The real reason Bush invaded Iraq . . .

Why did George W. Bush invade Iraq? Clive Hamilton confirms one of my suspicions at Alternet:

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated. . . President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

Continue ReadingThe real reason Bush invaded Iraq . . .

McClatchy calls out Cheney on his lies

Good for McClatchy, publishing an article detailing Dick Cheney's recent lies regarding torture conducted by the United States.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

If Cheney really wants to claim that the U.S. mistreatment of prisoners produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." OK, Cheney. If that really were true (it isn't) tell us what information was obtained and how it saved thousands of people. Just give us one example of how that information saved any lives at all. It's hard to believe that this clown was theVP of the United States. He could never gotten his way invading Iraq in the first place if all the media had been as diligent as McClatchy has been over the years. Note that the article doesn't limit itself to Cheney's speech, but reviews many of the lies and distortions of the Bush Administration.

Continue ReadingMcClatchy calls out Cheney on his lies

Reward for proficient and well-decorated fighter pilot: Kick him out because he’s gay

Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach is a fighter pilot and weapons systems for the Air Force. Aubrey Sarvis writes that Fehrenbach has excelled at everything he has done for the Air Force. His reward? They are kicking him out of the Air Force because he is gay.

The Air Force is about to discharge this guy, a virtual poster boy for Air Force recruiting, because he is gay? Someone has to be kidding. This is sheer madness.

Let me check my calendar . . . yep, it's 2009. Obama is in office. This is insane. And it's been done many times before, for instance, when the military kicked out dozens of gay Arabic language specialists during the Iraq invasion because they were also gay. Sarvis advises that we need far more than an executive order to stop this madness to protect the remaining 65,000 gays and lesbians in the military. We need to change DADT immediately. We must rip it apart and choose our military personnel on one criterion: whether they can do the job.

A law is a law, even a bad law. Our country and service members are suffering the consequences as we watch this theater of the absurd play out. We need this new 111th Congress and this new President to engage each other immediately and with a sense of urgency to stop this obvious madness.

To compound this tragedy, Fehrenbach was two years shy of retiring with a full pension. See Fehrenbach's interview by Rachel Maddow at the top link.

Continue ReadingReward for proficient and well-decorated fighter pilot: Kick him out because he’s gay

The toll of permanent war

What is the domestic damage done by a country that lurches from war to war? Chris Hedges proposes an answer at Truthdig.com: countries that are perennially at war get eaten up from the inside out:

It is a state of permanent war that is finishing off the liberal traditions in Israel and the United States. The moral and intellectual trolls—the Dick Cheneys, the Avigdor Liebermans, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads—personify the moral nihilism of perpetual war. They manipulate fear and paranoia. They abolish civil liberties in the name of national security. They crush legitimate dissent. They bilk state treasuries. They stoke racism.

“War,” Randolph Bourne commented acidly, “is the health of the state.”

Hedges further alleges that Obama is not in a hurry to stop the wars, because it's too much of an uphill climb and it's, in the long run, beneficial to Obama (as it was to Bush):

They support its destructive fury because it funds them. They validate its evil assumptions because to take them on is political suicide. They repeat the narrative of fear because it keeps us dormant. They do this because they have become weaker than the corporate forces that profit from permanent war.

Continue ReadingThe toll of permanent war

Jesse Ventura on torture

Jesse Ventura appeared on The View and spoke plain truth about torture, i.e., waterboarding is torture. If you can bear it, listen to Elisabeth Hasselbeck chattering away in support of torture (even though she claims that she is against torture). Ventura won't put up with Hasselbeck's inanity, and puts the blame squarely where it belongs, given that U.S. torture hasn't exactly been a recent revelation to anyone who gave a crap about it.

Continue ReadingJesse Ventura on torture