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."

And just what IS our soldiers' and Marines' job in Iraq?

David Sirota is pissed-off, pissed-off he tells you! by an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post where Democrats in the US House are not falling in line behind Congressman John Murtha's Iraq funding proposals. Many amongst the so-called progressives seem to believe Murtha's plan will shorten our troops' stay in Iraq.

I beg to differ.

Before endorsing Congressman Murtha's plan wholeheartedly consider this, will it get the 120,000 or so troops already in Iraq out?

As I am given to understand Rep. Murtha's proposal, it's primary purpose is to stop any further "escalation", or "surge" of additional US ground forces into Iraq; nothing about bringing anybody home. And, anyway, Murtha, as a career Marine, should relize that Pentgon planners will find a work-around to any limit of warm bodies in BDUs.

As for giving our soldiers and Marines in Iraq the training and equipment to better do their job, one must logically ask:What is their job?

That's pretty easy.

The job of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq is simple: Kill the so-called insurgents, surpress the insurgents' captured or wounded comrades, repress any complaints by the insurgents' surviving families, and oppress everybody else.

What a noble calling.

There are only two ways the United States will get out of Iraq: Either our forces suffer a devastating and humiliating combat defeat, and the prospect of that ever happening is slim to none, or a general mutiny.

If significant numbers of our troops in Iraq mutinied, and it could just be by refusing to leave base, then this whole house of cards would come tumbling down. It was a general mutiny by enlisted seamen and some sympathetic officers in Kaiser Wilhelm's Imperial Navy which effectively took Germany out of World War I.

If we follow Murtha's logic, what incentive is there for ever leaving a country whose people have grown very tired of our presence? If we give the troops already in Iraq the equipment and training to do their job better, why leave? And, anyway, who would most benefit from an increase in funding for the equipment, so that our young men and women in Iraq can kill more with less? The military-aerospace-security-complex of course.

Murtha's plan is worse than no plan. It is legerdemain, a cheap card-trick to keep those who want to be there, there.

Soldier save yourself.

If the American boots on the ground in Iraq's job was to hand out chocolates and flowers, then, good, give'em all the training and equipment they want. But it's not.

Good Soldier, Good Taxpayer

By Doug Minkler, via The Black Commentator.com

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

We'll miss her.

Proof, Wingnuts are stupid.

Back on December 22, 2006 I wrote:

Dubya, after hearing Commander Milquetoast, Harry Reid, say that a "suge" of 20,000 to 30,000 more American soldiers into Baghdad might be a good thing, has coyly been tossing around the idea of, somehow, increasing the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. But how to do that without either recourse to a draft or increasing pay and sign-up bonuses?

I have the solution: illegal immigrants.

Now look, according to the likes of Congressman Steve King, there is something like 11 to 12 million of these illegal critters running around the country. And even he acknowledges that our country is dependent on this hoard of undocumented, and unwashed, to kill our beeves, roof our houses and wipe our butts when we go to the nursing home. They, for the most part, would like to remain here as "legal" immigrants, but the system now in place for legal immigration is so labyrinthine and Byzantine as to make it all but impossible.

So here's what we do. Have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, gang round up every illegal, undocumented immigrant, alien, work they possibly can; tell'em they can be "legal" if they serve a minimum of five years in the Army or Marines; and ship their asses to Iraq! Hell, they can take their families too!

Simple, no?

This is so evil, I don't know why Ollie North never thought of it.

So this morning I received this e-mail, twice!

MAKES SENSE TO ME!!!
Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use. The best way to
stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal immigrants! That
would be 11 million less people using our gas. The price of gas
would come down. Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the border.
When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a
canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq. Tell him if he wants to
come to America then he must serve a tour in the military. Give him a
soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it. After his tour,
he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country.
He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot. This
option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for
the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for
themselves. If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway,
without the canteen, rifle or ammo. Problem solved. If you think this is a
good solution to both the problems, forward it to your friends.
I just did.

What I orignally wrote was satire. Soon after that I posted something very similar at The Huffington Post. Shortly after that I read an article written by Jorge Mariscal posted on January 5, 2007 at CounterPunch.com claiming that the Pentagon already has a program to accomplish this called the DREAM Act.

It's a stupid idea for many reasons, not the least of which is that it would do nothing to stem, slow or stop illegal immigration. But from the tenor of the e-mail I received the Pentagon is selling DREAM and the wingnuts are eating it up.

Bush wins, Iraq occupation goes on, get over it.

Actually it's very simple, really. Despite Democratic wins at the ballot box back in November, and the recommendations of the so-called Iraq Study Group, chaired by Bush Family consigliari James Baker, III, President George W. Bush will do exactly whatever he wants in Iraq.

Look, Bush is probably the most ignorant, ill-informed...aww hell, he's just plain stupid...president in the country's history. But some one has been coaching Dubya on Constitutional history; undeclared wars have long been a feature of American government and a prerogative of presidents*. Add to this toxic brew of Constitutional precedent and magalomania, within the form of "our" president, the modern mainstream media, a pack of fat, pampered lapdogs, plus "bi"-partisan Democrats (Joe Lieberman) and you have the receipt for more of the same in Iraq.

Here's what I mean. In the New York Times ,"...Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania...said he expected Congress to move to restrict funding for new troop deployments — or at the very least tie approval to a set of stringent conditions the White House would have to meet first.

But a couple of paragraphs down Democratic chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, says, "...he did not believe Congress should 'use the power of the purse' to halt the president’s plan and should go no further than approving non-binding resolutions opposing it."

Got that. A U.S. Representative, the power of the federal purse resides in the U.S. House, predicts, not a cut-off but a reduction in funding for new troop deployments. What that really means is that funding for American forces in Iraq at present levels will continue, just nothing for throwing additional fresh bodies into the mix. Meanwhile across the Capitol Hall, a supposedly staunch Senatorial critic of the president says Congress should do nothing more than wag its finger at Bush.

This same article then goes on with a prescient observation by pretty-boy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, after disclosing there already exsists a sufficient funds to carryout the presidnet's wishes of an Iraq troop increase,“I think once they get in harm’s way, Congress’s tradition is to support those troops[.]” And so they shall.

And so shall this bloody, pointless conflict will spiral down to its inevitable conclusion, whatever that may be. My best quess is that it will end in some sort of defeat of American forces concentrated in Baghdad, along the lines of Stalingrad or the Tet offensive of 1968 or the the Black Hawk Down incident of 1993. By that I mean claustrophbic, urban warfare, brutal and bloody.

But defeat in the streets of Baghdad would never prevent the United States from wandering into future ill-favored military advesntures. Our history is replete with military debacles, disasters and defeats that are transformed, through the magic of time, prejudice and propaganda, into heroic feats of arms in the face of a superior foe, usually foreign or non-White.

The best possible course to conclude the Iraq adventure would be a general mutiny by the soldiers stationed in Baghdad; a general refusal to leave their bases or pick up their weapons. I believe the majority of the American people would support a mutiny at this time since the president and political leaders of both parties have failed to admit a monumental mistake. And if Marines stationed in Iraq's Anbar province were sent in to resort order, I do not think the American public would stand for the sight of American Marines turning their weapons on American soldiers. Nor do I think the American people would support mass drumhead courts martial of mutineers.

I hold out little hope of a mutiny. Historically mutinies by disaffected troops have toppled more corrupt governments than elections, coups d'etat or revolutions combined. I don't think our troops in Iraq have the stomach for mutiny though, they don't have the guts. They'll go on griping and bitching and doing their duty of killing some people while oppressing the rest, and dying. And this thing, Iraq, will not end in a bang but a whimper and our leaders will have learned nothing.

*America's first undeclared war was the so-called Quasi-War against France during John Adams' administration. The United States Senate never officially declared war against the Confederacy.

Wow, I haven't posted since the second

But, then again, there's a pall that's dropped over time and history. We are collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop. We are collectively waiting for Dubya to roll the dice. We are collectively waiting for the cards to be turned in. We are collectively waiting for the armies to be massed.

LTE: January 2, 2007

For as long as I have lived in Des Moines and Iowa, which is all my life, a host of boosters, both elected and never-elected, have tried to "snazz up," "jazz up," and "polish up" the state's image.

Many attempt to make Iowa, and Des Moines specifically, some sort of tourist/entertainment destination. But most have come to a sorry end because they were either not original (the "they do it in California" syndrome) , under funded, under attended or just plain harebrained.

Under the harebrained rubric comes the "caucus TV spectacular" idea promoted by Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau president Greg Edwards and Blank Park Zoo director Terry Rich, "TV special can jazz up caucuses, backers say," January 2, 2007.

Citizens of the United States are cynical enough about the political process without the likes of a Britney Spears shaking her booty for ballots or a Lee Greenwood patriotic salute to corn and the Iowa caucuses.

The Iowa caucuses were intended as the first serious look at both parties presidential candidates, with the emphasis on serious. Let's not turn them into another tawdry television special.

LTE: December 29, 2006

Regardless of his motives, whether to heal the nation’s “wounds” in the wake of the Watergate scandal, a simple act of compassionate or acting on a suggestion by White House Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig, Gerald R. Ford’s pardon of Richard M. Nixon had far reaching and unintended consequences.


The sight of a former president having his day in court would have sent the clear signal to the American people that our Constitutional system of justice works. Instead, by issuing a pardon before any indictments were ever handed down in any jurisdiction for Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal, Ford short-circuited our constitutional system, and effectively placed Nixon above the law.

Rather than binding wounds, the pardon sent the cynical message that there is, indeed, two systems of justice: One for the politically powerful and well connected and another for the rest of the American people.

This was a lesson not lost on Ronald Reagan, with his alleged non-involvement in the so-called Iran-Contra scandal. Moreover the opera buffa of Bill Clinton, presided over by the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the late William Rehnquist in a robe inspired by a character out of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta The Mikado, made the threat of presidential impeachment laughable.

Now we find ourselves with no powerful Constitutional remedy for a willful president who has led this nation into a ruinous and senseless occupation of a country that could really never do us any harm.

Perpare for Gerald Ford shit storm

O.K., so 93-year-old Gerald R. Ford dies in his sleep last night.

From the way the media is carrying on, you'd get the idea he was our greatest president and not just a footnote of history.

For the next month or so we're going to be deluged with the weepy-weepies about what a great guy he was. And maybe that is so.

But, Jesus christ, I wish these fucking media people would take a clue from the Amish when it come to dead. It's just a part of life. We bury, or whatever we do to the corpse, say a few appropriate words, for the living the recently deceased is past caring, and life goes on.

The worst part of all this national moaning is that poor Gerry's body is put on ice while all this bullshit goes on before it's dropped into the grave. How fucking dignified!

Bush:"Increase military to fight t'rr'r." So who pays?

Yes, indeed. Who will pay for pResident Bush's planned increase in the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps?

Charles Moskos, a military sociologist and professor emeritus at Northwestern University, said that without a draft, the burden of the war falls disproportionately on the working class. He noted that of his 1956 Princeton University class of 750 men, 450 served. In the Princeton University class of 2006 there were 1,108 men and women, but only nine have joined the military.

"They call this an all-volunteer military," Moskos said. "But in the United States we are paying people to die for us."

Moskos said the other advantage of a draft is that it is far cheaper than a volunteer military.
Chicago Tribune.com

The answer is, Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, you will.

By the way, the above quoted paragraphs were buried in a story by reporters Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel. In fact the story ends on a curiously upbeat note:"The incentives* have borne fruit. The 2006 recruiting season, which ended in October, saw the Army pull in 80,635 recruits, just over its 80,000 goal. It has stayed above targets since then.

The big bug-a-boo is how to pay for it. Since raising taxes is anathema to Republicans and DLC Democrats alike, and don't expect the companies waxing fat profits off this Mess-O-Potamia to pay their fair share of protection money. Do expect further erosion of governmental services, except for police repression law enforcement, from Medicare to child care in the near future.

*By raising incentives and bonus money, adding recruiters and continuing to increase the military advertising budget, the Army should be able to sign up an extra 10,000 people a year within the current all-volunteer system, according to many military experts. But they add that an extra 10,000 soldiers would cost at least $1.2 billion extra annually.

How to stem the tide of illegal immigration and keep the war in Iraq going

I just had this wonderful idea. I was inspired by a statement by the current Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, who said, Thursday, that society as a whole would benefit by a return of a military draft.

Now even though I'm anti-military--I think soldiers, like preachers, are given way too much respect in this society-- I agree with Nicholson's opinion that a draft "...does bring people from all quarters of our society together in the common purpose of serving." Of course, as soon as he uttered these words Nicholson was forced to retract same. Undoubtedly Nicholson got some heat from the Republicans for even fantasizing about putting the butts of their lily white young'uns in BDUs.

But now there's a dilemma of the "surge."

Dubya, after hearing Commander Milquetoast, Harry Reid, say that a "suge" of 20,000 to 30,000 more American soldiers into Baghdad might be a good thing, has coyly been tossing around the idea of, somehow, increasing the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. But how to do that without either recourse to a draft or increasing pay and sign-up bonuses?

I have the solution: illegal immigrants.

Now look, according to the likes of Congressman Steve King, there is something like 11 to 12 million of these illegal critters running around the country. And even he acknowledges that our country is dependent on this hoard of undocumented, and unwashed, to kill our beeves, roof our houses and wipe our butts when we go to the nursing home. They, for the most part, would like to remain here as "legal" immigrants, but the system now in place for legal immigration is so labyrinthine and Byzantine as to make it all but impossible.

So here's what we do. Have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, gang round up every illegal, undocumented immigrant, alien, work they possibly can; tell'em they can be "legal" if they serve a minimum of five years in the Army or Marines; and ship their asses to Iraq! Hell, they can take their families too!

Simple, no?

This is so evil, I don't know why Ollie North never thought of it.

Prepare yourself for Democratic defeat in '08

Dave Lindorff has written a very perceptive op-ed post at BuzzFlash.com on how the Democratic leadership at the national level has already allowed itself to be out maneuvered by the Bush administration over troop deployment in Iraq.

Meanwhile over at TomPaine.com Phillip Mattera and Charlie Cray have pinned A Contract With Corporate America that concludes:"For too long, the federal government has been acting as a virtual captive of big business interests. The change in control of Congress is the first opportunity in years to start shifting power back to the rest of us."

Do you think any Democratic leaders at the national level read either one of these pieces? Do you think Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi will call for investigations into how the president lies this country into Iraq? Do you think "Commander Milquetoast" Harry Reid, after blurting out this Sunday past he'd support a "surge" in troops in Iraq, will change his mind? Do you think the DLC plutocrats will lift their snouts out of the K Street trough to reform campaign fiancing, lobbying and electronic voting?

LTE: December 16, 2006

Des Moines Register

In the wake of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) roundup of “illegal” immigrants Tuesday December 12, 2006, The Des Moines Register reported that the starting wage at the Swift & Co’s Marshalltown facility is $11.50 per hour.

An interesting follow-up story would be to see how many unemployed and under-employed white central Iowans will apply for positions at the meat packing plant. More than likely Maid Rite will have an easier time filling staff positions at $8 per hour than will Swift & Co.

Since the advent of industrial scale meat processing in the 1870s, the packinghouse was traditionally the employer of first choice for new immigrants, Mexicans and Central Americans are only the latest. Perhaps an influx of Sudanese Muslims from Darfur will be the next?

But are “illegal” immigrants to blame for falling wages in the American workplace?

At this time in American history the nation is in a decades long rollback of union influence and workers’ rights. We hear the likes of Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Steve King denounce the waves of “illegal” immigration. Yet they, and their supporters, never call for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 or a federal ban on replacement workers, scabs, taking the jobs of striking union workers. Nor do politicians of either party propose a Marshall Plan to strengthen the economies of southern Mexico and Central America so the citizens of those countries stay home.

Yet the question remains: will the American consumer, used to sixty years of the cheapest food in the world, really be willing to pay more at the grocery store?

If the actions of the so-called Minuteman of Arizona were any indication: The average anti-immigrant American would rather sit on a lawn chair at the border and complain about illegals than compete in the workplace head-to-head, organize or lobby for changes in current anti-worker labor laws.

Sonuvabitch, Cockburn's right

If you've read any of my musings, thusfar, you know I have a love/hate relationship with Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch.org, the son of a wealthy English peer and journalist who happened to be a socialist. Anyway, Cockburn's absolutely right in his weekend diatribe:

Here's comes Rep Silvestre Reyes of Texas, handpicked by Nancy Pelosi to head the House Intelligence Committee and he's calling for 20,000 more U.S. troops to be sent to Iraq. Reyes says they're needed to crush the Shi'a and Sunni militias. Didn't I tell to you right here, after the Nov 7 "peace moment" the polls, that the Democrats would fall into line behind Senator John McCain? The minute Jack Murtha made his run for House Majority leader the liberal establishment began to take a stand against all seditious talk of "immediate redeployment". You can scarcely open up the New York Times without tripping over a piece by Michael Gordon reporting yet another thoughtful military man--he put up General Zinni in this capacity last week--saying that the prudent short-term course would be to send more troops to Iraq.

Contrast this with the angry floor speech Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, the potato king of Pendleton, who said straighforwardly on Thursday night that he'd had it with the president that the US should "cut and run, cut and walk or whatever ... "
CounterPunch.org

Now how the fuck are 20,000 more American soldiers and Marines in Iraq gonna help anything?

As it stands now, there is only one option for getting Uncle Suckers out of Iraq: Cut-and-run. It sounds bad but the only way out is to pull the rug out from under the Maliki puppet-regime, let the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds fight it out; redraw boundaries if necessary (the Turks are no longer significant players in the region and they've got to learn to deal with it) and come back and deal with the winners. Otherwise the only way these dunderheads of both parties in Washington, D.C. will pull their heads out of their collective ass is if a signicant majority of the U.S. Army in Iraq mutinies, as Marines are thoroughly brainwashed, a mutiny in the Corps is out of the question; or a major U.S. combat unit defeated in detail in the field, Diem Bien Phu in the desert as it were, by a suppossedly inferior enemy.

Viguerie: Bolton quitting bad for GOP

Aw, jeeze, how mellodramtic can this guy, Richard Viguerie, get. Here's his latest bullshit e-mail, designed to whip up the wing nuts and line his pockets with their cash.

(Manassas, Virginia) The following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause, regarding the resignation of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations:

“There are only a mere handful of conservatives in significant policy-making positions in the Bush Administration. The withdrawal of Ambassador Bolton means there is one less. This is very discouraging to conservatives. Instead of fighting for Ambassador Bolton’s confirmation, the Bush Administration has once again thrown in the towel.

“Since the election, President Bush has sent strong signals that he will move left and seek accommodation with the Democrats who will be running the House and Senate. The President is following in the footsteps of his father, George H. W. Bush, who also abandoned the conservative base of the GOP.

“In addition to surrendering on the Bolton nomination, another danger signal for conservatives was the President’s comments at his November 8 news conference that he will work with the liberals to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Still another was Treasury Secretary Paulson’s statement that the Bush Administration had ‘no preconditions’ on Social Security reform, which is code for a willingness to accept higher payroll taxes and cuts in benefits.

“It looks like the next two years will be painful for conservatives and possibly fatal for the Republican Party. ”

So George W. Bush isn't "conservative" enough, is he? How much more "conservative" does the little asshole need to be, Mr. Viguerie? To the right of Attila the Hun?

This is the same tired, old litany of right wing, anti-govenment screeds this guy's been spewing out since the Sixties. He's not changed, despite what some in the liberal blogsphere think. He is still portraying the Republican Party as the party of the dispossessed white, middle class in a life and death struggle with the evil forces of Rooseveltian-New Deal Democrats. Such hogwash. He's the frontman for corporate feudalism and the dismantling of The Constitution.