teh stupids!

The tag on this post at Wonkette reads "Fiction Writing Rendered Useless." Yep. Pretty much. The callow stupidity of our president will never ever fail to boggle my mind.

immunity absurdity

I'm glad the Democrats are making some noise about the absurd decision to grant "limited-use" immunity to the Blackwater mercenaries. I just wish for some reason to believe that their bluster will actually come to any result. Unfortunately, Bush&Co are brilliant at both crafting messages to relegate critics to crank status and doing whatever they damn well please.

At this point, the whole administration has become a tragicomedy of Shakespearean proportions. From faked FEMA news conferences to faked photo ops to the decision to protect mercenaries who randomly killed people to the ability to ignore calls for increased information, this administration has made a joke of our country and citizenry. As public servants, they have done nothing more than fuel their own machiavellian ambitions, and whoever takes over the reins will be left with more messes than we can possibly imagine.

And we owe most of it to the Supreme Court, a court that was less Conservative than the court we inherit.

news like this scares me

So a B-52 flies from North Dakota to Louisiana and it's not news, right? Right. Unless it's carrying nuclear weapons. To the base used to stage Middle East operations. And someone sees fit to leak the news.

Seriously, though, the possibility that Bush&Co might try to go through with an attack on Iran is disturbing--and all-too-plausible. Jon Stewart began making the point a few years ago that we just happened to have started wars on either side of Iran. Given the hubris of our Dear Leaders, it is not a hard leap to believe that there is a long-term strategy in place for using Afghanistan and Iraq as staging grounds; such a premise is also vaguely believable since there clearly has never been an exit strategy, and another war would continue to justify a long-term occupation.

Regardless, the possibility of stepping up our military engagement is too frightening to imagine. And the thought of adding nuclear weapons to the equation... Oy.

abstractions and war

According to General Petraeus on NPR this evening, "Our enemy is extremism." Translated, this means we are fighting an abstraction. Except that you can't fight an abstraction. Misunderstanding this reality may in fact be the saddest thing about our nation's misguided leadership.

NPR madness and Iraq

This afternoon on All Things Considered, an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel was interviewed. He talked about how grateful the Iraqis were--in spite of the difficulties of getting them to finish their police training consistently. He explained his rosy view of things by putting it in historical perspective... historical perspective as long as you only believe that Iraqi history begins with Saddam Hussein's regime. Sadly, as long as our government and the supposed watchdogs of the media continue to foment this myopic view of a complicated regional history (The amalgamation of fractious regions into a manufactured "country," eh? The problematic British occupation in the early twentieth century, eh?), we will continue down the path of lies, half-truths, and fatal inanities.

Oy vey

This is what our Iraq experiment is becoming. Sickening. Really.

Good News/Bad News

First, the good:

Administration officials and Congressional leaders said that the lobbyist, Michael E. Baroody, decided to step aside after it became clear that his nomination would be rejected by the Senate commerce committee.

The fox has decided not to go into the chicken coop. No wolf among the sheep. Then again, it will be interesting to see whether he is given a recess appointment in a few weeks.

Second, the bad:

The decision by the Democratic majority to strip the measure of a timetable for troop withdrawal has raised the prospect that it could be approved mainly by Republicans with scattered Democrat support. The idea that many Democrats would be left on the losing side in a consequential vote has exposed a sharp divide within the party, drawn scorn from antiwar groups, confused the public and frustrated the party rank and file.

But in recounting the leadership’s thinking, senior Democrats and other officials said that by early this week they had concluded there was no alternative but to give ground to President Bush despite their view that he had mishandled the war and needed to be put under tighter Congressional rein.

Capitulation?!?! Is this what we fucking fought for in the last election? Is it possible that they are so cowed by a president who can barely muster a thirty percent approval rating? Is it possible that they are so afraid of Fox News and CNN that they will give in when they finally gained the majority? What kind of Kool Aid are Bush&Co giving them? Do we live in Topsy-Turvy Land?