's not all. In a related incident, uniformed Americans--it is unclear from the story if the Americans involved were US Army soldiers or Marines--deleted pictures taken by an AP photographer.

An American soldier then took [AP photographer Rahmat] Gul's camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier then raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul.

The story says "soldiers" but since I, as an American citizen, can't even tell the difference between Army and Marine Corp BDUs, why would anyone expect an Afghan civilian to?

Ann, GOP in lover's spat, Dip-Mitt's her main man

The fallout continues over Ann Coulter's "faggot" remark. Rudy Il Duce Giuliani tut-tutted in person and Hanoi John McCain mailed in his outrage.

But, hey, she was just kidding.

Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”
New York Times.com

Just like I'm just kidding that it'd be awfully funny if I read in the Huffington Post, BuzzFlash or Raw Story that Ann was brutally beaten and raped by a gang of hopped-up College Republicans who mistook her for Barbara Streisand! Haw, haw. Just kidding, Ann.

Anywho, Annie doesn't care about what Rudy-Duce or Hanoi John thinks; Mitt Romney's her mainsqueeze. Evangelicals for Mitt writes: "What she said was not hate-filled; it was just unnecessary and way over the line." According to this Web site, DNC chair Howard Dean's statement that Coulter's remark was "hate-filled and bigoted[,]" was just as over-the-top. Ann was just being Ann.

Well, there's a little more to it. You see, Ann and Dip-Mitt are classmates, and by that I don't mean they ever attended the same school at the same time together. There's at least a ten year age difference. No, no, Annie-No-Fannie and Dip-Mitt are members of the same socio-economic class, the very wealthy, well-connected and privileged. They're what the British call "upper class twits."

Edwards to make hay from Coulter comment

Ann Coulter, the dumb bitch...well not so dumb...stupid...well, maybe...but calculating...has temporarily revived her sagging career by calling Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards a "faggot."

How utterly clever. Even witty, if it had been spoken by a 13-year-old boy who's trying to impress a couple of bigger kids, who've threatened to beat him up because he's a pansy.

Edwards' campaign has challenged Democrats to raise $100,000 in "Coulter Cash."