Jericho: Billboard of Stupid

This is just great.

So, let me get this straight: this idiot thinks that if we put a Democrat in the Oval Office we'll have another September 11th-like tragedy. Interesting.

I love that this article is posted on FoxNews' web site. Why? Because both this idiot and FoxNews missed a vital point:

Bush was in office on 9/11!

That's right, a Republican. There was a Republican in office when 3000 Americans died. Was it his fault? Hmmm .... ?

I love how this guy also thinks the terrorists have something to do with high gas prices. Sir? Did you miss the boat? Ya know, the oil tanker that Chevron named "Condoleezza Rice"? Bush, Rice and many others in the Bush administration have major ties to Big Oil. Big Oil has been posting record profits in the last several years. And it never occurred to you, Mr. Billboard, that maybe, just maybe, Big Oil orchestrated all of this?

The perpetrators of 9/11 were in Afghanistan. Yet, we have five times as many troops in Iraq as Afghanistan. Why? I'll tell you why: Iraq has oil and Afghanistan has none! The hype and fear generated by 9/11 has allowed the Big Oil politicians to put together a war that not only uses untold amounts of oil but protects their oil interests. Meanwhile, speculators have driven up the price of oil on that fear.

In Iraq, they pay $.50 a gallon for gas, that's right, fifty cents - and those prices are subsidized with your tax dollars. We are paying nearly $5 a gallon and that includes taxes.

Big Oil is complaining that they can't use several areas that have been reserved, preserved for natural and human use. Yet, they sit on millions of unexplored acres. Why? It's too expensive, they whine! They have billions in profits, but it's too expensive to drill in ares that they have had left for years. Spend some money, Big Oil! Make some jobs, Big Oil! Drive down the price of gas, Big Oil! Or ... give up the rights to the land you are not using!

But they don't want that, do they? They want the market to remain up. They make more money and don't put out additional cost or effort.

So, I agree with Mr. Billboard. I believe the terrorists are in cahoots. I believe that they and Big Oil and the Automobile Manufacturers are have conspired to rob us all. If they haven't conspired, Big Oil has certainly taken advantage of this tragedy. They are profiting from 9/11 and from our dead soldiers. That's called Profiteering. It should also be called Treason.

Who is Big Oil? Look to the White House and you will see it's most obvious incarnation.

Max: Bush Has Plans To Screw Us For Eternity

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

Shrub is a shaved head, a white cat and a volcano based lair away from being a fucking Bond villain.

Max: A Fucking Travesty

Vets say they feel misled about GI benefits

Cheated. Baited and switched. That's how veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan say they feel about military recruiters who sold them on how the GI Bill would benefit them.

Soldiers, Marines and airmen spoke Tuesday at a Capitol Hill rally sponsored by a group called the "Campaign for a New GI Bill." They complained they were not given enough funds from the bill to cover college expenses.

Najwa McQueen said she joined the Louisiana National Guard in 2004 on what she thought was a promise to help pay for her college education.

"They kind of sell you a dream," she said after the rally. "You think you're going to get all of this stuff and in reality you don't get that. I just kind of believed what my recruiter told me, which is not the truth."

McQueen left behind her husband and 18-month-old daughter in October 2004 and served 10 months in Iraq. After her service she enrolled in college and found her total benefits from the GI Bill would be $400 a month for four months, totaling $1,600. Her classes alone, she said, cost $1,000 each.

Max: Atheism in the Millitary

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

One of the darkest developments of many dark developments in the Bush years has been the slow ascent of Christianism as a core value of the military. The promotion of Christianists throughout the armed services, the insistence by the president that no public institution be regarded as a place where religion should be silent, clear discrimination against Jews and atheists in military educational institutions: the possibility of a secular military dedicated to defending all Americans regardless of their faith or lack of it has been called into question under the current administration. The resilience of the ban on gays - while the military has granted a record number of waivers to criminals - can only be understood if one sees the US military as an increasingly religious institution at this point, and not a rational secular one. The latest story of an atheist soldier being threatened by superiors is believable in this context.

Once again, Sullivan shows his fellow Christians what "Christian" -- Christ like -- means as he calls Christians in the military out for their mistreatment of Atheists in uniform.

Max: Former Secs. Of State State The Obvious

"Shut Guantanamo," ex-diplomats say

Five former U.S. secretaries of State on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran.

The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice.

Max: Damn Skippy

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: FBI and MLK Jr: Lessons for Today


As part of a recent CNN special called Black in America much new information came to light about the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., information that should stand as a stark warning of the dangers of allowing one branch of government to engage in surveillance of American citizens without oversight from another.

Max: Bush Sez The Constitution Doesn't Apply Inside The US

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military Operations

Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, 'Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States' (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday. Balkinization has commentary on the very troubling opinion.

While the newly released memo focuses on 'asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators,' it contains a footnote referencing another Administration memo that caught our eye:

... our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes, II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at 25 (Oct 23, 2001). (emphasis added)

Max: Fellow Whackjob

Another Whack

I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.

But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

Continued

From a speech given by Sen Robert C. Byrd, five years ago today.

Max: Attack of Mickey

Max: Pentagon = Pacifist Cowards

Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says - CNN.com

The U.S. military's first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon.

The report released by the Joint Forces Command five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq said it found no 'smoking gun' after reviewing about 600,000 Iraqi documents captured in the invasion and looking at interviews of key Iraqi leadership held by the United States, Pentagon officials said.

I was once told only pacifist cowards who don't care about their family's well being hold such ridiculous beliefs.

In all non-humorous honesty, I don't see how anyone ever believed the Saddam/al Qaeda connection. My faith in certain people was shaken by their willingness to buy into such obvious bullshit. Some things said about me when I refused to drink the Kool-Aid still sting a bit. I try not to think about it most of the time. However, when the news finds time to slip such reports in between their Brittany updates, it all comes back. How many have died for this lie?

Sorry for once again failing to support the troops by pointing out the ugly truth that, regardless of how clearly brave and dedicated our military is, every troop who died in Iraq died for a FUCKING LIE.

Max: The Civil War In Four Minutes

The Civil War In Four Minutes

Max: What Will Happen When We Leave Iraq?

A surge of their own: Iraqis take back the streets

"I help to keep the peace so that I can row in peace, and that is my passion," said Muhammad, who asked that neither his real name nor that of his rowing club be used. "Now when I go out on the river, you can hear the birds and the hum of the generators. When I began it was only gunfire and bombs."

Muhammad is one of the thousands of young Baghdadi men to have joined neighbourhood security groups, which have mushroomed over the last year and are a crucial factor in the dramatic decline in civilian deaths. US soldiers call them "concerned local citizens"; Iraqis just call them sahwa (awakening) after the so-called Anbar awakening in western Iraq, which has seen Sunni tribal sheikhs take on foreign-led Islamists.

There are now an estimated 72,000 members in some 300 groups set up in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the numbers are growing. They are funded, but supposedly not armed, by the US military. "It is Iraq's own surge," said a western diplomat, "and it is certainly making a difference."

Max: Shrub - Liar or Moron?

Once again, Keith Olbermann is the only one who calls Shrub out for his crimes.

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendentally stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

Max: Land of the Free

Evidence Of Innocence Rejected at Guantanamo

Just months after U.S. Army troops whisked a German man from Pakistan to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002, his American captors concluded that he was not a terrorist.

"USA considers Murat Kurnaz's innocence to be proven," a German intelligence officer wrote that year in a memo to his colleagues. "He is to be released in approximately six to eight weeks."

But the 19-year-old student was not freed. Instead, over the next four years, two U.S. military tribunals that were responsible for determining whether Guantanamo Bay detainees were enemy fighters declared him a dangerous al-Qaeda ally who should remain in prison.

Jericho: Wanna be "dangerous"?

Read this article and laugh at George Bush!

According to the new estimates, Iran has stopped its nuke program. Even if it restarted its program, it wouldn't have enough enriched, weapons grade uranium until at least 2010, but probably closer to 2015.

However, enriched uranium could do more for the electrical power needs of that country than it could for building one, count'em, ONE bomb.

The Bush administration has repeatedly touted the joy and beauty that is nuclear power. But, when a country, who might have some questionable values and goals, gets enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear power plant, suddenly they are "dangerous". What? Did Haliburton lose the contract to build the plant?

I love this quote: "...Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" - ummm, Dubya, buddy - that's not exactly top secret info any more. Fifty or sixty years ago, maybe. But not today!

So, just to make sure that we are all "dangerous" - here is all the info you will need to build a nuclear bomb. That's right! If you read the previous link, you will have "the knowledge". You won't have enough fissionable materials - but neither does Iran - so you, too, can be a rogue state and a future nuclear power!

If you can obtain some fissionable material, either from a friendly rogue state, a friendly rogue U.S. agency or your local University - you, too, can join the Nuclear Club.

Dubya, pal, have a look at the Internet some time. The truth is out there.

Max: Why We Must Go War With Iran

Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.

The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.

Max: Everybody Needs a Hobby

Via Wired

"Look," Shannen Rossmiller says, pointing at her computer screen. She's in an online chat room, and the name Terrorist11 has just popped up. "He's one of the more popular guys."

To get here, she signed onto alfirdaws.org. Then she clicked into the Paradise Jihadist Supporters Forum. The site is in Arabic, so she turns on the basic Google text translator that renders the discussion into clumsy phrases.

"Take a charge with caution," warns one jihadist posting, "this thread is monitored." Meanwhile, Terrorist11 is praising the 2004 Madrid train bombings and posting videos of the dead for other jihadist wannabes to enjoy. Old news, terrorism-wise. Rossmiller flips her blond hair. She looks bored. "They are just flaming, ranting and raving," she says. "Do you want to see some blood and guts? Let's go find it."

In her small, one-chair home office in Montana, I sit beside Rossmiller on a little tiled table normally reserved for a lamp. Outside, the vistas stretch across Big Sky Country to the Elk Horn Ridge Mountains. Inside, Rossmiller shows me what she does as perhaps America's most accomplished amateur terrorist hunter.

Max: Iran

I wonder if our resident war mongers have as much of a hard-on for the upcoming war as they do for the current one.

Max: WHAT! THE! FUCK?!?

Via MSNBC/Newsweek

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV.

Why are the fuckers who pulled guns on and disarmed our soldiers in a wars zone not dead?

Max: The Marines Would Prefer to Kill Taliban

Via the NYT

The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

The idea by the Marine Corps commandant would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.

Max: This Actually Seems Sorta Reasonable

Dems To Let NSA Spy in U.S., But Spooks Will Hate the Fine Print

So the bill gives the NSA the ability to install wiretapping equipment in U.S. telecom switches or in the servers of U.S. email providers without getting a court order, but can only do so when they already know exactly what conversations they want to capture, rather than what person, email address or phone number they want to track. In other words, they have to know that known foreigner A is calling known foreigner B and that's what they get to tap without court oversight. They cannot just target every call to and from known foreigner A using spy equipment inside the United States. (Outside the U.S., there's no limits on what the NSA can listen in on.)

Outside of that case, the NSA has to go to the spy court for permission to wiretap inside the U.S.

If the spy agency suspects that one of the targets in this scenario is outside of the country or is a foreigner? Go to the court.

If the NSA wants to get all of the communications to an email address (provided by a U.S. company) of a suspected spy or terrorist that the NSA believes is outside of the country? Go to the court.

If the NSA wants to wiretap every call to known foreigner A that passes through a U.S.switch.? Go to the court.

Max: Republicans Hate Our Soldiers

I would like to dedicate this video to Senate Republicans who filibustered to death a bill that would have required that US troops be granted as much time home as they spend risking their lives in Iraq.

Jericho: Allow me to be clear.

I am not some crypto-fascist war monger - as I am sometimes painted on this site.

Mao Zedong once said that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Mao has a point, but he was way more militant than I. I prefer Roosevelt's idea of walking softly but carrying a big stick - it's still too violent, but it's along the right idea.

It is impossible to bargain from a position of power if you have no power. As the kids say today - duh! However, power comes in many forms. Certainly, a strong military will grant you power. But, as the Soviet Union proved, a military is only as strong as your economy. The United States is the richest nation on Earth. We have a robust economy - even in the worst of times - don't be fooled! We are voracious consumers and as time passes we are consuming far more than we produce. Thus, many nations want to keep us happy because we buy their product. That, however, can be a double edged sword.

When Hussein took Kuwait before the first Gulf War, many in the US were concerned. We were concerned that Hussein was gearing up to be a new Hitler, taking the Rhineland all over again. But, this wasn't enough to bring our troops to "liberate Kuwait". It took concern of another kind. Hussein went after Kuwait for the oil, why not take Saudi Arabia? Saudi implored the US, fearing Hussein. We dropped troops in Saudi first. So, here is a country with no military to speak of, who can summon the most powerful military in the world to its defence. In that case, political power flowed from the oil field. Without their oil, or with higher oil prices set by Hussein, our economy would have been in trouble. I would have loved to see the protests by the "No Blood for Oil" crowd when their houses went dark and gas rose to $10 a gallon.

There is a place for military power. There is a place for diplomacy. If you were a powerful country, would you care what a diplomat said if there wasn't a powerful military or a powerful economy behind that diplomat? No, you wouldn't. Why would you waste your time?

There is a place and time for war, for peace, for diplomacy, for embargo and for charity - a worthy leader would know when to do which. A coward will always choose war. A brave leader will always choose peace. Sometimes a brave leader needs to be a little cowardly. Hussein only understood war. Hitler only understood hate. Gandhi only understood peace. All of them were wrong - they all could have used a lesson in flexibility.

Leaving Hussein to his own devices was a bad idea - he would have taken over the entirety of the Middle East in a few years, killed those that he hated and jacked up oil prices so high our economy would have collapsed. We took him down several pegs in the early 90s. We removed him from power this time. All told we lost about 10,000 troops. It seems like a lot - but remember about 30,000 American troops died in Normandy on D-Day. One battle! One day! Now that Hussein is gone, we need to make sure that the Iraq government can hold its own, then we need to get the hell out of there! They hate us and everything we stand for. When we came to liberate, they cheered, then two days later they booed. They are very much like the French!

We may have to go back and clean up Iraq more than once. Diplomacy is failing in Iran, we may have to resort to military action. Diplomacy seems to be keeping North Korea at bay for the moment. It also seems to be working in China.

I wish Diplomacy worked every time, it doesn't. I wish we didn't need to make less powerful countries client states, but it seems to be the only way to go. I wish our economy was independent of all other factors but its not. We can't live without the rest of the globe and we can't allow them to live without us.

Jericho: As if we needed a reason ...

Just when we are talking about getting out of Iraq, Iran has to raise its head and talk tough about a nuke program. This hasn't been enough to stir the voters to go to war with Iran. So, now this comes along.

How many wars can we have at once? How many wars can King George II start before he leaves office? We are all about to find out.

Max: An Excuse At Last

BBC NEWS | UK | UK sailors captured at gunpoint

Fifteen British navy personnel have been captured at gunpoint by Iranian forces, the Ministry of Defence says.

The men were seized at 1030 local time when they boarded a boat in the Gulf, off the coast of Iraq, which they suspected was smuggling cars.

Max: How Shrub Is Insuring We Are Well And Truly Fucked

We are funding al Queda.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

Instead of going after bin Laden and al Queda, Shrub tricked the less distrustful of us into thinking that Saddam had a part in 9/11. So we let bin Laden go so we could get into a quagmire in Iraq. Now, thanks to the mess we made, we are now funding the people who thought 9/11 was a pretty neato thing.

Why this fucker has not been frog-marched out of the White House and into his own cell at Gitmo, I do not know.

Max: Yay! War!

Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring | Iran | Guardian Unlimited

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.