Um, how do we terminate this?

Oops. Please pardon my robotic killing machine!

Iraqi Gov't Has a Pair?

Blackwater: Banned in Iraq

Who'da thunk it? Iraq instigates a troop withdrawal before the US Congress does?

Also, because the US media would never actually show you an IED in action:

Generation Chickenhawk

Come for The Hammer, stay for the interpretative dance.

Blackwater Update

Remember them? Well, it looks like someone may actually try to hold them accountable for their actions.

So even if a right-wing dominated Supreme Court should somehow forestall Mr. Prince's turn in the dock, we can expect that a vivified US Congress will hold hearings and ultimately demonstrate clearly what Iraq for Sale shows: US firms have not only committed murder in Iraq, they have committed treason, by making money at all costs, even that of American lives and national security.

I'll be over here, holding my breath.

Sickening

Via Boing Boing comes links to three videos from Iraq:

The first, soldiers video tape young boys as they desperately run after their vehicle in the hope the soldier will throw them a bottle of water.

The second, an amped up gang of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing tankers harrass some "looters," shoot their car up, and then crush it with their ~$3 million, 70 ton M1 Abrams Battle Tank. The guy was a taxi driver. Ok, a wood-looting taxi driver. Seems like an appropriate response.

The third, a soldier plays soccer with a group of Iraqi children.

While I understand why this third video was posted, in an attempt to somehow balance the ugliness and just downright disgusting and disturbing behavior in the previous two, I ain't buying it. Congratulations, you mingled with the locals. You tried to make nice, to build bridges.

To paraphrase Chris Rock, "You're SUPPOSED to take care of the people!"

The other day, a friend of mine emailed around a photo of a soldier who became a comfort blanket to an Iraqi girl who had lost her family. She couldn't be comforted by anyone else. It's a feelgood Sunday night movie on Lifetime waiting to happen. The gist of the email was that because this soldier had become a source of comfort to this girl, he needed to get a bunch of media coverage, because he certainly would if he had done something "bad." Uh, alright.

Anyone that wants to take comfort in these little nuggets of humanity amongst the ever-downward spiral into soul-crushing violence and civil war swirling in Iraq, have at it. I don't have the stomach for it. You know what? They shouldn't be there in the first place. And to try to point to these moments as some sort of justification for why we're there, and the "good" we're doing, well, it's fucking horseshit. And don't go telling me I'm not supporting the troops because I don't appreciate them playing soccer with the kiddies. They shouldn't be there, and they shouldn't be dying there.

He was for Staying The Course before he was against it.

(Thanks, Paz.)

218:1

3,000 Amercans "were killed," but 655,000 Iraqis "are dead.*" 218 Iraqis dead for every person killed on Sept 11th. Gosh, Bush sure isn't a pussy. He can choose a political scapegoat without any waffling at all, and kill with moral certainty. Those are the presidential qualities that have led us to victory, and left no doubts that we did the right thing (< sarcasm).

Is it justice yet? Should we kill everyone who doesn't want freedom on our terms?

*Note the blame-avoiding use of the passive mode. The Iraqis just "died."

North Koreans hone crucial homo-erotic line-dancing skills

North Korean soldiers practice the electric slide at an army installation on the banks of the Yalu River.

Perhaps you remember some soldiers from a similar story.

Freedom of Speech

Iraqis are marching in support of Hezbollah chanting all the typical favorites, Death to Israel...Death to America.

"Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy.

That's a loose translation. I believe another interpretation is "We will be greeted as liberators."

Hail Freedonia...

In Duck Soup, the upstart moron leader of Freedonia (Groucho Marx) provokes a war with Sylvania for little more reason than he can't stand it's leader. The world in chaos ensues. Little did we know it was a documentary.

Things turns out better in the movie.

Go wave your blood soaked flag.

First picture of Pvt. Steven Green,
"Charlottes Finest!" who's
raping,
killing,
witness & family murdering,
body-defiling
and arsoning
in your name
for God and flag.

His parents must be very proud.

I wish I could feel something more than deep pity for the Iraqis. If I could hate them needlessly like a good citizen, I'd be fine with this.

HuffPo: Dick Cheney's Last Throes

The Democrats are in trouble because they can't agree on how to fix the mess the Republicans have made. The Republicans are rewarded for staying the course.

Cheney, from the NY Daily News: "I guess if I look back on it now, I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered."

Wow. Just wow.

In a debate in the Senate today, Sen. John Kyl (AZ) declared, "The strategy there needs to be to win, not withdraw. Withdrawal follows victory."

Does anyone know what constitutes victory in Iraq? Everyone, everywhere, dead?

Gitmo hangings "good PR" according to US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State

Wow, she must really be important with a title like that. DEPUTY Assistant? Is that like a Junior Ranger Rick badge or something? Where does the Bush administration FIND these morons? Oh, right, they're all friends. Dur.

Colleen Graffy is a sick fuck.

The Iran Plans

Skidmark-inducing piece on Iran's nuclear program(s), and what the U.S. may do about it. This is not good.

"The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen."

Your Tax Dollars At Work

As expected, more photos from Abu Ghraib (or, as Dubya prefers, "Aboo Gareff") are all over the Internets. They are burly.

Guardian Unlimited

uruknet.info

"Monkey Vs. Robot" contest winner

Monkey play in the jungle
Robot work in the factory
they will have a giant rumble
Monkey Versus Robot
Monkey Versus Robot

Continue reading ""Monkey Vs. Robot" contest winner" »

1000 Days of Iraq War

$204.4 billion: The cost to the U.S of the war so far.

2,339: Allied troops killed

15,955: US troops wounded in action

98: U.K troops killed

30,000 : Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths

0: Number of WMDs found

66: Journalists killed in Iraq.

63: Journalists killed during Vietnam war

8: per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition

53,470: Iraqi insurgents killed

67: per cent Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation

$343: Average monthly salary for an Iraqi soldier. Average monthly salary for an American soldier in Iraq: $4,160.75

5: foreign civilians kidnapped per month

47: per cent Iraqis who never have enough electricity

20: casualties per month from unexploded mines

25-40: per cent Estimated unemployment rate, Nov 2005

251: Foreigners kidnapped

70: per cent of Iraqi's whose sewage system rarely works

183,000: British and American troops are still in action in Iraq.

13,000: from other nations

90: Daily attacks by insurgents in Nov '05. In Jun '03: 8

60-80: per cent Iraqis who are "strongly opposed" to presence of coalition troops

Found here.

Donuts, Munitions & World Domination

The arch-conservative cabal known as The Carlyle Group has purchased Dunkin Donuts. Want some profiteeering with that cruller?

The Sour Jpeg Files

This morning I passed on posting these comments regarding yesterdays boneheaded airline shooting:

Isn't yesterdays "I have a bomb" excuse so convenient? Isn't it interesting that no passenger confirms this line of crap? Only the authorities who come with no name or phone number... Gee this won't unravel over the coming weeks, like the "Terrorist" jumping the turnstyle in the London tube and fleeing from police only to be shot in the head, and not be a terrorist.
It's the laziest, by-the-books lie.

24 hours later the horseshit begins to unravel.

A Brilliant move by the Dems

The Dems shut down the senate today and threatened to close the chamber each day until Republicans agreed to look into how Bush administration officials handled the intelligence used to argue for war.

G.O.P. senators quickly agreed to reopen the chamber and appoint a bipartisan group of senators to assess the progress of the "Phase 2" probe. Their report is due back now in just two weeks.

It was a brilliant strategy to knock Bush's indictment-evading stories (Supreme court nominee, Bird flu) out of the headlines. And an early sample of their offensive game over the Supreme Court.

Nice to know there are ways to fuck with the G.O.P. controlled government, even after they gain office illegitimately.

Christopher Hitchens vs. George Galloway

Resolved: The march 2003 war in Iraq was necessary and just.

Christopher Hitchens, a heterodox of the left, and possibly one of the most vocal and eloquent supporters of the war takes on George Galloway, the ousted anti-war parliament member, who, recently, made his case much to the chagrin of the Senate on the Senate Floor, and who is currently on tour with Jane Fonda in support of his book Mister Galloway Goes to Washington.

A highly entertaining debate sponsored by and hosted by Democracy Now. Here are the direct links. There's a quite a bit of overlap, but I think parts 3 and 4 cover the majority of the actual debate.

One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven

Army Prepares 'Battlebots' for Iraq

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp.

Military officials like to compare the roughly three-foot-high robots favorably to human soldiers: They don't need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and warehoused between wars. They never complain. And there are no letters to write home if they meet their demise in battle.

Quinn said it was a "bootstrap development process" to convert a Talon robot, which has been in military service since 2000, from its main mission — defusing roadside bombs in Iraq_ into the gunslinging SWORDS.

SPRING BREAK FALLUJAH 2005!

"Some of my friends are hassling me, spamming me with all sorts of scary stuff telling me how Bush is going to bring back the draft, so I should vote for Kerry. And I’m like, hello, I should vote to avoid the draft? Fuck that. The draft is TOTALLY GONNA RULE. So I started this site to make sure that no one takes away MY right to a draft."

http://www.enjoythedraft.com

Book your trip abroad now, with options for One Way or One Way. You can also choose Economy, Business, or Body Bag class. Sorry, but body armour is an extra $50.

9/11-American Air Flight 77 hit the Pentigon... or did it?

This is a pretty compelling video about American Fight 77. Simply stated... if it was a plane hit the building, where's the wreckage?

This film makes a good case that there was some kind of cover up. You decide...

http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Preloader

or

http://www.nixtro.com/pentagon121.swf

Strategery

You remember investigative journalism, right? Where the news was presented critically, because there actually is a clear ethical code that we live by?

This American Life today focused on Custer Battles (a private firm "transforming risk into opportunity") is filled with gung-ho ninnies. The piece confirms via direct interviews that the war is a delusion of heroism and profit driven by incompetence. Custer Battles is such a bunch of aggressive fuck-ups that they got into a 3,000 round gunfight with themselves.

For these people there is no scenario that can't be shoehorned into the "some enemy won't acccept our freedom & patrioism" template. Way off the machismo scale, in the land of self-parody is "Hank." To get the full effect of the exchange below, you have to imagine some creepy blend of Charlton Heston, and Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now.

Hank: "We're on the frontiers of freedom. It's good to be here. Can you smell the freedom?"
Interviewer: "Have you ever had to do anything questionable here in Iraq?."
H: "It's a good life for a soldier if he just follows orders..."
I: ...but you're not a soldier. You're a private citizen.

Download "I'm from the Private Sector and I''m Here to Help".

Bush Approval Rating / Terror Alert Chart

Found here.

Anatomy of Your Enemy

10 easy steps to create an enemy and start a war.

Seems all too familiar...

Negative World Reaction to Abuse / America

Worldwide outrage over Iraq prison abuse is rolling in.

In Vatican City, Pope John Paul II's foreign minister said the scandal would inspire hatred of Christianity and the West.

Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, who is 85 and trying to retire from public life, used a last speech before parliament Monday to criticize the abuse and again decry waging war without a UN mandate. "We look on with horror as reports surface of terrible abuses against the dignity of human beings held captive by invading forces in their own country," Mandela said to hearty applause.

The brutality has "confirmed everyone's worst fears, and confirmed feelings, in France and Germany especially, that they were right to stay out of this mess," said William Drozdiak, director of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Center in Brussels.

Members of Britain's Parliament are demanding that Prime Minister Tony Blair withdraw British troops. And fresh opinion polls indicate that only 28 percent of Britons think their troops should remain in Iraq.

Government officials or opposition politicians in Portugal, Hungary and the Netherlands have raised doubts about their continued participation.

Meanwhile (as expected) the effort to pin the blame on 6 or 7 low-level grunts is exposed today in the NYT as horseshit.

"There was a debate after 9/11 about how to make people disappear. The result was a series of secret agreements allowing the C.I.A. to use sites overseas without outside scrutiny. These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A..

The methods employed by the C.I.A. are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. The F.B.I. officials have advised the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, that the interrogation techniques, which would be prohibited in criminal cases, could compromise their agents in future criminal cases, the counterterrorism officials said.

I wish you could here the dumb "Starship Troopers" whoop of enthusiam that troops give every word Rumsfeld is saying in his suprise visit to Iraq. Right now he's talking about internationalizing the effort (!!!???)
yeah... Good luck with that Rummy.

Brutality Redux

It was just noted on the French channel down here that Lynndie England is in jail in Florida awaiting charges. Of course this leads to the hope that she is naked on a leash, while a jail guard points out her inadequacies for a camera. With any luck some asshole is forcing her to masturbate right now.

I don't understand how Bush's moral guidance, arrogance, secrets and lies didn't result in honor for the country. How could this have happened?

Revenge in Fallujah

In a slightly different ending than what U.S. generals promised 4 days ago when they said Fallujah "would be pacified...," we are now seeking a truce (?) in Fallujah, Iraq.
Apparently our entire military strategy was "let's kill those bastards." Oddly that didn't get us anywhere.

Despite the belief that the previous 8000 Iraqi casualties all died in respectable, photogenic ways, here's a slideshow from al Jazeera showing casualties from Fallujah. #4 is the most graphic.
This is what the rest of the world sees, and associates with the U.S..
This is what makes us the world's most despised nation.

Iraq - Disturbing Image

In the 2nd deadliest day since Bush said the war was over, yesterday 9 Americans were killed in Iraq. Four Blackwater USA employees were beaten with shovels before or after they were killed, chopped up, then hung from a bridge. Looks like it must have been a horrible way to die.

The limp media once again leave you with some fundamental questions:
- How did this really disturbing image slip past Bush's media chokehold? ...where anyone who questions the war is pilloried, and media manipulation is total. (i.e. the gag order on returning soldiers)
- Is "civilian contractor" easier to say than "war profiteer?"
- Now that civilians are being killed in symbolic ways, will other "civilian contractors" realize that their may be a major price to pay for pre-emptive war against Iraq?

Here's a cynical, orwellian graphic from the Blackwater military sales website

The GOP simplistically insists that all this conflict arise from other countries envy of the U.S.. Others who aren't mindlessly spouting the party-line knows you cannot get that much hate out of someone who is simply envious.

Clueless student: Why did they do that to them?
Informed student: Well we did kill 8,000 of them. (iraqbodycount.com) How many of them do you think died pretty?

Bill O'Reilly: "I was wrong."

After criticizing the Bush administration over its handling of Iraqi WMD intelligence on "Good Morning America", O'Reilly then called his own show, interrupted, shouted at and belittled himself, and then cut himself off and hung up on himself.

Okay, so that last part didn't really happen.

Drug War is Fine - Wish You Were Here!

Nuevo Laredo... Heavily armed Mexican army troops and federal police guard the principal street intersections of this popular border town, as the government tries to quell a brutal, bloody battle between warring drug cartels. 75 people were murdered during 2003 in Nuevo Laredo, and the majority of the killings appear to be drug-related. In recent months, the violence has spilled across the Rio Grande to Laredo. Three men were gunned down in Laredo last November in contract killings now linked to the cartel struggle across the river. The battle raging in Nuevo Laredo is for control of one of the Southwest border's most lucrative drug trafficking corridors

Laredo is a town that will never rise above it's alternate economy and/or poverty for geographic reasons alone. Mexican Americans were routinely kind and soft-spoken. Had a nice time, and now a non-stop week of deadlines awaits.

The List

Some knucklehead at AP accidently sent out their internal phone list of public figures. Wanna call OJ? He's on it.

There's some dead people and some wrong numbers, but I hear alot of them are still working.

And if phone pimping a celebrity doesn't float your boat, maybe seeing some Iraqi insurgents get fried does. The guy on the left is apparently unwrapping missle... story here from ABCNews

Lies & propaganda

Some quotes I've run across while writing my paper. The first is the best:

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
Alex Carey

"You will find wars are supported by a class of argument which, after the war is over, the people find were arguments they should never have listened to."
John Bright

Tom Ridge: Threat Level Ernie

Take all appropriate cautions.

Reason Mag: "Why Saddam was supposed to kill himself"

Some Arabs...had at least hoped for redemption in Saddam's death; instead they got a bedraggled old man hiding in a dark hole, reportedly armed but calling to his discoverers, "Don't shoot!"

U.S. announces auditions for a new scapegoat

When asked about what should happen to Saddam, Bush said "Good riddance. The world is better off without him... he's a deceiver, he's a liar, he's a torturer, he's a murderer."
To which the court of world opinion responded,
"Look in the mirror, bitch!"

Bush assured all that there would be a fair public trial. And I know I'm really relieved that after this whole debacle we're still such a "fair" nation... Although it is very hard to try someone for denying they had missiles which they turned out not to have, it turns out it's even more difficult to try incumbent leaders for war profiteering, unprovoked invasions and killing American G.I.s to fatten their own wallets.

To make it through this crappy economy you should just wager a lot of cash that this 'fair' trial will omit any discussion of U.S. financial and military support of Saddam in the 80s, silence talk of meetings between Donald Rumsfeld and S.H. fifteen years ago, and avoid the term "WMD" like a Bush appointee avoids honesty. Bush cronies: The Carlisle Group, James Baker and Haliburton are all profiting from this invasion/occupation.

Question #1

And there's a gun market in Baghdad why, exactly?

[A]n American patrol killed three people at the capital's gun market after apparently mistaking test-firing by customers as an attack...

"No! I wasn't shooting at the soldiers! I was test-firing my RPG!"

via tmn

September 11

A Burly Narrative By A Survivor.

I found myself [running] next to a man who is taking out a cigarette, all the time while we both were running. I was thinking, "I could sure use one of those right now!"

He tried to light it with very shaky hands at a dead run, when a Port Authority security guard (directing people to safety) said in a very Brooklyn-ish accent, ÒHey buddy this is a no smoking zone! You can't light that down here!Ó

The man looked back at the guard, aghast, and I'm sure I had the same look on my face! The man said, ÒYou have to be f-ing kidding me! This place is burning down around us, we are all going to die, and by God I am going to have my last cigarette before I go!Ó

Buy 3 bombs and your 4th bomb is free!

I wish I was joking, but some articles on washingtonpost.com are now brought to you by Lockheed Martin, the military contractor who is pushing their Small Diameter Bomb with PNAV with the tagline: "Moving Targets have met their match / We never forget who we're working for / Lockheed Martin" (Hit 'refresh' to get the right ad, or just view the screen capture)

Who isn't looking for a good deal on a bomb with PNAV? With some new wrong-headed urge, the weapons industry values you, the third party, as a marketing/PR opportunity. Now I feel even more pride in the Yankee know-how that allows us to kill those who won't accept our gift of freedom.
God Bless America.
God Bless our Bombs.

A Jihad on...um...Jack Valenti!

Earthstation 5 tells the MPAA and the RIAA to get in the ring, muthafuckas!

Jebus sez: "Thasss suhweeeet! Those whacky Palestinians!"

via boing boing, where else?

US Unveils New Secret Weapon

In a scheme likely to raise as many laughs among Iraq's hardline Islamic clerics as Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, troops of the 4th Infantry brigade in Tikrit are planning to put up pictures around the town of Saddam's face superimposed on the bodies of a busty Veronica Lake, a slinky Zsa Zsa Gabor, a grooving Elvis and British-born rocker Billy Idol.

The aim, apparently, is to so enrage Saddam's followers that they will draw themselves out.

Q sez there were news reports, earlier in the war, of vans with loudspeakers driving through Baghdad calling the hiding fighters 'girly men' in Arabic. Apparently this enraged them and they'd come out shooting...

See the pictures here...

Government Releases Photos of What Saddam May Look Like in Hiding

I'm too lazy to include them here, but you have to see them. Andrew thinks the one looks like Albert Einstein...

This war isn't really over....

Join us as we gather to erect a memorial wall bearing the names of all the victims of the Iraq War, and call for a Commission of Inquiry to investigate Bush's justification for war. Please Bring flowers to lay at base of the wall
Starts: TONIGHT at 4:00 PM
Where: Federal Building
230 S. Dearborn, Chicago

----I'll probably be there around 5:30 if you're interested in meeting me there, email me.----
Liz

via Carolyn Danckaert, AFSC

You sunk my battleship

Remember how I said I'd really like to have my own aircraft carrier while I'm away at school? They're selling this one for 4.5 million. Could we all chip in and get it? Can we... please... huh? can we, can we?

A White House with difficulty telling the Truth (again)

Objective individuals not tied to our loathsome presidents PR machine, observed a different, far less propagandized version of the cockamamie Private Lynch incident.
I don't know which is more surprising; lies from the White House, or the media finally voicing an opinion that wasn't prepared by the White House.