What Americans Know…and Don’t Get

Well said Jim, well said.

(Friendly suggestion: I would try to get this as a guest opinion piece on both other internet sites & in dead tree papers.)

JM, sir, you ask:

:: Is it OK for extremist religious leaders over
:: here to lather-up their congregations to kill
:: extremist “non-believers” over there, who in
:: turn want their congregations to kill
:: “non-believers” over here?

I would be interested to see a couple of examples of the lathering up. Quotes tying in with “end times” messianic expectations would be particularly welcome.

Thanks.

Well said Jim. It seems sometimes that most everything can be boiled down to the use (or lack of use) of good old common sense. Something so many seem to have so little of these days. Why do we in our society seem to either over or under react so many times? And let me not get started on those who will scream so loudly to remove the speck from their brother or sisters eye, and forget they have a log in their own… such double standards these days. prosecute one group of people for a ‘crime’ but if they have money or power, we just let them slide. No common sense, no justice.

“Why should we “listen to the generals” when by all evidence, the president never did before he ordered the invasion of Iraq?”

Evidence please…

“How can a “surge” in the number of troops, followed by a later reduction to original levels, equate to an actual reduction?”

Because they kill a lot of the bad people.

“Because they kill a lot of the bad people”?????

Um, isn’t this a lot naive? How many of their sons, brothers, cousins, nephews, and friends do you annoy by killing them and hence drive them into the resistance? Has it occurred to you that some of the “bad people” over there may look at us as the “bad people” because we’ve bombed them and occupied their their home and they’re trying to drive us out?

How well did surging work in Vietnam? Oh wait, we called it “escalation” then, so that’s completely different.

On a lighter note, I heard on the radio today that Sen. Norm Coleman actually used the phrase “light at the end of the tunnel” in connection with Iraq today, so now that phrase of doom is officially out there. How much more wrong can it go?

Reporter:
One junior enlisted Marine, returning from his two-week break at home, says he wished he’d never gone back because now he faces another five months before the end of his deployment.

hey pal, Junior Marines in Iraq on thier first 7 month deployment don’t come home for 2 week breaks.. better luck next time..

Page 2 of 2
THE ROVING EYE
Sheikh Osama and the iPod general
By Pepe Escobar

remain stable, or may be actually rising, contrary to the general’s optimistic numbers. Iraq averages 62 violent deaths a day, compared with 37 last year. There were no fewer than 1,809 civilian deaths last month. The “surge” has led to the acceleration of ethnic cleansing, and with no fewer than 100,000 Iraqis fleeing the country every single month, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent, there are fewer and fewer people to kill on the ground. During the “surge”, 20 times as many people are leaving the

country as before it began at the start of the year.

In his long-awaited close-up for the cameras in Congress, Petraeus did not say a word about the appalling living conditions in Iraq, or about the more than 4 million killed, exiled or now living as refugees. He did not say that now, on the sixth anniversary of September 11, the US opens its spanking-new, 42-hectare, US$592 million embassy, fortress rather, in Baghdad, almost as big as the Vatican, built by 3,500 people (mostly imported from Kuwait) over three years, complete with 27 bomb-proof buildings, underground bunkers, leisure and entertainment centers, beauty parlors, a gym, a swimming pool and a club.

Symbols don’t come more pregnant with meaning than this: and this one spells, “We rule, and we’re not gonna leave, ever.” As for a real drawdown of troops, not a word amid the current show to (not) amuse the galleries.

Make Islam, not war
As for bin Laden’s progress report on the “war on terror”, it reads like a wacky remixed version of Karl Marx’ and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto - all the more striking as it cuts through the neo-con-promoted atmosphere of fear in the US prior to a possibly tactical nuclear, illegal, preemptive attack on Iran.

Bin Laden quotes everything from the Holy Koran to Noam Chomsky to illustrate his take on the irreversible decline of the American empire and to develop his critique of globalized capital, including the mention that “life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations”.

This time he didn’t need a Kalashnikov as a prop, or to dwell once again on “Christian and Jewish crusaders” or the occupation of the “land of the two holy mosques” (Mecca and Medina). After all, Islamist jihad of the al-Qaeda mold is slowly reaching one of its key objectives, which is the overthrow of infidel, secularist governments in Islamic lands.

A major goal of bin Laden has been to depose the House of Saud. He’s getting there. He already has the Americans out of military bases in Saudi Arabia. The secularist Assad dynasty in Syria might also be replaced sooner rather than later by a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government. And best of all, the Americans got rid of secularist infidel Saddam for him.

The solution for the planet’s ills, according to the theocratic sheikh, is to “embrace Islam”. It’s as if he had felt the urge to coin a new slogan: “Make Islam, not war.” US public opinion, the anti-war movement included, obviously will not buy it. But his key target audience - the middle and lower middle classes and urban proletariat all over Muslim lands in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia - may, as they have already identified, and felt in their skin, all the sorrows provoked by corporate-driven globalization.

It’s as if bin Laden - in tune with great swaths of world public opinion - already sees on the horizon the dust storms unleashed by the shattering US defeats in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and is deeply engaged, according to his and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s strategy, in transforming al-Qaeda from a sect into a global protest movement.

Those who will definitely pay a lot of attention to bin Laden’s words are young, second-generation Muslims or migrant, refugee, converted Muslims born in western Europe, “socially mutating tribes” as French expert on Islam Olivier Roy would put it, all of them ultra-radicalized anti-globalizers for whom al-Qaeda is a true anti-globalization revolutionary movement.

They are definitely not Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Afghans and Iranians - all of these not giving a damn about pan-Islamism, as they are engaged in much more complex, localized national struggles.

Once again, it’s important to stress the nonsense of the neo-con-coined “Islamo-fascist totalitarianism” label. In Black Mass, his latest book, a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, John Gray, correctly describes radical Islam of the al-Qaeda mold as Islamo-Jacobinism: “Their closest affinity is with the illiberal theory of popular sovereignty expounded by [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau and applied by [Maximilien] Robespierre in the French Terror.” Bin Laden may be now expounding in full a modern revolutionary ideology, but he is still the leader, as Gray would define it, of “a millenarian movement with Islamic roots”.

The whole question around the face-off of the year is not how Petraeus will “save” the US$3-billion-a-week Bush war on Iraq. The question is why bin Laden felt so relaxed as to stage a comeback as statesman/strategist to proclaim, among other things, the utter failure of the Bush-conducted imperial project.

The answer is because Bush and the neo-cons have been playing al-Qaeda’s game all along. Had Petraeus been sent six years ago on a thorough counterinsurgency mission to smash al-Qaeda, Congress today would be grappling with really relevant issues, such as health, education, the erosion of American workers’ salaries and yes, global warming. Forget Petraeus: someone in Hollywood better call Bruce Willis to fight and kill the sheikh in Die Hard 5.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II12Ak05.html

GEE, ONE OF OTHER TOM’S INSANE, STUPID POSTS MADE IT THRU. HOWEVER, EXERCISING MY POWER AS OWNER OF THIS BLOG I’M DELETING HIS STUPID REMARKS.
LARRY JOHNSON

More good news out of Iraq!

Situation Update No. 5
Iraq - Epidemic on 2007-08-29 at 14:40:33

Ref: AP-20070829-13139-IRQ

Situation Update No. 5
On 2007-09-12 at 03:27:28 [UTC]

Event: Epidemic
Location: Iraq Kurdistan

Situation

The World Health Organisation said Tuesday that Iraqi authorities were dealing with an “epidemic” of nearly 7,000 suspected cholera cases in three northeastern provinces. Only 290 cases have been confirmed in laboratory tests, but WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the agency considered all cases of acute watery diarrhoea should be considered as carrying the “vibrio cholerae” bacteria. At the end of August, authorities in Sulaimaniyah had reported 2,000 suspected cases and six deaths, while the WHO said another source was found in Kirkuk. Chaib said Tuesday that six laboratory confirmed cases were also reported in Erbil. “It is unclear what is the cause of the epidemic,” Chaib told journalists. “There is some evidence in Sulaimaniyah… that polluted water on which the local people were forced to rely on may have been to blame, and in Kirkuk a cracked water pipe.” “We are confident that it can be contained,” she told journalists. The WHO has sent two truckloads of antibiotics to the region, while the Iraqi government and provincial authorities have also taken measures to combat the disease. The agency is not recommending any special travel or trade restrictions for the affected area, it said in a statement. Previous cholera outbreaks hit northern Iraq in 1999 and southern areas around Basra shortly after the US-led invasion in 2003.

Number of Deads: 15 persons
Number of Missing persons: 0 persons

Eh…. whats six stray nuke weapons amoung friends war planners….

U.S. Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan

Tuesday , September 11, 2007
By James Rosen

FC1
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WASHINGTON —
A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday.

Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran’s nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Germany’s withdrawal from the allied diplomatic offensive is the latest consensus across relevant U.S. agencies and offices, including the State Department, the National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.

Political and military officers, as well as weapons of mass destruction specialists at the State Department, are now advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the diplomatic approach favored by Burns has failed and the administration must actively prepare for military intervention of some kind. Among those advising Rice along these lines are John Rood, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation; and a number of Mideast experts, including Ambassador James Jeffrey, deputy White House national security adviser under Stephen Hadley and formerly the principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs.

Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, “everyone in town” is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran’s known nuclear targets.

Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.

The Bush administration “has just about had it with Iran,” said one foreign diplomat. “They tried the diplomatic process. China is now obstructing them at the U.N. Security Council and the Russians are tucking themselves behind them.

“The Germans are wobbling …There are a number of people in the administration who do not want their legacy to be leaving behind an Iran that is nuclear armed, so they are looking at what are the alternatives? They are looking at other options,” the diplomat said.

Vice President Cheney and his aides are said to be enjoying a bit of “schadenfreude” at the expense of Burns. A source described Cheney’s office as effectively gloating to Burns and Rice, “We told you so. (The Iranians) are not containable diplomatically.”

The next shoe to drop will be when Rice and President Bush make a final decision about whether to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and/or its lethal subset, the Quds Force, as a terrorist entity or entities. FOX News reported in June that such a move is under consideration.

Sources say news leaks about the prospective designation greatly worried European governments and private sector firms, which could theoretically face prosecution in American courts if such measures became law and these entities continued to do business with IRGC and its multiple financial subsidiaries.

If the Bush administration moves forward with such a designation, sources said, it would be an indication that Rice agrees that Burns’ approach has failed. Designation of such a large Iranian military institution as a terrorist entity would also be seen, sources said, as laying the groundwork for a public justification of American military action.

It seems, seems mind you, that no one in the government has time for us. They seem to care only about their election prospects, and have become so timid that they no longer do anything else. They ignore their constituents at all costs. A pretty good example is the recent interview Colbert did with Pelosi, tracking her down to the halls of congress. She continually says she won’t appear on his show. Why? Is she so heavy on her feet she can’t cope with a comedian playing her nemesis?
There is a new indicator that we aren’t going back to normal almost every day. It is now obvious that the leaders are mentally imbalanced, and the loyal opposition is neither of it’s descriptive terms, but is also mentally imbalanced.
Perhaps we should come to the realization that none of our tic’s are worthy of being reelected, and that they may, may mind you, be qualified for food service and housekeeping tasks, under supervision

The US media has made elected officials into celebrities. Not one of them of either party deserves such status. I am bored with their rhetoric and bickering while they all proceed to do absolutely nothing for the country.

Yes.. BUSH is going to start another war..Attack Iran as larry said…
This in from Fox news:
……..”On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran’s known nuclear targets.

Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.”
So…Bush isn’t finished yet..and won’t stop until we have WW3 started…
We bomb them..i could see Russian stepping in..we kill a couple chinese civilian contractors..China in..
BOOM!! Iran sinks a couple US warships with the silkworm missle..all out frigging war…

I’d just like to say: I’m so glad you’re here, Shirin. Keepin’ it real! The perspective and first-hand knowledge to enable us to get to the truth about what’s going on in Iraq and surrounds. Much appreciated.

The Democrats are worse than pathetic. They are corrupt and deliberately working against doing what needs to be done. They will have to answer, along with Dopey and Darth, whenever Iran is attacked.

Very scary the vacuum that exists in our government today. You’d think each one (R or D) is only looking out for #1. Sure seems that way. Can’t think of any who is more devoted to the protection of the Constitution and the rule of law than to their own future and career and image. Sad…and sickening. No, given the mental illnesses and complete lack of conscience on the part of Dopey and Darth….frightening! No one’s in charge! No one to turn to. Dr. Strangelove in charge of “the football”. UNBELIEVABLE! And, it’s not a movie. It’s playing out BEFORE OUR EYES! Surreal.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070903_the_next_quagmire/

We’ve talked about this before — the aftermath of D&D bombing Iran — Chris Hedges gives some eye-opening examples:

“… The Pentagon has reportedly drawn up plans for a series of airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran.  The air attacks are designed to cripple the Iranians’ military capability in three days. The Bushehr nuclear power plant, along with targets in Saghand and Yazd, the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, a heavy-water plant and radioisotope facility in Arak, the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel Unit, and the uranium conversion facility and nuclear technology center in Isfahan, will all probably be struck by the United States and perhaps even Israeli warplanes.  The Tehran Nuclear Research Center, the Tehran molybdenum, iodine and xenon radioisotope production facility, the Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories, and the Kalaye Electric Co. in the Tehran suburbs will also most likely come under attack.

BUT THEN WHAT? 
We don’t have the troops to invade.  And we don’t have anyone minding the helm who knows the slightest thing about Persian culture or the Middle East.  There is no one in power in Washington with the empathy to get it.  We will lurch blindly into a catastrophe of our own creation. 

It is not hard to imagine what will happen. 
Iranian Shabab-3 and Shabab-4 missiles, which cannot reach the United States, will be launched at Israel,
as well as American military bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad. 

Expect massive American casualties, especially in Iraq, where Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies will be able to call in precise coordinates. 

The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will be shut down. 

Chinese-supplied C-801 and C-802 anti-shipping missiles, mines and coastal artillery will target U.S. shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers. 
Oil prices will skyrocket to well over $4 a gallon. 
The dollar will tumble against the euro. 

Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, interpreting the war as an attack on all Shiites, will fire rockets into northern Israel. 
Israel, already struck by missiles from Tehran,
will begin retaliatory raids on Lebanon and Iran. 

Pakistan, with a huge Shiite minority, will reach greater levels of instability.  The unrest could result in the overthrow of the weakened American ally President Pervez Musharraf and usher into power Islamic radicals. 

Pakistan could become the first radical Islamic state to possess a nuclear weapon.  The neat little war with Iran, which few Democrats oppose, has the potential to ignite a regional inferno. 

We have rendered the nation deaf and dumb.
 
We no longer have the capacity for empathy.  We prefer to amuse ourselves with trivia and gossip that pass for news rather than understand. 

We are blinded by our military prowess. 

We believe that huge explosions and death are an effective form of communication. 

And the rest of the world is learning to speak our language….”

Ramble…

‘9/11 is an odd New Year - evaluation and retrospect
abound, yes, but where is resolution and revelation?
Revelation does not make excuses - it explains trends
- the truth in greater detail. For example, passage
through the Millennium increases the resolve of many
more extremists i.e. there are more crazies, more
individuals and hence the unchecked numbers.

As insinuated below - America has lost control.

What happened?

Instead of resolve, America stood on image after 9/11
i.e. we war with Iraq not to look weak. And we
inadvertantly posited that the consideration of 9/11
as a crime and the investigation of the crime as such
was a weak response. While the opportunists have
played within globalization, America has stood still
on military might - strong yet strangely impotent.

America needs to become a player on the world scene
not its liberator by force. Look back at the first 50
years of the 20th Century - war. In context, I have
noticed that some have reduced the GWOT to GW.

Perhaps an invasion by extraterrestials, or a
long-period comet or a solar storm will unify
humanity. Unifying humanity to save itself from its
own extinction does not yet seem to be a matter of
choice and will power.’

Stratfor
MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
09.12.2007
Geopolitical Diary: Washington’s Loss of Control

“…It has been six years since Sept. 11, 2001. We have
written an enormous amount on it and the events that
came after. It would appear that there is nothing left
to be said. But the truth is that Sept. 11 is a date
that resonates. Its vibrations continue, and they
continue to have unexpected consequences.

Gen. David Petraeus gave his testimony this week.
Whatever one thinks of his views, it would have been a
far-fetched idea, on Sept. 10, 2001, to imagine an
Army general appearing before Congress, making the
argument that the war in Iraq is not lost, but that
given more time, it might be possible to achieve a
degree of success.

That is what we mean by “resonates.” Again, without
judging the wisdom of the decisions involved, 9/11
caused U.S. forces to go to war in Afghanistan — the
last place that anyone, on Sept. 10, would have
expected American troops to be fighting. The al Qaeda
attack caused the United States to go to war in Iraq,
where it encountered the last thing it expected: a
well-armed and capable insurgency prepared to fight
toe-to-toe with the Americans. The events of 9/11 took
an American president who had a very different idea of
what his presidency would look like, and made him
redefine that presidency in a matter of hours.
Whatever George W. Bush wanted his presidency to be,
it became something very different on 9/11.

In thinking about 9/11, one thought keeps coming to
mind: a loss of control. On that date, everything went
out of control and in a very real sense, it has not
yet come back into control. The president’s instincts
– to increase the power of the government and strike
out at the jihadists in order to reduce risk — did
not strike us as unreasonable at the time, nor does it
seem unreasonable even in retrospect. What strikes us
as most interesting is how the situation, taken as a
whole, has not come under control in spite of Bush’s
best efforts…”

Actually, you’ll save 4% off the original price. No?

Along the lines of what has been said here, this is interesting information from someone I greatly respect that you should be aware of before the next election (if there IS one and W/Darth haven’t declared martial law):

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11438
August 14, 2007

Neolibs and Neocons,
United and Interchangeable by Philip Giraldi

The two leading Democratic candidates for president are undeniably Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Hillary is regarded as by far the more conservative candidate in that she has carefully triangulated her potential supporters and is unwilling to say that her vote in the Senate in support of the Iraq war was a mistake. She has also positioned herself with the Israel lobby through her pledge to disarm Iran by whatever means necessary and her threat to use nuclear weapons on terrorists. Her foreign policy advisers are a who’s who of neoliberal hawks, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who famously believed that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to sanctions was “worth it.” Clinton is also being advised by Richard Holbrooke, who is reported to be close to Paul Wolfowitz. Holbrooke is a possible candidate for secretary of state if Clinton is elected president. Holbrooke has been a supporter of the Iraq war, and he was an architect of the 1999 bombing of Serbia. Strobe Talbott, who advised Bill Clinton and was also involved with the bombing of Serbia, is reported to be another Hillary adviser.

Barack Obama is somewhat more enigmatic, but his recent ill-advised pledge to attack Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf does not do something about the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows that he is working hard to catch up. Obama’s key advisers who speak for him on foreign policy include Gregory Craig, Anthony Lake, and Samantha Power. Craig is a leading Washington lawyer who was a White House special counsel under Bill Clinton and defended the president in his impeachment trial. Lake was also a Bill Clinton adviser who was involved in the Bosnian conflict. Power is an Irish-born Harvard professor from the Kennedy School who is regarded as an expert on Third World issues. None of the three is considered to be particularly partisan on any foreign policy issues but genocide, which Power has written a book about, but Obama is also accelerating his efforts to woo Jewish donors and to improve his standing with AIPAC, which has been suspicious of him because of youthful indiscretions that included expressions of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. He recently appointed Eric Lynn to develop an aggressive program of outreach to the Jewish community on his record of support for Israel, which he claims is unwavering. Obama fully endorsed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon last year, and he has also cited his more recent sponsorship of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of May 2007, another irresponsible piece of legislation by Congress that will increase the suffering of the Iranian people while doing nothing to change the country’s leadership. He has pledged that Iran will not be allowed to threaten Israel through its nuclear program, but he is vague on exactly what he would do to stop it….” (clip)

Well, Sandy

While America loses control, the NWO gains control - thanks much for the proof.