“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” – unnamed Bush aide, spilling the beans

This must be what the wanna-be neocons in the media think too. Just like the neocons, they think the filthy masses are so damn dumb (admittedly, there are a lot of idiots ’round here) that they will be easily tricked by Hiatt’s silky smooth turd…words.

And conservative media outlets wonder why they are losing subscribers. Sheesh.

I have a huge political crush on you, HTML or Retardo or whatever you call yourself at any moment. I admit it blushingly. So understand that I mean this lovingly when I say this was not your best effort,

perpetualization—are you mocking wingnuts or us? This is not a real word. Please, let’s not descend to wingnut illiteracy. Perpetuation is what you want–or however it’s spelled, I’m crap at such things.

I think you are better when you are calmer and just vivisect the fuckers—this is not your best.

But again, I say it as someone who waits for your posts. Your usual in-depth
analysis is just so kick-ass–this isn’t the same.

Hey, I couldn’t edit it for a long time because the site went down. Point taken on the grammar, it was written in haste as I said. Am working on it now.

Also — shhh, don’t tell anyone — but I’ve been a real idiot lately, just in general. To the point that I wonder if I have a brain tumor or something. Aphasic in ways I’ve never been before. I’m slightly worried, actually.

Bah, I don’t care about grammar. That’s a really tiny point, and I thought you might have intended it in some clever way. It would work really well as a satirical point against wingnuts and their reflexive hatred of academia—add more syllables! make some concept ‘sound’ more respectable! –Wingnuts do it all the fucking time themselves, while claiming that academics and liberals are the elitists.

Anyway–still crushing on you, still think this was not your best. You’re better.

Missed your earlier comment—well, even if you are aphasic at the moment (according to you)–you’re always very clever. Hence my crush.

I don’t think this post was up to your usual standard.That’s all. It’s really good and funny, but I think you are best and so much more devastating when you are less angry–and I could be wrong but I see anger here, it gets in the way for you and what you do. Anger works for Brad, for example–I love his posts–but it doesn’t work for you in the same way, exactly. It fuels your writing but it works differently.

Not that I oppose the bill. I support it. Iraqis need to step up or use the remaining funds we through at them to hire private security contracts. If there is going to be a Sunni massacre it will happen whenever we leave.

But I’m fucking tired of the pork. Hiatt is right about one thing. These assholes need to be bribed to do the right thing. We don’t need more goddamn pork. We already spend $100b on farm subsidies as it is, deflating the income of foreign agribusiness markets struggling to make ends meet and basically forcing Mexican rural poor to cross the border to get paid in one hour what they get paid in one day in Mexico. This has to stop!

Also — shhh, don’t tell anyone — but I’ve been a real idiot lately, just in general. To the point that I wonder if I have a brain tumor or something. Aphasic in ways I’ve never been before. I’m slightly worried, actually.
Crystal meth will do that.

Yes, Lesly, we should stop supporting our farmers so we become entirely reliant upon imported food and those poor “foreign agribusiness markets” can raise their markup 100% on what they sell to us and to their own people, since we’ll no longer be able to compete.

This is the new wingnut meme, that Lou Dobbs echoed recently as well. “Why don’t the Democrats get serious about our national problems like Iraq and Social Security and Health Care instead of wasting time on these investigations? That’s why they were elected.”

The carriers of this viral meme seem to have one attribute in common. They can’t count. Can anyone in their right mind imagine a bill that would actually do something positive about the nation’s problems getting through the Senate where the Dems hold a razor-thin majority – and that’s including the blue-dog Republicrats? Anything serious not initiated by Karl Rove or Dick Cheney would get the veto immediately and where’s that 2/3 majority? Right. Doesn’t exist.

Best tactic for the Dems? Investigate the ever-living daylights out of this corrupt regime: in public, under oath, on the record. Expose to the American people the depth of this regime’s hatred for the US Constitution, for human rights, for the will of the people, for truth and for democracy. Rub the people’s nose in the putrid feces of this administration’s corrupt acts until they get the message: no Republican can be trusted. Then, and only then, will they be able to solve the nation’s problems – if they have the will.

Isn’t it “perpetualimationizing”?

Maybe I missed a couple of syllables, I’m not sure…

Clearly you do not understand democratic theory, which stipulates that a unitary executive should be able to operate completely free of accountability.

Perpetualization is in fact a word. And since when does anger detract from comedy? Were Mort Sahl, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, etc. not pissed the fuck off? Gladly, yes and their anger was not coincidental to their effectiveness. Quite the contrary. If Retardo were not angry I suspect he would not provide us with his wit in the first place so I hope he stays at least as pissed off as he is now.

As for Aphasia, I also wonder if mine is caused by a brain tumor. I wonder the same thing about my short term memory problems and my shortness of breath when I played soccer with mis amigos last night.

The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States

Interesting couple of admissions there. First, backhanded reference to Jimmy Carter aside, I thought conservatives generally thought U.S. legislation actually should pay more attention to hard-workin’, god-fearin’ Americans than to dirty foreigners. Also — really? The U.S. created a maelstrom? A freaking maelstrom? Ooh. What a giveaway.

HTML, sorry you’ve been feeling idiotic lately. Maybe it’s the weather. Thanks, though, for not including a picture of Fred this time. That would have been too much this morning.

gjdodger: Yes, Lesly, we should stop supporting our farmers so we become entirely reliant upon imported food and those poor “foreign agribusiness markets� can raise their markup 100% on what they sell to us and to their own people, since we’ll no longer be able to compete.

Why do you propose being a preemptive asshole about farm subsidies when we, along with the E.U. have the most advanced industry? The U.S. and E.U. are the biggest violators. We undercut foreign states that rely on agriculture to advance their subsistence agriculture industry and light industry. Then, when they can’t compete in the global market we insist on we support them with foreign aid. God, I don’t know why so many people are pissed at us.

Population pressure, combined with the lifting of subsidies on the farm, sent rural Mexicans in search of higher wages. They moved within Mexico in vast numbers. Many crossed the border. By 2002, 14 percent of all people born in Mexican villages were living in the United States, according to J. Edward Taylor, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis. Mexicans in the United States sent home nearly $17 billion in 2004, according to the Bank of Mexico.

I can’t believe the Mexican government agreed to drop their subsidies when dealing with us. What a bunch of idiots.

Even dates for troop withdrawals might be helpful, if they are cast as goals rather than requirements

Fred Hiatt in high school: deadlines for homework are helpful, but only if cast as goals and not requirements.

I am learning all I can about algebra, and if I am restrained by having to hand in my homework at the due date I may not be finished with it, thus endangering my quest for knowledge.

Hiatt is worse than useless, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for anything thrown the Democrats’ way in the wake of this eighteen-month blank check they’re writing the President while pretending they’ve framed a plan for Iraq withdrawal.

In fact, the current why-progressives-should-drink-the-KoolAid meme over on the frontpage of dKos is “gee, we’ll get great press for passing this bill, which just shows that we’re playing the game the right way.”

It serves supporters of the war continuity resolution right that instead they get crap like this column.

I just love how, after 6+ years of some of the most amazingly wasteful government spending ever, replete with giveaways to already-rich people and corporations, the GOP was silent on the red ink. But soon after a Democratic majority is elected, before anything has actually happened, suddenly some Republicans are screaming about pork.

Iraq is a giant fucking ham, ferchrissake, sitting on the military-industrial complex’s table. Bueller?

Oh, and the aphasia, the shortness of breath, the forgetfulness? Occam’s Razor cuts away the brain tumors and, perhaps, reveals … *gasp* … advancing age … ?

The thirties are quite different from the 20s, I’m finding 😛

And thank FSM that this site is no longer being blocked by the corporate firewall as an alleged porn site. Yesterday was unsuitably desnarkified by that.

btw, I’m thinking of following HTML’s lead and undergoing a radical blogging/commenting name change (I know, I know, but for real, not for jokes). Piss poor l33t may not be getting the job done.

Also, I should change my sex. What does everyone think of “Betty Noir”?

When will you crazy extremist America-hating liberals be honest and remind your readers of the fact that the Congress serves at the pleasure of the President, and their job is to do exactly that which pleases him, unless the President is a Democrat, and then they should impeach him for a blow job.

Oh Jeezus. After what the republican – led congress gave to the credit card companies, the oil companies and fucking goddam Haliburton, for any of their idiot water-carriers to have the goddam fucking nerve to bring up PORK is so mindbendingly un-self-aware as to border on SNL – level parody.

Not to mention that it is completely reasonable for congress to set a date. The only reason to resist setting a date – certain for ending american combat operations in Iraq is if you want a permanant american military presence on the gulf oil fields, which I believe is the reason we are there today. If you truly believe that america should, at least at SOME point end its occupation of Iraq, then there has got to be a plan, a strategy for getting from 160,000 occupying troops to zero. And thankfully, the dems are putting that on the table.

Ultimately, however, bush is going to do what he wants to do, however he wants to do it. And I guarantee you, right now, at this very instant, he’s got peeps in the sitroom trying to decide if they can use the Iranian capture of British sailors as a provocation to, er, change the subject in a truly radical way…

mikey

Why, oh why, does some chick insistify on disenabliating HTML’s vocabulatorial choications??

Wherein Fred Fuckstone and the WP editorial page get torn new acking fussholes by David Obey:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/03/dem_rep_obey_ri.php

And how in fuck could a pullout endanger national security?

Teh Terrists would follow teh tr00pz back here (perhaps hiding out in aircraft wheel wells like Leprachauns on Aer Lingus) and have themselves a Head-Chopping-Fest. This is the logical conclusion of any Defeat-o-crat measure. Dur!

What part of Iraq is American soil?

The oil fields, duh! Sheesh, get with teh program.

Meanwhile, another Executive Branch member is convicted: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17753123/

It’s almost like Fitzmas, without the Fitz.

Oooh, like the change.

You know victimized Repugs get when they read ‘dirty words’.

So horrified NOTHING else matters…

what I want to know is, why do these rightards pay any attention to some fat, cheetos-stained slob who served absolutely no military time, but calls himself ‘captain’ ed?

that really pisses me off. beyond the completely insane ideas they have, it’s just poo-icing on a shit-cake.

A felony conviction just means he’ll get a cabinet position in the next Republican administration.

Why, oh why, does some chick insistify on disenabliating HTML’s vocabulatorial choications??

Don King, everybody. Let’s give him a big hand.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.â€? – unnamed Bush aide, spilling the beans.

That wasn’t an unnamed source, that was Paul fucking Wolfowitz.

just…what mikey said. seriously. where the fuck were fred hiatt and the washinton hand-jobs when it mattered? at a cocktail party, cocking tails or whatever one does. As soon as dems get back into power they remember that part of their job is bitching at power. One second after.

I remember casting a vote for conservative Democrats last November. I remember wanting the Democrats to be nice to Republicans and let the President do whatever the hell he wants. If I recall correctly, I also wanted the Democrats to stop complaining.

That’s what I voted for. At least, that’s the impression I get from reading all these helpful editorials that appear in the mainstream press every goddamn day.

*gets private room for crushing analyst somechick*

and I could be wrong but I see anger here, it gets in the way for you and what you do

I welcome the expressions of anger that occasionally come through on this otherwise laugh-a-minute blog. Anger is a healthy response to what the right-tards do. retardo comes through loud and clear.

Why do you propose being a preemptive asshole about farm subsidies when we, along with the E.U. have the most advanced industry?
I propose being a preemptive asshole about farm subsidies because I’ve been covering this industry as a journalist for 27 years.

The U.S. and E.U. are the biggest violators. We undercut foreign states that rely on agriculture to advance their subsistence agriculture industry and light industry. Then, when they can’t compete in the global market we insist on we support them with foreign aid. God, I don’t know why so many people are pissed at us.
Agriculture is the most protected industry in the world. The US and EU pay their farmers gargantuan subsidies because the rest of the world protects its own agriculture with import tariffs and quotas. We’ll drop ours if they drop theirs.

Population pressure, combined with the lifting of subsidies on the farm, sent rural Mexicans in search of higher wages. They moved within Mexico in vast numbers. Many crossed the border. By 2002, 14 percent of all people born in Mexican villages were living in the United States, according to J. Edward Taylor, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis. Mexicans in the United States sent home nearly $17 billion in 2004, according to the Bank of Mexico.

I can’t believe the Mexican government agreed to drop their subsidies when dealing with us. What a bunch of idiots.
Nobody is arguing that Mexico is not a much poorer nation than the United States, and its subsistence farmers will suffer from competition. But the entire populace benefits when food is abundant and affordable. Since NAFTA, agricultural trade has increased on both sides of the border; they sell more to us, and we sell more to them.

Don’t know about the weather in your part of the country, but the molds & mildews are blooming anew here in the Northeast. As even the allergists are finally conceding, allergies make the sufferer logey, stupid and aphasic. And, as with so many other chronic conditions, the symptoms tend to get worse as one gets older. One of the “perqs” of moving to the grownup table.

Although your post seemed quite reasonable to me, in the face of such obdurate idiocy as Hiatt’s whinging. My only complaint about farm subsidies is that too many are going to chemical megacorps like ADM and not enough are going to actual farms. Outsourcing our food supply because the Wall Street gnomes want a new variation on their old card games just reminds me too much of selling the family cow for three magic beans — and I don’t believe there’s a goose that lays golden eggs waiting at the end of that story, either!

Hiatt is worse than useless, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for anything thrown the Democrats’ way in the wake of this eighteen-month blank check they’re writing the President while pretending they’ve framed a plan for Iraq withdrawal.

Arrrggghhh. The President DOES run the foreign policy, whether we like it or not. There is a case to be made that setting benchmarks and setting a deadline may in fact get the Iraqi government motivated to begin the real transition from puppet state, to actual government. And, more than that, the Democrats could have passed a measure that said, “We’re going to stop funding now” and it would have the same effect: Veto.

This isn’t the end. This is the start. It provides the public and Congress with a chance to see what it will be like to end this monstrocity. But until there’s a unanimous Congressional Will (and 67 votes in the Senate), political victories will be small and short-lived.

There is no magic bullet Congress can shoot to end this war at the moment. It has to build its case.

What, given the separation of powers and the law, do you really think can happen?

So, after being repeatedly told that, “Just six more months, then things will be great!”, or “Just give this a few weeks, then things will be swell.” and “We’ll find out in 60 days just how orgasmic everything will turn out to be.” for years.

Suddenly now, “17 months?!! That’s not enough time!!”

Another year and a half (yes, that would technically be 18 months, not 17, but go fuck yourself) is stabbing the military in the back?
An August ’08 pullout is another year and a half of billions of dollars wasted and thousands of lives wasted. It’s 37.5% MORE time to spend in that sludgepot. That’s beyond generous. That’s adding a whole new half to the Superbowl to give the losing team a chance to score 30 points.
How many years were we seriously involved in Vietnam? 10? We had “advisers” there since the mid 50s. All the while, “We just need a few more thousand troops, just a few more thousand. Next year will be the year we win this.”

“or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, ”
Ugh. Was Fred in favor of ignoring and/or firing the Generals and commanders who said this plan was retarded and undermanned from the word go?

Motherfucker. It’s like trying to play Calvinball on opposite day.

I have to laugh at the Gathering of Eggheads when I see this old footage. Are we all too old and arthritic for such demonstrations now?

kos is half right, but those disgusted by this deal, from the left, not right, are more right. It’s smart politics, forcing withdrawal to either be a political issue in the campaign, or a victory for the dems just a few months before the election, if the deadline is enforced. But it’s also making the assumption that 18 months from now the political landscape will be basically the same, which is probably a big mistake, meaning the political utility is entirely in the potential.
And the fucking reality of war is much more important. I just hope that the relative silence from Conyers and the Judiciary Committee right now is a good sign.
The easiest, fastest way to end the war would be for Nancy Pelosi to order the troops out.

I hate it when the pundits, Fox types, etc. claim “The Democrats ran on the platform that they would ______; ” and then claime the Dem politicians lied and/or broke their promise. I don’t recall any politician saying he or she would stop “pork”. One or two may have said they’d like to do so, or expressed approval for doing so, but I doubt such a promise was made. Grrr!

At least with the troops out of Iraq, they will be able to invade Iran. Cuz, Iran is getting all uppity and won’t be satisfied with kidnapping British soldiers from rivers for long.

Then what? We keep the troops home??

Iran is getting all uppity
As opposed to when Bush got uppity and decided to take over countries that weren’t his? And you don’t honestly suppose that if, say, Cuba were inspecting ships right off our coast, we wouldn’t be “seizing” anything?

Then what? We keep the troops home??

Where better to have them to defend the actual homeland? Like, duh!

When Iranian amphibious forces land at Provincetown, then you can say I was wrong.

“At least with the troops out of Iraq, they will be able to invade Iran. Cuz, Iran is getting all uppity and won’t be satisfied with kidnapping British soldiers from rivers for long.

Then what? We keep the troops home??”

SAS. Not our problem.

Iran is getting all uppity
As opposed to when Bush got uppity and decided to take over countries that weren’t his? And you don’t honestly suppose that if, say, Cuba were inspecting ships right off our coast, we wouldn’t be “seizing� anything?

Look, I took the time to write a perfectly utilitarian greasemonkey script that makes it so I don’t have to read the crayon-scribblings of either Annie or Shoelimpy. Apparently, other people have also found it useful. If you insist on quoting her, it means I’m going to have to learn more javascript and build some massive program to eliminate what *you* wrote. That will probably explode my CPU, destroying my ability to put food on my family’s table.

My wife will leave me, my dog will probably run away, it’s likely my bank will foreclose on my mortgage, and I’ll end up penniless on the street.

So for the love of God, just quite responding to the trolls. Or you’re going to start liking pie too.

I said they WON’T be satisfied with doing that for long.

Then it sure will be our problem, who knows who what they will do next? Or should we just fund Israel and let them handle it?

I always said it would be in our best interests for the best if Israel and Iran got into it.

But we’ll be staying in Iraq if Iran doesn’t start caving, and they won’t. And then it will be a great big mess with no US troops over there………….yeah RIGHT.

We will be there to keep Iraq safe UNTIL it is safe. Trust me.

The easiest, fastest way to end the war would be for Nancy Pelosi to order the troops out.

Where, anywhere, would this be legal? Because it’s certainly not within her power to do anything remotely like this.

Wow, if people respond to me, they will be censored too.

I love liberalism. Not a bit fascist.

Say, john galt – I use greasemonkey – could you post a link to the script? I really hates me some dick-limpy and mannie devil.

oh, and mannie – go fuck yourself. please look up what fascist means, you stupid, dried-up old hag.

oh, and one more thing, you disgusting harpy – using a script that would stop my eyes from having to view the vile, disgusting, jingoist and bigoted bullshit that spews from your devilish mouth is not called ‘censorship’ you ignorant slut!

please, look up the definition of ‘censorship’, then go ahead and fuck off.

One cool thing about the script is you can have the trolls saying anything you want. On St. Paddy’s day for instance they liked potatos.

On St. Paddy’s day for instance they liked potatos.

Why did I find this so funny?

annieangel: I love liberalism. Not a bit fascist.

Silly person!

a.) Take over the government of a major country, revoke all the civil rights of that country’s citizens, open up concentration camps, start wars with all that country’s neighbors, and murder millions upon millions of civilians in death camps: that’s “fascist.”

b.) Remove text messages you don’t care to read from the comments section of a web site that you are paying for: that’s not “fascist.”

You’re not being deprived of free speech either, neither “free” in the sense of political liberty nor “free” in the “free beer” sense. If you desire to publish your ideas, such as they are, you can start up a blog of your own on Blogspot for no expense to yourself whatsoever.

Hey, don’t make this about me! Dude is threatening to script anyone who speaks to me.

Including, I guess, you.

Now take this thread back on topic.

Hey, annieangel! Good to see you! I’m always on th edge of my seat to find out if conservatives have anything new or intelligent to say … for a change.

Fire away while I get my popcorn ready!

I’m not sure that the money he’s talking about deserves to be called pork. Here in North Dakota we had a severe drought in parts of the state last year and our legislators have been attempting for some time to obtain disaster-relief funds. What’s the difference between giving money to people that lost everything in an earthquake or hurricane and farmers that lost their crops due to severe weather. In both cases we’re talking about the victims of a natural disaster.

I think the columnist is just searching around for any old way of attacking Democrats and this is what works for him at the moment. The willingness to write off hard-working middle Americans is truly astonishing. It makes you wonder if the Republican Party stands for anything at all other than personal power.

I think the columnist is just searching around for any old way of attacking Democrats

He’s a conservative columnist! That’s what they get paid for. Don’t begrudge a man the right to make a living.

gjdodger: Yes, Lesly, we should stop supporting our farmers so we become entirely reliant upon imported food and those poor “foreign agribusiness markets� can raise their markup 100% on what they sell to us and to their own people, since we’ll no longer be able to compete.

Yes, actually. Your farmers, and those of the EU, get more in subsidies than the majority of the world has to live on. If your government followed the religion of true capitalism, then you would already have the vast majority of your food supplied by the third world. They, in turn, would be getting a fair price for their produce, and would be supporting themselves and levering themselves out of poverty.

Instead, your government is diverting squillions of dollars towards large corporations. Yes, that’s right: most of the subsidy cash goes to agribusiness, not small (or large) family farming. You’re subsidising monster corporations who have inadequate health and safety standards, who keep animals in appalling conditions, who use gods-know-what chemicals on your ‘food’, and the whole circus further impoverishes the poor in other countries.

Well done.

Also, I should change my sex. What does everyone think of “Betty Noir�?

(Carefully un-swallows tongue) Why change sex, friend? It’ll hurt, I’m told (by one who knows).

Other than the wiggly-bits-rearrangement, the name is cool: snappy, sounds vaguely pretentious, with an extra lining of creamy clever goodness inside.

If you truly believe that america should, at least at SOME point end its occupation of Iraq, then there has got to be a plan, a strategy for getting from 160,000 occupying troops to zero. And thankfully, the dems are putting that on the table.

I do indeed truly believe. In fact I think that the US troops should get the hell out of there right now without stopping to pack (okay, pack the things that go back or eurk).

However, in defiance of my indubitable superiority, the Bush administration refuses to take my advice. Indeed, I suspect that they’ll be effectively brown-eyeing* the entire Congress, whatever wiffly motion they put forward.

My support for this belief? Simple: you don’t build something like this opulent ’embassy’ if you intend to ever leave before the universe collapses to a singularity.

*Cultural note: I don’t know whether the brown-eye was as popular in America as it was here. But when I was a young kitten, youth expressed their opinions, in a very mobile and succinct way, by sticking their arses out of a car window. Nothing says ‘I disagree’ better than a slice of bum travelling past at speed.

Your farmers, and those of the EU, get more in subsidies than the majority of the world has to live on. If your government followed the religion of true capitalism, then you would already have the vast majority of your food supplied by the third world. They, in turn, would be getting a fair price for their produce, and would be supporting themselves and levering themselves out of poverty.

Instead, your government is diverting squillions of dollars towards large corporations. Yes, that’s right: most of the subsidy cash goes to agribusiness, not small (or large) family farming. You’re subsidising monster corporations who have inadequate health and safety standards, who keep animals in appalling conditions, who use gods-know-what chemicals on your ‘food’, and the whole circus further impoverishes the poor in other countries.

Well done.

Thankee 🙂

I’m not going to defend the excesses of the farm program. Where I am the crop farmers, large and small, support the massive subsidies and say they should be even larger. They aren’t corporations for the most part, but corporations get the money, too.

Since it became an occupation, agriculture has followed an inevitable trend. It’s performed by fewer and fewer people, using more and more intensive practices, in order to produce more and more food. Society wants it that way, because people like to be assured the food will be there. They hesitate to interrupt the process, because the supermarkets and their bellies are full. I have been on lots of these enormous farms–I don’t know if you’ve been on any of them–and they don’t look very appalling to me; the biggest and most prosperous farmers run the cleanest, neatest enterprises. Yeah, if my government followed the religion of true capitalism, a lot of these big farms couldn’t survive the valleys that go with the peaks of production agriculture. Who the hell who comes to this message board wants their government to follow the religion of true capitalism? I mean, besides Gary Ruppert and annieangel? (love ya, annie :)!) I prefer an interventionist philosophy that ensures the most people suffer the least hardship, and that’s what our agricultural support system accomplishes.

Arrrggghhh. The President DOES run the foreign policy, whether we like it or not.

We don’t. And he’s not even my president.

There is a case to be made that setting benchmarks and setting a deadline may in fact get the Iraqi government motivated to begin the real transition from puppet state, to actual government.

Motivated? Fucking motivated?!? (Washes furiously to settle fur on back of neck) Look, I appreciate that you’re being reasonable and all, but I’m sure most Iraqis are plenty motivated. I’m pretty sure they’re not all sitting about on their arses, sipping margaritas and complaining about the service. Their country is falling apart, in a very nasty way, and the foreign invaders refuse to leave. Even after being asked, ever so politely, more than once.

More than that. The Iraqis did try, very early on after the invasion, to take over responsibility for the simple, local, things. Things like garbage collection, foot patrols, administration. They were encouraged in this by some moderately high army dude, who invited representatives of local groups to come to the Imperial Palace for a meeting, just a few months after the invasion. Guess what? When they got there, they were told that his initiative had been shitcanned by higher-ups.

There he was, foolishly thinking that the US government thought it was important to get Iraq back on its feet, and Iraqis back in charge, as quickly as possible. There he was, putting his best effort into helping the Iraqis take care of necessary chores as soon as possible, so the US could get the hell out of there.

But your government doesn’t want to get out of Iraq. I’ll say it again, but shouty: your government doesn’t want to get out of Iraq. I don’t know whether or not they want the complete fucking tragedy that they’ve wrought, but they don’t give a toss about Iraqis ‘taking responsibility for their own government’. They certainly didn’t when one of the succession of Iraq puppet regimes actually asked them to leave.

And, more than that, the Democrats could have passed a measure that said, “We’re going to stop funding now� and it would have the same effect: Veto.

Sadly, yes.

Jay B.-
Was that disingenuous or what? It’s perfectly legal if she’s president.
She is third in line, and we can always find two more beds in federal prisons somewhere….

The thing is I can’t believe how stupid the Republicans are to piss off the farmers (agribusiness). Farmers vote, and the vast majority of them vote Republican. My grandfather, true FDR Democrat who tried to farm at the beginning of the So not Great Depression and then got lucky and got a job with the Federal government, used to scoff at what he considered idiot farmers who voted Republican. He used to say, “No Republican ever gave a goddam about a family farmer, or a small businessman, for that matter.” And that’s true today. The family farmer is all but gone. All that’s left is “agribusiness”. But with the ethanol thing heating up, Republicans have to be effing crazy to attack farm subsidies. They won’t get a rural vote in 2008 at this rate. And that, as Martha would say, is a very good thing. Now while I agree in with the Shaved Abyssinian One, I have to say that if farm subsidies can help to get Republicans out of power, that is a step in the right direction. The other things, including horrendous inequity is world trade and a lack of Fair Trade, will never, ever be resolved while all these other disasters, like our iraq debacle, loom. Of course, unless a miracle happens and we manage to get some actual leftists in power in the US, the trade thing will never be fixed. The Dems aren’t going to be any better than the Republicans about that.

The Abyssinian One is right about our government not wanting to get out of Iraq, too. I just read Noam Chomsky’s “Failed States”, and he articulates many of the things I’ve vaguely felt were true, and I absolutely agree that the US is only in favor of democracy and freedom and human rights when they coincide with US interests. It is in our interests to have a satellite government in the Middle East. We will have to be very insistant as a people to end this quagmire. At least as insistent as we were in the 60s.

HTML M, I think Anne Laurie is right about the allergy thing. I know my brain feels like it’s operating with its gears lightly coated in molasses right now. And it’s hard to think and be attentive when your eyes and skin are itching insanely. Also, I think our red hair sucks energy from our brains. Just sayin’….

I sure hope the Preview Button comes home soon. I know this pile of incoherent babble is just full of typos and split infinitives ad nauseum but I am too tired and my head aches too much to read through this box. I want my training wheels back. I always was slow to try my wings.

HTML – I agree with Annie Laurie, classic seasonal allergies. Even now, I usually get about three days in before I wonder when I turned 112 years old. Try an antihistamine-there are some really good ones that don’t require a pat-down.

Yeah, and I’ve reached the point where I figure that reason we didn’t worry that an independent, democratic Iraq would naturally ally with Iran was because independent and democratic was never the plan.

I’m not one to go looking for bad news about Iraq, nor do I take any pleasure in reading about the endless parade of murder and terror. Nevertheless, I recently came across the following article and video series and must highly recommend them both. All I can say is wow.

New Yorker: Betrayed: The Iraqis who trusted America the most.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/26/070326fa_fact_packer

YouTube: Heavy Metal Baghdad

mancob.

I really wish the supporters of the debacle called the Iraq War could stop pretending for 10 seconds that we can keep the date of our withdrawal secret from the insurgents. Doesn’t everyone in the world know that if we still have troops fighting in Iraq in September of 2008, a Democratic president will be elected? The withdrawal will commence on Jan. 21, 2009.

On the other hand, if magic ponies bring successful political solutions to the Iraqi government during the “surge,” American troops will mostly be gone from Iraq in September 2008.

So the insurgents can count on American withdrawal no later than Jan. 21, 2009.

All that anyone can do right now is try to save some lives by starting withdrawal sooner. But the time difference isn’t going to be that great.

And how in fuck could a pullout endanger national security? What part of Iraq is American soil?

My friend, my friend, my foolish foolish friend… ::shaking head sadly::

It’s all American soil. Sometimes we let the dear little wogs use it for a while, but that doesn’t in any way mean it’s not ours. What nobody is understanding about the current Iraqi thingamabob is that as long as the illegal squatters on our American Middle Eastern territories are fighting and killing each other, all is well. Eventually, all the uppity, non-domesticated sand jigs will wipe each other out, and those that still remain alive in the smoking rubble will emerge with hands out, eyes down, and heads bowed for the inevitable yoke. It’s been this way all through human history. We’re simply the latest in a long line of oppressors.

However, it’s essential that we maintain a military presence in the region, so we can distribute the shock collars and oversee the resulting oil plantations once all the bad wogs have been filtered out of our colonial gene pool by the unpleasant but necessary application of heavily armed guerilla Darwinism.

We cannot give up a single inch of American soil. We will water every atom of the world’s topsoil with blood, including our own (as long as said blood comes from an income spectrum below, say, $60K a year) if that is what it takes, to finally teach this inevitable historical lesson to all — this is no longer Earth. This — is Planet America.