General Betrayus Craps Out In Iraq

Facist pro-Betrayus nuts keep blathering about how the stupid, murderous Surge is actually working. But they forget, or hope you forget anyway, that the whole point of the stupid, murderous Surge was to pacify things in Iraq, and particularly around Baghdad, so that the discombobulated and cowardly Iraqi parliament could feel more secure in taking the difficult stands to unify what is obviously an utterly broken country. 

All the alleged military gains by the United States during the Surge, which mostly amount to fascists threatening that if the United States does the right thing and pulls ALL its troops out immediately then Osama bin Laden will take over Iraq, won't amount to a hill of beans if the Iraqi government can't come across with the benchmarks for success.

Clearly, the Iraqi government's ideas of success is something very different from Bush's or Betrayus' idea of success. The Iraqi parliament was supposed to have completed all or at least a good portion of the benchmarks by September, so that when Betrayus comes back to the United States to report the Surge has achieved sufficient goals to justify all the dead people it has caused, he won't look like an utter fool or a lying piece of shit.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi parliament decided today that after a tough year in which it has achieved, oh, NONE of the major benchmarks for success, they are taking off till early in September, about two weeks before Betrayus goes to Congress to lie his ass off.

In fact, with major voting blocks in the Iraqi parliament pulling out right and left, it will be interesting to see if enough members show up in September to even bother trying to do a quick and dirty save of the Surge. By September, Iraq instead may be engaged in full-blown civil war, especially with the United States handing out guns to any Iraqi who says he'll shoot Qaeda guys instead of American soldiers.

At this point, the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, hates General Betrayus' guts so much that he wants him fired and somebody more pro-Shiite appointed in his place. Given al-Maliki's attitude, it doesn't seem as if he is going to be much interested in helping Betrayus achieve his goals with the Surge. Indeed, should we be surprised if a Diem-type coup takes place in Baghdad in the next couple of months, so that a more US-friendly (or that is Bush-friendly) dictator can be in charge of the Iraqi government contribution to the chaos?

Of course, the US military's response to this disaster is to ask for more time and more killing.

Just like they did in Vietnam. 

Fuck that. 

Pack up the troops and get them home tomorrow. The Shiites, or for that matter the Sunnis, will kill all the handful of Qaeda guys as soon as we get the hell out of Iraq. So, there isn't any reason, and never was of course, for US troops to stay one second longer in Iraq.

KlasherV

The Insanity of the United States and its Freedom-Hating Laws

What a great idea! But nobody in Congress

ever took it seriously—it's not like English

means what it says after all, certainly not 

to lawyers.

Let us start here, at what might be called a frontier of freedom. For certainly whatever a society says is obscene, and worth prohibiting, is a place where that society's sincerity with respect to its alleged love of freedom will be most demonstrably challenged.

Of course, this act deals specifically with being obscene mailings, and while the mail is picked upon (I suppose because it would engage government employees in aiding the distribution of the contraband), the assumptions about what is obscene and why and what should be done about it are applicable in a general way to how the society in the United States officially views the limits of freedom.

Note especially the many mentions of the word "abortion" in these prohibitions. Of all the obscene or indecent things the writers and supporters of these laws could imagine, abortion was the main thing on their lascivious little minds. Not actually stopping abortions of course, because those are (so far) legal in the United States and their legality supported by most citizens, and so what "crime" would one be inciting to talk about these practices? No, instead the prohibitors want to deny anybody mailing any information about—you know, the legal practice of abortion. 

Only a sick and demented society, one twisted up with a deserved self-hatred, could make a crime out of discussing a perfectly legal act, while at the same time having a supposedly cherished protection that says Congress cannot make a crime out of, nor pass any law whatsoever abridging, the freedom to speak or write the criminal words.

How stupid is that? Hey, it's a joint effort of lawyers and politicians (no doctors need bother to open their mouths with their silly medical facts) trying to regulate a woman's stewardship of her own body. And that is pretty god-damned stupid.

Here is another place worthy of examining, where freedom is hatefully challenged by a law meant to destroy it, and at the same time to contradict freedom's alleged enshrinement in the First Amendment, which shrine is heading for a final fall it seems as Bush's Supreme Court takes aim at it and every other worthy American value (noting those are always an endangered species).

Did you know that it was a crime in the United States to write something like: "The government of the United States is a heinous affront to the liberty and well-being of the people of the entire world, and should be overthrown and replaced by a better and more humane system."

And if you write such a thing, and especially if you mean by writing it to convince somebody (or preferably, a determined mob of them) that your words constitute a policy desirable to follow with deeds of political remedy, you can be thrown into prison for twenty years!

That this provision of the United States government, which would seem to pose its rights of existence far above and beyond the rights of the people to demand its dismantling, is in direct contradiction to the command of the First Amendment that Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech, has not bothered the politicians and bureaucrats (which is the only political party that matters of course). They operate from an assumption of suspicion that every free inclination not involving the right to stuff another fat American face with processed poisons (called "food" in the USA), or some other planet-killing commodity, is a potentially heinous impulse. And, as you can see, they shall not allow it!

But, the question is, as it has always been, what shall you allow?

Isn't the answer that you'll allow the government pretty much anything, so long as they don't bother you, today? Because don't you believe that the days of rights and rebellion, of fighting for freedom, are now dead forever?

And you see no reason to put yourself out for a dead concept. 

Right?

YOU'RE certainly not going to endanger yourself by—oh, rudely speaking up in a way that might upset your neighbor or encourage him to rat you out to whatever government agency thrives on the flows of information and other moral support from rats.

And that First Amendment thing, why it was always after all just a guideline, not a rule. After all, it was written by lawyers.

But it was written by lawyers who understood that law, if justly applied, was one way that the people could be protected from their government, and that doing that was a fundamental difference between government by the people, and government against the people. And they understood that governments are by their natures repressive of the liberties of the people—especially minorities—and so needed to be severely limited by rules that reflected something the American people had allegedly just fought a war to demonstrate, that they would not stand for a government that acted in disregard of their freedom.

At least they didn't stand for it in 1776.

But today, you don't have much of a problem with a government that counts you as an ant (one amongst 300 million), do you? Of course it's 2007, not 1776, and you've got your own problems. Everybody does.

Along with a lot of other terrible things, Bush has fully demonstrated the decline and fall of the myth of the freedom-loving American. Now, you may say that isn't true, that you in fact are just as freedom-loving as you imagine the fighters of 1776 to have been.

But, what of it? What have you done? Invaded Iraq perhaps, to murder and torture people—in the name of freedom? Oh...or maybe you have voted to re-elect Bush, after of course you supported his idiot invasion of Iraq. You probably did that, didn't you, since most Americans did that.

And now you say, oh that was all just a big mistake (assuming you aren't one of the 40% or so of people who still, amazingly, think it was good idea). Nope, not just a big mistake. It was a symptom of your freedom-hating condition. And that condition is not just a bad or mistaken vote; it is a mindset of thoughtless and lazy obedience to an immoral, unjust authority.

You have no excuse for this personal failing. You have been stupid, ignorant and basically running with a pack of LOSERS. And unlike in most things in your life, where your losing is of no particular account beyond afflicting you and your family and friends, in the great collective losing which has been the pious and pinheaded political will of the American people, the whole world is made to suffer for your grotesque foolishness.

[Note how I am in fact offering you helpful criticism in the following.] 

You can start today getting over this. Start saying "NO"! First and foremost to yourself. Any time you hear your inner child tugging at your heartstrings, telling you it doesn't feel good and needs another bloody fix of jingoism, or nationalism, or another climate-killing SUV to add to the collection, or maybe some more freedom-smashing laws penned by the radical Christian jihadists in search of salvation through repression (of other people), just listen to the child kindly, as you always do, bend down and in the gentlest tones you can muster—tell the little bastard to shut the fuck up!!

Once you've managed to do that, and it might take you a while, since our whole economic system is devoted to building and peddling a billion versions of a better pacifier, you might have a chance to begin to see just how infantile you and your fellow citizens have been and continue to be to tolerate one more day of the murderous thug, George Bush, and his horrible crew of zealous nincompoops.

When that revelation should come to you, which we should hope is the most humiliating day of your life, you can perhaps then start on the road to acting in accord with a more mature sense of liberty. And you can start on the endless road of trying to make amends for your ghastly folly.

Standing Against IS Standing For Something

People, you know the average joes&janes, often say to critics, especially critics of thorny things like war: "yeah, but instead of complaining, why don't you tell us what you stand for!"

And that's because American joes&janes like their critics to be helpful. You hear that a lot from the meatheads running the regime at the Bush Bunker. They claim they're all for criticism of their policies of war and thuggery, but it needs to be the right brand, which mean it needs to be the sort which is helpful. This means that the critic should agree with the assumptions and goals of the meatheads, and their dimwitted wars, while offering helpful hints about how these might be better achieved. 

Anybody who isn't on that page, who seems to be saying, in the immortal words of Marlon Brando in The Wild One (when asked what he was rebelling against): "Whaddya got?", is counted by the Bush regimists as being unhelpful, which in their view means you're helping the terrorists (or insurgents or whatever today's label is for THEM!).

Brando to squares: Whaddya got?

In other words, if you're not prepared to accept the basic idea that the Bush regime and its wars are good things, you're not just a critic, you're an enemy of its state (of mind).

The thing is, they've made such a mess of the state of things, you've got to ask yourself if being an enemy of that and them that made it is such a bad thing to be. And when the state of things plainly sucks so much and so universally, you've got to agree with Brando that no matter where you throw your critical punch, it's likely to land someplace that needed punching. 

And that's the idea of this blog. To counterspell the general evil bullshit that has befallen the entire world. Unlike a lot of other blogs, where they blame God or the Devil for that catastrophe, here we'll be blaming you lot, the readers—you know, the people responsible for it. 

Because, let's face it, the world didn't get in this fucked-up condition while you were on a coffee break, or taking a well-deserved nap. Even though you may have been doing those things, trying to distract yourself from the sinking ship you were on, you knew what was going on. You just decided to ignore it and hope things would be OK. Well, they aren't. 

And I figure blaming you is as good a start to fixing things as we're likely to find. Fixing things? Sure, I'm all for that. But, before we fix anything, we need to admit to ourselves that this shit we're doing and supporting is broken beyond hope. It's time to start over, from some kind of scratch. And to help do that, we're going to start punching.

So, let's get to it, OK?

Oh, and sure, you can blame me if you want to, that's what the comments are for—along with telling me what a great job I'm doing of course.

____________

So, first off, let's look at one particularly worthless bunch of crapheads who definitely need rebelling against, and some friendly words from the B.R.M.C.

These defenders of a certain kind of faith call themselves names like the Military Combat Defense Fund, and the Marine Defense Fund. They were profiled in the New York Times today.

The Times notes:

"Conservative Christians and military veterans are part an emerging group of Americans who say they are upset by the recent prosecutions of soldiers and marines based in Iraq on war crimes charges, and are coming to their defense with words, Web sites and money."

A 98-year-old contributor to the MCDF is quoted in the Times:

"I wonder if you are supposed to check out each enemy to see if they have a gun or wait for them to shoot first."

Yeah, that must explain acts like this; Private Green was just under the pressure of combat and couldn't wait to determine if the girl he is accused of raping and murdering had a gun or was intending to shoot him. Like Green's accomplice, Specialist Barker, said, the enemy wasn't cooperating that day as Barker was "having trouble getting an erection" in his efforts to rape her, so anybody can see the frustration felt by these brave defenders of the United States Constitution must have been the Iraqi insurgent's fault. Right? Well, hey, if it wasn't her fault exactly, certainly one of her family was probably an insurgent. And so Green and his troop murdered them too.

On the MCDF website, they explain their mission:

"Anyone that has been in combat knows how confusing things can get. Decisions have to be made in a split second and the harshest judge of those decisions is the combat Marine or Soldier who has made them. Most of those decisions come to visit us every night."

Well, let's hope so. Because the US mission in Iraq has deprived countless Iraqis of any more nights or days at all. And few of them got a trial, just an execution. But, of course, they must have all been insurgents. Or, let's see, it must have been because of how confusing things can get, yeah that's the ticket.

Well, if Iraqis aren't all insurgents or supporters of them by now, after the tender mercies applied to them and their children by the likes of Private Green, you have to figure their restraint is remarkable, and probably ill-advised.

And that's certainly how Iraqis see things too. For years now, most Iraqis have wanted US troops to leave their country. Almost a year ago, Iraqis clearly said they wanted US troops the hell out of their country in a year. Well, instead Bush is planning to upgrade the mission, and kill even more Iraqis for his stupid lost war.

You think that is going to convince more Iraqis that killing Americans is a bad idea? Instead, what Bush is doing is vigorously recruiting new terrorists for Qaeda. Bush is and has always been Osama bin Laden's right-hand man. And for this, he is not impeached and removed from office, while Bill Clinton was impeached for—lying about sex. 

And that is one reason why you lot, you Americans particularly of course, are to blame. That and the 2004 election infamy of course.

One thing we have to remember, if we're going to have an accurate picture of the horror that has been perpetrated upon Iraq by the United States, and that is the fact the perpetrators, the instruments of Bush's policy, are the troops Americans are being ordered to support. These troops, unfortunately, have done their best to carry out Bush's orders. And in doing this, they have succeeded in making the United States the most despised nation on the face on the Earth. They have betrayed the United States, not defended it.

In fact, it is extremely difficult to get the military to investigate or bring charges against its soldiers for war crimes. As the "defense fund" websites note, it is bad for troop morale to actually hold them accountable for committing acts of war, which are by their very nature criminal acts of course. So, only the very most heinous and undeniable cases are even investigated beyond a cursory dismissal, much less brought to trial, and then by the very organizations whose employees are accused of the crimes, and which organizations are those very same dutifully carrying out Bush's lunatic war agenda.

We should in fact be surprised that any of the accused would receive anything but the most generous benefits of any doubts the military could muster in their favor. It is extremely dubious that any of the accused are anything other than guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt of the crimes of which they are accused. The main injustice that is being committed in their trials is that more of their fellow perpetrators of the terrible crimes against the Iraqi nation are not being tried along with them, starting with their commanders, and rightly starting first with their commander-in-chief.

In that sense, Private Green'a trial may be said to be a singling out for his above-and-beyond performance of duty. He may have been Bush's instrument the day he raped and murdered that girl and her family, but it was Bush that sent him to do that work against the Iraqi people.

Let us close with this compassionate judgment: to hell with all war criminals and their supporters.