Want Some Truth About Afghanistan? Read Ann Jones. March 8, 2012

Ann Jones knows more about Afghanistan than any of the  fools in American politics and the American military and the  American White House.

Read her commentary on the latest goings on, and get a good history lesson too, over at Common Dreams.

And then consider that the same American politicians and American military who have spent eleven years learning nothing about Afghanistan other than how to kill women, children, and  farmers, now want to go to Iran to perform the same ceremonies of ignorance and blood.

And isn’t it ironic that modern day Iran can easily be considered a creation of American policy?

Stupid is as stupid does.

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Iran: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose November 12, 2011

America’s wading into the Big Muddy again.

How many times, America, how many times?

They’re at it again…

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Romney Calls Bin Laden Delusional. The Old Pot And Kettle Trick… September 9, 2007

In a piece in the Globe’s Campaign Notebook today, Mitt ‘The Mitten’ Romney, referring to Osama bin Laden’s latest video missive, commented “Who can be so deluded as he is?”

In the 26-minute video, bin Laden compares the Iraq war to Vietnam, criticizes the Democratic party for failing to prompt a US pullout from Iraq, and encourages Americans to welcome Islam. He does not make any direct warning of an imminent attack.

Let’s play ‘Find the Delusion’.

Comparing the Iraq war to Vietnam?

George ‘Nutso’ Bush did that the other day. So it must be true that the President is delusional, apparently just as delusional as bin Laden. On the other hand, any rational person would have realized long ago that Bush is delusional and bin Laden is wrapped a little too tightly.

The Democrats failing to prompt a pullout from Iraq?

Delusional? No. They have failed to take a truly strong stand, and they’ve also been stymied by Republican determination to continue the slaughter in Iraq. So that’s hardly a delusional statement. Let’s not forget Romney’s little delusion of doubling the size of the Guantanamo concentration and torture camp while sane people everywhere want the place closed. Perhaps he’s looking for a place to board the dog he tortured some years ago.

Encourages Americans to welcome Islam?

As opposed to killing every Muslim who wants to come here? As opposed to deporting every one of the several million Muslims already here, living good lives as peaceful American citizens and migrants? Come on, Mitten, where’s the delusion?

Let’s try on some of the Mitten’s delusions:

…Romney was asked how he would respond to Iran. He said the United States must “tighten the sanctions hard so that the people of Iran understand just what renegades their leaders seem like on the world stage.”

Romney’s calling for communal punishment of civilians because he disagrees with the Iranian leadership. Romney forgets, or refuses to accept, that hard sanctions on Iraq caused the death of half a million children following the first American war there. So let’s kill a couple of million Iranian kids because the President of Iran is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. And that will make the Iranians hate themselves and love us? Right, Mitten? Did you notice how well that worked in Iraq?

And let’s not forget that the Iranians have not broken any laws or treaties in the matter of nuclear development. All we have is a deranged American President saying the Iranians might – might – develop a bomb, so we ought to rain bombs and missiles on them just in case. And Romney goes along with this. Who’s delusional?

And just to get religious for a minute, Romney practices a religion based on a bogus book, supposedly written on gold plates and given to Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, by an angel, and which Smith translated from bogus Egyptian using special eyeglasses. Say, Mitt, where’s the book, the gold one? Be worth a fortune on eBay, eh? As religious delusions go, that’s pretty imaginative, but just as dumb as the founding myths of any other religion. And practitioners are just as predisposed to accept delusions as anybody in the local asylum, apparently.

Bin Laden’s got his 72 ‘virgins’ and bogus version of Islam, and the Mitten has his bogus gold book and attendant nonsense legends. Between the two of them, assuming America is stupid enough to put another Republican in the White House, the Mitten and bin Laden can kill and torture a hell of a lot more innocent people.

But the prize for delusions really has to go to the American side. America lost 3,000 people on 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, had no connection to the criminals. Yet America actually believes that the deaths of over half a million people in the slaughterhouse they’ve created in Iraq isn’t enough to balance the scales.

Now that’s goddamned powerful delusional thinking. It’s the sort of thinking that Mitt Romney believes in, and for which he is willing to kill millions of innocent people.

So who’s really delusional, Mitt?

My money’s on the Americans.

Petraeus Delusional, Proving Bush Has Contagious Mental Illness August 16, 2007

The latest Bushian Hero, General David Petraeus, soon to be a general scapegoat, has caught the mental disease causing Bush’s delusions.

In today’s Globe Steven R. Hurst writes:

…Petraeus cautioned against a quick or significant US withdrawal that could surrender “the gains we have fought so hard to achieve.”

Do those ‘gains’ include the five hundred dead Iraqis in northwestern Iraq yesterday?

And what gains precisely is he talking about? US troops have quieted a few acres in Baghdad while Iraqi fighters have simply moved elsewhere and continued blowing holes in people and Bush’s rosy scenarios.

You can’t have gains if you aren’t going to stay there forever, because the minute you do the smart thing and get the hell out of the way of what the Iraqis want, the Iraqis will flow right back in and do what they want. So, gains?

And here’s a humorous comment from the General:

The general, who wrote the Army’s book on counterinsurgency, said he and his staff were “trying to do the battlefield geometry right now” as he prepared his troop-level recommendations.

Here’s the geometry, General. Your boss followed a straight line right into a point in Hell when he invaded Iraq.

And if you don’t include in your precious geometry the fact that most of the Iraqis want your ass angled right the hell out of their country, then your geometry is going to turn in a mess of chaotic quantum foam.

He goes on to talk about having a smaller ‘footprint’ by next year, and then:

“We have made some progress but again there’s still a lot of hard work to be done against the different extremist elements that do threaten the new Iraq.”

The new Iraq?

You mean the old Iraq minus the hundreds of thousands of dead people for which the United States is responsible? The old Iraq minus the electricity and the fresh water that the United States is responsible for destroying? The old Iraq minus the two million professionals and others who have fled the violence for which the United States is responsible?

That Iraq is your ‘new Iraq’?

And the extremist elements, General? You haven’t shown you can tell one Iraqi from another, much less who is an extremist or what any of them are fighting for.

And the General is just oh-so-pleased with himself for arming Sunnis, formerly anti-US fighters, to fight so-called al Qaeda.

“You have to pinch yourself a little to make sure that is real because that is a very significant development in this kind of operation in counterinsurgency.”

Pinch, pinch, pinch. Oooooooo!

Naturally it’s only a matter of time before those folks will turn those shiny new US weapons on US troops again, because to them, the United States is only somewhat less bad for Iraq than al Qaeda.

Bang, bang, bang. Oooooh crap, I’m shot!

And if Bush carries out his wet dream of attacking Iran, or any element of Iran, the General can expect to have one of those guns shoved up his butt and the trigger pulled by an all-too-willing Iraqi real soon thereafter.

It’s not geometry, General. It’s more like a mess of pick-up sticks over there, and your fumble-fingered, drug-addled, mental nutcase of a boss is the one screwing with the sticks.

You’re living the delusion, General. Enjoy it while you can.

This And That August 15, 2007

Way off my feed this week. Had an emergency with my oldest cat yesterday. One of the others nailed her with a strategic claw or two at breakfast and she lost a lot of blood so at 6 a.m. I was on my way to the emergency hospital. She’s doing okay for now. But the adrenaline rush threw a real monkey wrench into my day. The last thing I gave a damn about was the crap going on in this country.

However…

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that tapping forty percent of the geothermal heat under the U.S. would provide 56,000 times the electrical energy demand. But the Department of Energy refuses to consider spending more than the two million dollars it has already allocated to geothermal energy.

And…

Why, with five percent of the world’s people, does the United States have a quarter of the world’s prisoners? That’s over two million locked up and five and half million on probation or parole. Nineteen percent are for violent felonies. Thirty one percent are for non-violent drug offenses and thirty-two percent for economic crimes (burglaries, etcetera). (From The Nation)

Drugs are not a moral issue. They’re a biochemical issue. They’re a medical issue. They’re a psychological issue. Locking people up for using drugs is stupid. We don’t lock people up who get caught driving drunk five or six or nine times. No. We sensibly wait until they kill someone. How does that make sense?

Either treat alcohol as a drug, or treat drugs as alcohol. You all remember how well Prohibition worked. Well, we’re in Drug Prohibition and it’s not working. It will never work. It’s not much of a stretch to say that Drug Prohibition creates drug addicts.

So give them prescriptions, reasonably priced, send them to the drugstore, and let them go home and get high. If they drive high, bust them on traffic laws, and so on. But sending them to prison for choosing drugs? The depth of stupidity. Want to see the crime rate plummet? Take the moral nonsense out of drug use. Prescriptions and treatment. End of the drug problem. Not the end of addiction – there will always be addicts. But the end of hundreds of billions of dollars of waste in corrupt wars on drugs, in unnecessary crime, in useless prisons and prison time and wasted court time.

And…

Iran is rounding up and deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal Afghani immigrants.

The U.S. thinks that’s an ‘unsettling hint of Iranian mischief-making in the region,’ according to the Globe.

But it’s a sign of rationality and reasonableness when Republican hard-liners want to do the same thing to twelve million Latino illegals in the U.S.

(And why is it that so-called ‘hard-liners’ seem to be so soft in the head?)

And…

Dana Perino is back at the old White House newsstand. Don’t you just hate to see a good-looking blonde broad just spewing stupidity and Republican baloney?

She jumped on Hilary Clinton’s ad about families, single moms, and soldiers being invisible to the Bush administration.

Said the inestimable Perino:

“As to the merits of it, I think it’s outrageous. This is a president who, first and foremost, has helped millions of seniors across the country have access to prescription drugs at a much lower cost.”

Dana, Dana, Dana! Your boss let the drug companies write legislation that would fill their coffers and ultimately kill Medicare – which was and is the purpose of the Part D drug plan. Your boss and his confederates in Congress made sure that the government could not negotiate prices with the drug companies. Your boss and friends don’t and didn’t give a damn about the seniors. They’re out to destroy Medicare and every other social service they can get their grimy hands on.

I’ll bet Dana fakes her orgasms, too.

And finally…

From the obit page, one Heinz Barth, an SS officer convicted for his part in slaughtering 642 men, women, and children in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, died yesterday at the age of 86.

The Germans forced 241 women and 209 children into a church, set it afire with grenades, and machine-gunned it.

The men were machine-gunned separately in a barn.

Barth also volunteered to take part in executing 92 Czech civilians in 1942 and was convicted.

He lived under a false name in East Germany until discovered and imprisoned in 1981.

In 1997 a court freed Barth because of his poor health. At the time he claimed he felt guilty about the crimes, and added “But I have paid long enough.”

No, you didn’t, Barth. And you should never have been freed. You should have been left to rot.

Be that as it may, the obituary made me wonder what people will be reading fifty or sixty years from now about American war criminals from George Bush’s megalomaniac and ultimately stupid so-called war on terror.

I’d like to be around to read someone who writes “No, you didn’t, Bush. And you should never have been freed. You should have been left to rot.”

Karl Rove Reads The Writing On The Wall At The Hague August 13, 2007

Karl Rove is quitting.

He wants to spend time with his family.

Yeah, sure.

When one of the ugliest, most virulent political minds ever to gain power in American politics excuses himself to spend time with his family, a person might feel compelled to call his wife and kid and tell them to run and hide.

What’s really going on?

Rove isn’t stupid. Nasty. Ugly. Power hungry. Sociopathic. But not stupid. He’s big into self-preservation and self-aggrandizement. He’s considered a political genius.

But he blew the 2006 Congressional elections. Either he completely misread the data, or he read it accurately and lied about it to his Republican constituency.

He became considerably less visible after that, aside from that nauseating little dance with David Gregory at the correspondent’s dinner. Supposedly he started talking about getting out a year ago. Today’s cover story is that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten told all staffers that if they wanted out they should leave before Labor Day or be prepared to stay the course to the end of Bush’s term. Hence the “I wanna be with my family” whine.

I think there’s another possibility. I think little Karlie has read the writing on the wall that is Iran in what passes for thinking in the brain of his Frankenstein monster, George W. Bush.

Bush’s recent rebukes to Nouri al Maliki of Iraq and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan are good evidence that Bush is completely out of touch with reality. Karzai and Maliki both have said recently that Iran is not a threat, that the Iranians have been helpful and so on.

Karzai and Maliki know the territory, know the people, know the politics, and their lives literally depend on getting it right.

And Bush? He treats them like children, tells them they’re wrong and that he’s right. Bush is a political hack from Texas, a drug-addled drunkard, a megalomaniac, and not real bright. He ran and hid on 9/11. At heart he’s a coward through and through – mentally, emotionally, and physically. Frankenstein’s monster was smarter and braver.

But Bush knows exactly what’s going on in the Middle East?

Only in his delusions.

Bush is determined to attack Iran, no matter what anyone tells him. I think that’s clear. And Karl Rove knows it.

And little Karlie knows that what waits after that hell plays out is a criminal trial for crimes against humanity, for war crimes, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Rove doesn’t want to find himself in the dock facing a little prison cell for the rest of his life. Not when he can spend that time twisting the minds of his family in Texas.

I think that’s why he’s getting out. The ship is going down the whirlpool to Hell. The smart rats are leaving before Iran hits the fan.

George Bush: Certifiably Insane August 7, 2007

Take a look at this piece posted at Common Dreams by John Nichols of The Nation.

Short version – Bush is nuts. He is daft. He is loony. He is crazy as a bedbug. He needs a strait jacket and a padded cell.

Long version – Bush has absolutely no connection to reality. None. Not even a little bit. The worst meth-head has a better grasp of reality than this pathetic bastard.

Read the Nichols piece. Don’t be deceived by its simplicity.

U.S., Iran Meet. It’s Not Our Fault, It’s Your Fault. Nyah nyah. August 7, 2007

Kim Gamel of the AP writes today about the third round of talks between the U.S. and Iran to discuss security in Iraq.

While it is commendable that the Americans have finally got their heads out of their nether regions and decided to talk to the other powers in the area, it would be even more helpful if they would try some honesty and realism.

There’s this:

Washington has accused Tehran of fueling the violence in Iraq by arming and training Shi’ite extremists…

First off, the violence in Iraq is due solely and entirely to the illegal invasion and occupation carried out by the United States. Whether Iran or anyone else is arming and training factions in Iraq isn’t the real point. As long as the U.S. continues in Iraq, Iraqis will continue to gun for U.S. troops and for Iraqis in other factions. If they can’t get guns from Iran or Syria or China or wherever, they can always get them from U.S. arms dealers, or at least some 190,000 small arms from the American military,

Blaming Iran for any of it can have only one purpose, and that is to bring to fruition George Bush’s psychopathic wet dream of attacking Iran.

How dumb are the Americans? Wait, let me rephrase that. How dumb do the American military and politicians think the rest of us are? Well, how about this:

The diplomatic activity occurred a day after the number two US military commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, blamed Iran for sharply increasing its weapons and training support to rogue Shi’ite militiamen. He said such forces had launched 73 percent of the attacks that killed or wounded American forces last month in Baghdad.

Rogue militiamen? Dude, it’s their country. You’re the enemy. Bet your ass they’re going to try to kill you. That’s their right. Hardly makes them rogues.

And 73 percent? Gee, General, are you sure it wasn’t 72 percent, or 75 percent, or 60 percent, or ten percent? Give me a break. I suspect the General doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t understand the culture or the customs, and is little more than a political errand boy for the neopsychos in Washington. If he’s typical American military, he couldn’t tell a Shia from a Sunni if his life depended on it, and there’s nothing in his JCS bio to say different.

Can’t you hear it now? “Ray, your job is to give us a number that will let us attack Iran. You do that for the President and we’ll see that you get a promotion and a cookie.”

America, the land of opportunity.

American Officials Know Best In Iraq. Eat Your Vegetables, Maliki. July 23, 2007

Kim Gamel of the AP has a piece in the Globe today about the U.S. and Iran finally meeting for talks on Iraq. Probably not really going to have talks, just going to have the American rep walk in the room, lecture the Iranians about not helping the Iraqi fighters, create bad feelings, and leave. That’s pretty much what passes for diplomacy from the Bush bunch.

But the real laugher comes later on:

American officials have pressed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Parliament to pass laws the United States deems essential to restoring stability in Iraq, and the oil bill is at the top of the list.

Oh, yeah, let’s restore stability. We invade, illegally, we occupy, illegally, we slaughter, illegally. We destroy the country based on a tissue of lies from a pack of ignorant, arrogant, money- and power-hungry psychotics. And now these people are telling the Iraqis what laws to pass to ‘restore stability’.

American Officialdom: arrogant know-nothings who do maximum damage while hiding behind desks in Washington.

The Iraqis, and the Iranians, should spit in our face.

Tidy, Cogent Analysis of Bush July 16, 2007

David Bromwich has a nice bit of work on the character of Bush over at Huffington Post.