People ask, “Why did Hillary say she’d keep troops in Iraq if she wins?”
I just heard Donald Trump, of all people put it best: “Right now we’re the only thing that’s keeping a lid on this explosion in Iraq – and that explosion iS coming, too.”
This Doomsday Bush Bomb IS going to go off no matter what happens, so let’s not make the mistake of saying, “ANYTHING is better than this,” because under Bush it always gets a lot worse right away.
They say once it the regional war gets out of hand, Pakistan could fall and then the suicidal handjobs would have nukes.
I say it’s time to pressure the GOP to get Bush/Cheney to resign so we can put a new face on our government while we still can. I don’t know if we can afford to wait until November 2008 to start to fix this.
…and that’s why “Troops home now” might be wishful thinking.
[...] Bart has a practical take over on the bartblog on Hillary seemingly backing off the “Troops home now” pledge and how it might be wishful thinking. [...]
Pingback by Pigeons Don’t Lurk » Blog Archive » wishful thinking — March 17, 2007 @ 1:38 am
Wishful thinking indeed. A pragmatist will tell you the mess in Iraq will not clean up easily. I also believe any solution Hillary might come up with as president will be a damn sight better than any fix the current administration might come up with in the next two years.
But what’s nagging at me is why did she say she would bring the troops home in the first place?
(from the 2.17.07 Reuters report on the speech)”
So first we see she never really said it in the first place although she had received catcalls about a week earlier enticing her to “Do more” and “Bring them home now”. Nevertheless in todays world of perception politics it’s been noted now in all the MSM that she reversed herself. It’s a “fact” that will remain with this campaign through to the end whether any of us like it or not.
My personal opinion was that she had a bad week (troops, immoral homosexuality).
These things happen and neither is anything that cannot be recovered from.
I am a huge fan of Charlie Cook and The Cook Political Report. On March 6th in a column focused on Rudy Giuliani he posted the following:
In other words she has an underlying bias of voters who are against her and yet she is still the front runner! She garners such high respect that even taking a hit of -10% or more she remains, appointed by the MSM, as “the one to beat” in the Democratic Party. Cook correctly points out that were it not for the “anybody but her” ranting her numbers could easily be over 60%.
jje
Pigeons Don’t Lurk
Comment by jje — March 17, 2007 @ 1:46 am
The comment above is a link to a much longer discussion of the issue over at Pigeons Don’t Lurk
blog.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
jje
Comment by jje — March 18, 2007 @ 1:58 am
Bart, I don’t agree with you on this one and I’ll try to explain why. What I think is happening over there right now is what they did at the beginning. We’ve brought in extra troops to try and give some control to the situation in Bagdad. But they merely hide it out in the face of our forces’ presence. They slip back into society or go into hiding. They know they can’t beat us in a fight, they also know we can’t hold out forever. So they will wait it out and then reappear when the “surge” is over.
So this cycle may repeat itself over and over again with no resolution. And there really is no comprehensive strategy for ending this war either, except the strategy to steal their oil. So with the current administration continuing their strategy, there will be no pull-out of troops, becauase they aren’t planning for a way for this country to be at peace, they don’t want peace, they want oil. I do want peace, so I believe the only thing we can do at this juncture is to impeach Bush and Cheney and get someone into office who will formulate a comprehensive plan to start withdrawing from the war. Impeachment must come first.
Comment by demnan — March 18, 2007 @ 6:05 am
“PERHAPS A FOOL”
http://WWW.ILOVEPOETRY.COM/VIEWPOEM.ASP?ID=91544
CHEERFULLY ADMITTING – THIS POEM STINKS!
Comment by tsumbra — March 18, 2007 @ 8:35 am
Keeping the troops there is wishful thinking. Clinton did not explain “why” she would keep troops there. Trying to have it both ways, as usual. Of course, Bartcop feels that he has to defend any foolish position of the Clinton “frontrunner”. The vast majority of Iraqis want us out–that should be enough.
Bartcop keeps “hammering” US with the Bush-like lies about 100 million East coast civilians (how ridiculous) who would have been killed by a Saddam strike with his ICBMs and MIRVs. Any ridiculous statement to support Clinton. How many times have he asserted that–more than half a dozen I bet. 100 million dead from Saddam. Do any of you Ditto Heads catch that?
I expect that he will pull this as he now blocks my email, but I’ve moved on.
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
By the way, did Hillary say if her daughter Chelsea was going to volunteer for the military and be one of those US military people stuck on endless Russian roulette rotations for years? It’s a fair question, especially as BC has asked it of the Bush extended family over and over.
My guess is “no”–and I’d bet on it.
From the Nation magazine;
“Forcing Americans and Iraqis to die for Bush’s (fill in here–Clinton’s) delusions for another year while emptying the Treasury at a rate of more than $1 billion a week is unconscionable. That is why House members who have battled hardest to end the war are so frustrated with Pelosi’s approach. “This plan would require us to believe whatever the President would tell us about progress that was being made,” says Representative Maxine Waters, speaking for the bipartisan Out of Iraq Caucus. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey has been blunter, saying of the legislation, “There’s no enforcement mechanism.”
No rationalization of the Iraq insanity is credible, not Clinton’s, and not Bartcop’s. Think Dittoheads, think. For yourselves.
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
VT, obviously you are a Limbaughtomized dittohead and must be a repug for only neocon repugs write such incoherent, erroneous drivel.
You might try absorbing some information from bartcom and make an effort to think for yourself instead of spouting such ignorant misinformation. If you did you would understand how the bushreich has made their “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” fiasco into “MISSION IMPOSSIBLE” bloody quagmire and civil war with dimwit dubya, an incompetent, insane moron as their leader!
[Moved on?] Like all chickenhawks, you are too cowardly to face up to Bart!!! Dare you to debate him!!! LOL
Comment by kerry — March 18, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
Under most circumstances, I agree with you, Bart. Unfortunately, it seems that a large part of the problem in Iraq is, specifically, the presence of our troops. If we pull out now, things will get worse than they are now. But will they get worse than they would be if we stay? It’s already worse every month.
I would like to see a phased withdrawal, rather than a sudden jump. It might, then, be possible to negotiate a peace treaty among the various groups in Iraq — even if the country splits into three parts (or more).
I haven’t put as much thought into this as I’d like, so I can’t give you a definite answer as to what would or would not work, but I can tell you for sure that having Americans in Iraq is worse for the Iraqis than the civil war that will be going on after we leave.
Comment by mac_guru — March 18, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
Kerry:
By Dittoheads, I meant YOU “Kerry”.
I have never listened to Limbaugh, except in clips on Crooks and Liars and other web sites. And you did not address any of the points I made, just spouted off in an offensive way–so, suck me.
I have corresponded with BC for a few years now, but cannot take his Hillary love anymore; it is toxic. And by the way, he certainly is no fount of wisdom–his truest statements are about his IQ.
He is good at stealing others material, cartoons, etc., often without attribution, and often violating copyright law.
He looks more and more like Limbaugh, with jerk offs like you defending him. And the huge amount of activity on his blogs shows how respected and prominent he is in the Blogsphere–NOT.
I doubt that he needs defending, but he does print the email addresses of those who disagree with him, in the hopes that his Dittoheads, that means YOU Kerry, will assault the one who disagrees. It’s a cowardly tactic and I have told him so. Ever notice it?
I don’t need information from Bartcop, I have many credible sources, and in fact BC has often published things I sent him, becaue they have appeared on the web page the day after I sent them (some from obscure, or European sources, so I knew they were the ones I sent).
And I know all about Bushco, for Christ’s sake, that is obvious to any idiot. Even you apparently. So don’t lecture me. I’ve been on the web high speed for over ten years; my former job was Internet research and testing. I read more in one day than you do in a week, or month, I am sure. In fact I spend far too much time reading on the web. I’ve recently cut back, and Bartcop is one I have cut back on. I just skim it to look at the cartoons he has “borrowed”.
But “Kerry”, tell me if you’ll take my bet. Will Hillary “donate” her child Chelsea to her plan to continue to occupy Iraq for years? I bet BC $1K that she wouldn’t win the election, but he wouldn’t take the bet; he’s afraid to, said it was a lot of money (it is, for both of us).
And do you believe that we were ever in danger of losing 100 million of us on the East coast from Saddam’s WMD? Tell me if you believe that statement. Keep to the issues.
And that quote in my post was from the Nation, a Progressive magazine that you probably have never heaard of. You’re the one who should think before spouting off.
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
BartCop, you stinking skYanki imperialist pig – FUCK YOU !!
I have observed your hypocrisy for 9 years – and you have without fail supported every war-crime committed by US imperialism – Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, you even wanted Bush to bomb China for taking down “your” shitty Pentagon spyplane in 2000 !! In short, no Bushco Bastard has had a bigger virtual boner for war than you, you pathetic little Pentaporn CockSucker.
Then, when popular support for the war-crimes in Iraq waned among your ShitPatriots, you discovered your fake opposition to “Bush’s War” – no, LIAR, this was YOUR WAR, you begged for it, remember?
Now that your war-criminal bitch-idol, at whose feet you worship as a mind-slave, does the bidding of her masters (AIPAC + Wall Street + Pentagon + Billy Graham) and commits to continuing the insanity – immediately you change your yapping tune again to join the choir, good little bitch poodle !!
You supported all the war-crimes and torture of the Bush/Clinton regimes – then, when everybody started speaking out against torture, you were suddenly ‘against’ Torture-Boy Gonzalez, – no, LIAR, you are the Torture-Boy, you justified it, remember?
Truely, you are the epitomy of the dumb, arrogant American so well-hated worldwide because of your monumental stupidity. You are a 2-bit whore and a shill for the Democrat’s, the other cheek on the skYanki Imperialist Asshole.
I just want you to do one favour for humanity – join up for your precious wars, you gutless chickenshit bastard, then get sent to Iraq where I sincerely hope the Resistance will catch up with your flabby and very stupid white ass, and make an unpleasantly long propaganda video out of you.
PS: And all your precious busted GameBoy Tourist troops, who you continually whine over like a poodle bitch on heat, they can all roast in Hell, being IED’d for all eternity. Exercise some solidarity and join them there, you sick MotherFucker.
Sincerely, Bl4ckP0pe
Comment by Bl4ckP0pe — March 18, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Bl4ckP0pe seems to know you well BC, even if he is a little hard on you. I think your heart is usually in the right place; its just that your brain sometimes is not.
Kerry, you seem to have a comprehension problem. I volunteered for the Air Farce (after a friend in the Air Farce talked me out of becoming an Army green beret–he convinced me that the AF had more class) in 1968 (that was probably before your time–Viet Nam) as I was sure to be drafted.
As luck would have it, after the physical, testing , etc., they tried to reneg on my choice of assignment, which was the incentive to sign up. I was all set to go, just needed to take the oath and get on the plane to basic.
But after the jerking around for a few months (they wanted me to go into intelligence, I wanted to go on the AF bike racing team, yes the Army had one too, and most of the 68 Olympic team to Mexico was Army bike team), I told the recruiter to shove it, and took my chances with the draft.
During that time, I became educated about the war and joined the protest movement. I got a high lottery number and the war ended before I could be called. Some of my close buds were not so lucky; none died but a few were “damaged’.
And I could have made it into the Berets, I was a state champion amateur athlete and Olympic trials qualifier in bicycle road racing (think Lance) in 1968, one of two in my sport from Mass. So initially, at 17, I was more hawk than chickenhawk, in fact I was a gung ho idiot for a while. What about you–have you served?
That brush with the military was the first time the government lied to me, and they’ve been lying since–a good lesson. The government always lies, always.
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
Kerry, as to debating Bartcop:
He always insists that he is going to “win”, give someone the Red Ass, so I suspect that he would never engage in a fair fight–I suspect that there were be much “snippage” by him if someone is effectively countering him.
He has never posted any of my many emails that really countered some of his horse shit, so it would be waste of my time. Winning is very important to Bartcop; integrity is not. That is why he’s rather have a winner than a candidate with integrity.
What he doesn’t realize is that he could have both. It’s a long shot, I know, but possible, especially if the MSWM and BC are not allowed to coronate Hillary before a sufficient nomination process.
He would be much more useful to the democratic process if he were open to a real in depth and intelligent primary, rather than wanting to shove the inadequate Hillary down our throats. But I have been reading extensively other blogs, and Hillary is definitely in for a battle. There is not a lot of enthusiasm for her on the blogs, and the blogs are having a greater influence every day.
Woman want her, but if we men followed that formula, Bush, being a man (Rudy we are not sure about) would be acceptable to us. So, its a fucked up idea, voting by gender. Just stupid. I’d vote for a good woman candidate in a second, but so far none have emerged. There is time though, but all of the woman in Congress have dissappointed so far. Pelosi, Boxer, etc have much to admire, but also big negatives for me.
Well, this is probably all wasted on you Kerry, because I think you have a comprehension problem. Maybe there is an Adult Basic Education center where you live–look into it, for your own good.
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 9:24 pm
Here is the effect of US troops “surge” in Iraq. Guess we should keep doing it for a few years, right Hillary?:
http://www.firedoglake.com/
U.S. soldier kicking open a cupboard in a building to search for suspicious items while on a joint patrol with Iraqi National police in a suburb of Baghdad March 7, 2007. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
After 4 years of Bush’s war, escape from “prison walls, martial laws and secret police” are more remote than ever for the people of Iraq. As Tim Lambon of The New Statesman reports from his embed position with the new US surge troops in Baghdad:
It’s hard to describe the noise when a whole cabinet of crockery is emptied on to the floor. Even harder not to shout in indignation when the American soldier who intentionally tipped it forward, until the plates and dishes slid smashing to the floor, says without regret, “Whoops!” and crunches over the shards past the distraught owner. “Cordon and search” they call looking for Sunni insurgents and their arms and explosives. But at what cost to the battle for “hearts and minds”?
By the time we rolled into the middle section of the Baghdad neighbourhood of Ghazaliya, there wasn’t a single shot being fired in our direction. Any insurgents were long gone. But the hapless residents were not. They watched, almost impassively, the random violence of the searching troops, too frightened to object. Some of the houses, whose Christian or Shia owners had fled, were empty.
Occupied or not, if no one quickly answered the demands to open up, gates, doors and windows were smashed down or blown open with shotguns. Inside, damage was done to anything breakable. Living-rooms became a jumble of furniture. Beds were overturned, cabinets thrown down, shelves emptied on to floors and beds: an orgy of destruction and arbitrary searching.
And while troops are kicking in the doors, they are also taking prisoners – in fact, perhaps the biggest surge in Iraq right now is the surge in the number of detainees being held. As Marsi Abugtaug of Azzaman reported yesterday :
The population of prisons in Iraq has soared in recent months with tens of thousands of Iraqis currently in U.S. custody without trial. U.S. troops and Iraqi government are investing heavily in the construction of prisons in the country with more than 100,000 Iraqis currently behind bars. A parliamentary investigation commission has found that U.S. troops alone now detain more than 61,000 Iraqis and the figure is expected to swell as the Americans press ahead with their military operations.
More than 50,000 Iraqis were reported to have been arrested in the past four weeks as part of the joint U.S.-Iraqi military campaign to subdue Baghdad. U.S. troops detain Iraqis merely on suspicion. Once detained, Iraqis may stay indefinitely as they are denied access to lawyers and Iraqi courts and government have no right to question U.S. troops’ actions. Even Iraqi troops operations and activities now fall beyond the Iraqi judicial system as the country has been placed under emergency rule under which the courts have no power to question what the security forces do.
Many of the detainees are subjected to torture by military interrogators who use all means to extract confessions. The detainees are denied visits by family members or relatives and they usually have no means to get in touch with them until they are released. Many Iraqi families continue a hopeless search for relatives detained by U.S. troops. The search starts with hospital morgues and government-run prisons. U.S. prisons are off bounds. U.S. troops do not inform relatives of the Iraqis they capture.
This new “emergency rule” was announced on February 13th by al Maliki to coincide with the surge. According to Human Rights Watch :
The decree grants far-reaching powers to conduct searches and seizures without warrants; to arrest, detain and interrogate people; to monitor, search and confiscate “all mail parcels, letters, cables, and wire and wireless communication devices”; and to restrict all public gatherings, including “centers, clubs, organizations, unions, companies, institutions, and offices.”
The vaguely worded decree provides few details on how the regulations will be implemented, and includes no time limits for most of its provisions. It provides no specific limitations on searches of private property or searches and confiscation of private correspondence.
The decree provides for broad use of the death penalty… for those found guilty of a wide array of offenses, including rape, theft, murder, abduction and destruction of private and public property, as well as the commission, participation or encouragement of crimes cited in the decree. The absence of due-process protections under the decree greatly increases cause for concern.
As Human Rights Watch Middle East Director, Sarah Leah Whitson, notes: “The security situation in Baghdad is dire, but giving the military free rein to violate the basic rights of Iraqis is not the answer. International law strictly limits the restrictions a government can place on fundamental rights during a public emergency. Iraq’s new martial law provisions open the door to easy abuse. “
Comment by VTindependent — March 18, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
I think everyone agrees that this war was a failure the moment Bush lied us into it.
Given that, I think most people hoped that the would be some clever plan that would Make Iraq a peaceful place. But that window of opportunity pasted because Bush is an evil idiot.
Then many people hoped a clever plan could be found that would at least make Iraq a stable place. But Bush kept pissing in the well and that window of opportunity (if it existed at all) got frittered away.
The latest clever plan involves us somehow keeping the violence of the Iraqi Civil War from spreading to its neighbors. But as before Bush is in power and he hasn’t stopped fucking up and in fact has proudly proclaimed that fucking up is his patriotic duty.
Is there a window of opportunity there? will it still exist by the time Bush is gone? If so will Bush have pissed in the well som much that the only thing in the well is Bush piss?
My choice is getting out. Move troops into Kuwait and Turkey if they’ll have us. Give Iran and the other border states a bunch of bribes to keep their aid strictly humanitarian.
Turn Bush and his cronies to the world war crimes tribunal. Then hope for the best.
If Senator Clinton has a clever plan it better include Bush fucking up more as part of its givens. She had also better share with as many people as possible the details of her plan so that we can people can determine whether her plan is workable or just more of the same.
Comment by Buzzcook — March 18, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
Don’t you People get “Reality Channel” over there ??
@ VTindependent – No, I am being scrupulously fair to this despicable BlurtCrap handjob – busting his nose with the truth is the least this bully and coward deserves. There is a war on, and we are on opposite sides, believe me. Tell me, do you think an Iraqi Resistance sniper is ‘being a little hard on’ some skYanki GameBoy he dispatches to Hell for invading his country? Well, I don’t, I KNOW he is 100% justified (legally and morally) in serving terminal justice on such a pig, regardless of race, colour or creed. And it doesn’t matter a twopenny fuck if that skYanki GameBoy’s heart is usually in the right place when he’s back home; he has earned the summary death penalty by just being there armed and breathing.
Let me put that another way – if my own brother, whom I love, were down in Iraq in any way supporting the crimes of the USA (even just carrying water to their troops) – I would salute the Resistance Fighter who ‘decommissioned’ him by any means necessary. (if it could be a quick and painless execution, well, so much the better – but if my dummy brother would have the brains to pack up and leave before being wasted, and join me to turn our anger to those who sent him to participate in the crime, that would obviously be best)
(PS: my name has been cosmetically changed because BushCock censored my previous account from posting – yeah, he’s a typical jesuit-style hypocrite who only knows this way to win at ‘free speech’)
Wake up Yanks !! The Age of Empire is LONG OVER !! You are not the MasterRace and there is no Glorious New American Reich (or PNAC Century), nor even an Old One, just some shitty AIPAC propaganda you all willing lap up like good dumb poodles at the feet of your ruling classes. Your alleged ‘patriotism’ is a mindless, sick 2-party shell game to cover for rape, torture and murder worldwide – it is a major ‘control mechanism’ they use to keep you (willingly) in line, pulling the weight of their imperialist shitcart (religion is another), bound into THEIR system by ideological chains.
But the wheels are being IED’d off the shitcart as we speak – it is falling apart – USA is a (dys)functional bankrupt nation, and I mean bankrupt in every sense – and guess what? – it deserves not to be rescued and restored to former ‘glory’, but consigned to the dustbin of history.
Stop talking about ‘Bush’, as if that puppet were somehow in control or reponsible for the situation – look at the SYSTEM behind him, and that includes the entire DEMOCRAT PARTY down to its most worthless fraction, i.e. Bartcop and similar warmongering ilk. That SYSTEM is called Imperio-Capitalism, and it has made a desperate power-grab on the excuse of 911 (the convenient new ‘Pearl Harbour’ event your PeeKnackers foretold they would need – gee, what a lucky coincidence – just another ‘guess I hit the trifecta’ moment?) to launch a massive worldwide crime spree. Do you think that is OK, just as long as you are not the immediate target of this aggression? Don’t worry, you already are and this will become very clear, except to the most boneheaded, with the passage of time.
Yes, this fake ‘War on Terror’ is simply another massive LIE, a pre-emptive strike on democratic rights worldwide, to secure dictatorial power for a small ‘elite’ of truely insane persons who are with relish engineering the slaughter of half the planet in a geocidal global gambit, to terrorise whole populations (including you) into submission. But the world does not consist only of sap-assed skYanks, the resistance to US EXPORT TERRORISM is growing inexorably, and your misleaders are bringing you down, down, down a long dark path to utter failure, if you allow them to do so.
First, you born-again hypocrites, take the plank out of your own eye before arrogantly commanding your neighbour to remove a speck of dust from his – i.e. depose the bankrupt neo-fascist military 2-PARTY dictatorship installed in skYankiLandia and give yourselves a democracy which is not just a perverse joke – until you succeed in that, just STFU about managing the affairs of other nations!
Comment by BlackPope — March 19, 2007 @ 7:10 am
It’s too bad that BC is censoring you–it is what I expect too, but I can deal with the reality of a keyboard commado blowhard who likes to see his name on his (stolen photos) posters. I might even take one to our march tonight!
You seem to be an Australian. I largely agree with you. Our system here feeds the least educated/poorest into the military, and then allows our “leaders”, Bush, Clinton, etc. to send these kids to war without having to risk their own. And I’m sure that most of the “insurgents” are patriots, which is the sole reason the war in unwinnable. There are endless patriots and munitions there in Iraq. In part because we supplied them via previous Rethug presidents.
I publically bet Bartcop that Chelsea Clinton WILL NOT volunteer for the military, even if her mother wins the election in 2008–let’s see, $1000 bet Bartcop–you a taker? Now I would be the last to want to see that young lady dead, but she has options the others do not, well off connected parents. She’ll never serve–no reason to. Props to Al Gore for going to Viet Nam because he felt an obligation because his father was a US Senator.
You might be right BlackPope. The US is sinking; my plan is to leave, as I have no real reason to stay. I’m getting too old to keep fighting, and I’m tired of it. Bartcop is entitled to his fantasies and to keep changing his positions, but his censoring of those who disagree is dead wrong.
Comment by VTindependent — March 19, 2007 @ 7:57 am
There is ONLY ONE solution:
America must admit, not ‘defeat’, but that it cannot achieve ANY of its objectives, the most noble being (I clutch my own throat when thinking anything Bush ‘does’ can be described that way, but that’s how he presented it) ‘bringing democracy’.
But the solution lies therein: America must offer TO PAY to replace itself, based on a poll of Iraqis’ ANOTHER COUNTRY or ‘Coalition’ to take over security for 12-24 months.
“Dear Iraqi Citizen: WHICH country would YOU respect, if it replaced the American Occupying Forces, and allowed you a transitory force to shore up security? If you choose a, b or c, America WILL LEAVE NEXT MONTH; if you choose d, e or f, America WILL LEAVE IN THREE MONTHS.”
If a clear voted majority could pick from the list, and if that country agreed, it would logically (cough) allow tensions to dissipate.
Throw them a carrot: 1000 USD per legitimate vote.
Throw them a banquet: all voting for peace would earn: 5,000USD at the end of a year, if not associated with sectarian violence.
I wrote this a long time ago , but no one in Washington DC wants to pay me (enough) to implement the salvation of the United States! (if this link works, it’s the first time I’ve succeeded with Bart’s blog-admin-system!)
aka Drew
Comment by Drew — March 19, 2007 @ 8:35 am
If this becomes a duplicate post: apologies.
Folks, there’s one solution only: .
Ask Iraqis, stupid!
Comment by Drew — March 19, 2007 @ 8:40 am
I’m all for impeaching Bush & Cheney, but how will that enable us to bring the troops home?
People need to understand that things change.
Invading Iraq was such a bad move – we have no idea how much damage that idiot has done until this is over – but the fuse has been lit.
We can’t just close our eyes and hope that everything is going to be OK.
Consider the point that saying “Bring the troops home now” is kinda like saying “Bring the fireman home now” while the fire is still raging thru buildings downtown.
We have a BIG problem and it needs to be taken care of before we walk away from it.
Comment by Bart — March 19, 2007 @ 9:29 am
Wow.
Strong comments from people, and I understand the heat on this subject, but my thoughts on it are pretty simple.
The current arguement from the right wing is “we have to stay there or they will follow us here”. That is complete bullshite, and doesn’t stand up to the light of truth. They don’t hate us as much as they hate each other, and probably the only reason they would “come here” is to buy weapons.
The left-wing argument is to leave ASAP. This won’t work either because there is no working government, and the country would quickly become a failed state along the lines of Yugoslavia, with years of violent genocide on all sides that would draw in much of the Middle East.
No one seems to be proposing a plan where we resolve the problem before we leave. There is no “victory” here, but there can be stabilization.
The problem is, it would need an international approach, much like how Yugoslavia was resolved (one of the successes of the Clinton Administration). The country will eventually need to be divided, making sure none of the three groups get shafted on the oil money. Then, an international force made up of both Sunnis AND Shiites from the region would take up border patrol until governments could be formed. As this new force comes in, the US forces could leave, and we would leave the country better off than we found it.
That’s just MY idea, but then, I’m not good at the history and makeup of the region.
The worst problem with Iraq is that there is currently no plan other than “hold on, it’ll get better in six months”, which has done nothing but made a bad situation worse.
I think we’re at the point where ANY plan is better than none.
Tell me again why Bush isn’t using any of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group other than he wants to stick it to his Daddy?
Comment by lousyratbastard1 — March 19, 2007 @ 10:08 am
VT Lots of ranting babble from you but only pitiful excuses for not having the ballz to debate Bart mano-a-??? whatever you are! LOL
Are you also so afraid of Hillary (A WOMAN! and front runner)that you would vote the warmongering chickenhawk party in again?
Didn’t notice you suggesting the drunken bush twins or unka dick’s daughter go to Irag! LOL
I would discuss the reasons why bushidiot’s quagmire has become America’s tar baby but Bart has covered that over and over and over and you still can’t seem to get it. The same with his backing of the Democrats front runner Hillary or whomever it turns out to be as the election gets closer.
You just go ahead and abandon the U.S., you will have a whole lot of repugs to keep you company after the next election. ;O)
Comment by kerry — March 19, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
BTW VT, Bart didn’t “borrow” any of my cartoons, I GAVE THEM TO HIM FREELY!
Wanna see if you can sink a little lower now?
Comment by kerry — March 19, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
Kerry:
Just a quick post to ask you which of “your” cartoons BC has published. Give me Issue# and date. As for the others he posts, well, he knows what I mean. “Get Your War On” is one that he got his butt kicked for posting without permission, and I have sent him copies of Ted Rall’s, but I make sure that Rall’s copyright notice is on the ones I send him. Ted would probably have no problem with BC putting them is if asked. Hey, I read the treehouse mostly for the cartoons, and the travel section. But BC could do a “h/t, meaning hat tip, to those who contribute. Other bloggers do.
As to your comprehension problem, I have never voted Republican except for Jim Jeffords in VT, who later quit the Rethugs and became an Independent, voting with the Dems. I probably will never vote for a Rethug, so I don’t know where you’re coming from in projecting that I do.
As to Hillary, a front runner in your dreams. And being pushed by the corporate media, because the Rethugs want her to be the candidate, because they assume they can beat her–with dirty tricks and smear–but beat her never-the-less. I think they have a plan.
And I explained why I won’t debate Bartcop on-line, besides the fact that I have two full time jobs.
And I’m all for a universal draft if that should happen, but a draft should be used only in the time of a critical national emergency, or invasion. We don’t have that now. And yes, the Bushes and the Cheneys can all go, pregnant or not.
And you assume that I defend the Rethugs and Bush; where does that come from? I have been against the Bush family for as long as they have been in politics. I hate the Rethugs, all of them.
I would consider debating BC through this blog though. But only on the condition that he doesn’t edit “snippage” my posts, as he has my emails.
Or is a biased debate the only thing acceptable to you “Kerry”. Cute name–are you a man?
Of course one of the great benefits of leaving the US (and I have lived in S. America, Canada and Europe) is that I don’t have to deal with people like you. I feel fine with that.
Comment by VTindependent — March 19, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
Bl4ckPOOp says:
“I have observed your hypocrisy for 9 years ”
Just can’t tear yourself away can you? I must admit Bart IS addictive! LOL If you are going to rant you should at least become somewhat familiar with the facts, or do you just sit in front of a mirror for your inspiration? A good dictionary would be an asset in helping you to communicate outside the gutter.
Comment by kerry — March 19, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
“VT” your nic or is that a typo on VD?
You still here??? I thought you were jumping ship and hauling off to parts unknown!
Like Bl4ckPOOp you just can’t tear yourself away.
Why not spend that hate you spew on writing to our “ELECTED EMPLOYEES” instead of bashing one of the fairest, kindest and most decent people I ever knew!
As for the comprehension problem you mentioned, I think you have a serious case of “transference”!
Bart has published 65 of my “TOONS” over the past year! Does GKerry or GK ring a bell?
OR IS IT JUST POSSIBLE THAT LIKE MOST PEOPLE YOU DON’T EVER LOOK AT WHOSE SIGNATURE IS ON A “TOON” OR REALLY GIVE A DAMN EXCEPT
FOR SOMETHING TO BITCH ABOUT! Look them up!
Bart had a toll free number up for a long time but none of the bitchers took him up on
debating anything. He has “LIVE CHAT” listed on his web page or are you still going
to wussy out of debating him?
Whether I am male or female does not matter for in either case YOU ARE NOT MY TYPE!
If your IQ were only half of Bart’s “64″ you could understand what he is saying and why.
Being only a “56″ myself, Bart is my HERO!
Now if you folks are though ranting and playing word cutesy we might be able to discuss
the subject matter of this thread with a modicum of civility and intelligence.
Comment by kerry — March 19, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
arrgh . i get the front runner stuff i also get not leaving a fire burning . What i dobn’t get is all them damn camels swimming all the way here without anyone noticing
Comment by growler — March 19, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
I am afraid that pulling 140,000 troops at once will create such a vacuum, that the whole region will explode…the Donald is correct
a phased pull out though, should begin immediately, so whatever security forces Iraq has, can start doing their job without thinkg ‘the americans will do it’
we can’t be there forever, we can’t have a base there…we all know how well that turned out, with saudia arabia
but 4 years, my god…USSR fought of the Nazis from their soil, and chased them back to Germany…and we are the superpower of the world, and can’t finish this?
Comment by russian33 — March 19, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
yo bart- this is non hippy advice for helping beat the big L. you gotta give up five things, but you get to keep one fun pastime.
you must no longer intake:
meat
wheat
dairy
booze
BUT you can vaporize all the herbaliciousness your heart desires.
i am not going to bore you with the non emotional science of my declaration.
i urge you to give it a thought and perhaps a bit of research.
you can do it.
we want you to live.
Comment by Spacemodulator — March 19, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
oops. i forgot tobacco. it’s poison like booze. the acid environment in your body is part of the problem. become more alkaline and oxygenate.
this is not bullshit.
Comment by Spacemodulator — March 19, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Q – “Should the Rapist pull out before ‘the job’ is done, or would that leave a vacuum?”
A – “Gee, funny question, Harry, I guess that depends – do you value the Rapist getting his ‘money shot’ higher than the opinion/rights of the victim, or even the criminal law forbidding Rape? Have you ever been Raped, Harry? ‘Cos it kinda sounds like you might enjoy it? Or actually, Harry, ah’m-a-thinkin, if you can even ask that stupid question, you must be the Rapist, now ain’t that the truth?
Hey, BushCock? – yes, you – FUCK YOU and the fantasy ‘fireman’ you just rode in on, boy !! And may Jesus H. Christ personally drag yore cracker ass screemin’ down into Hell, where his ‘firemen’ (that’s demons) will get real bizzy on it, forever, as payback for just coming up with this fresh lie. In other words, NO Dummy, your precious GameBoy warcriminals are NOT firemen, they are PYROMANIAC RAPISTS on tour, so getting them back home stops them setting more fires and raping more people – e.g. Iran – however, as we all know, even the best-prepared and most ruthless rapist sometimes meets a ‘quiet one, duh, why ain’t this’un screamin’ like all the rest, Uncle Joe?’ who delivers a surprise knee in the nutz, bites off nose or fingers, and in the best cases pulls a flamethrower or magnum and doesn’t miss her mark! That can truely be a discouraging, if not terminal, event in the career of a serial Rapist. Iraq is so far just a bloody nose for the RapistUSA, but wait and see how Iran will truely flame-grill your flabby white asses if Bush/Clinton is monkey-brained enough to attack them. The Iranian people are not screamin’, they are ready for you to make the first move – tempting, isn’t it, Hillbilly Boy?
Comment by FunBot — March 20, 2007 @ 12:36 am
… Does anybody remember the immortal words of Ronnie Reagan … when he met the Pope of Rome in 1979, he said,
“Gawd-dang-it, JP, you know my ole Paw, he always said it, the only good Pole is a Dee Pole!”
Could that mean like the kind Bush/Clinton has dug for the skYanki army in Iraq? St. Ronnie truely was a Prophet!
Maybe it would save transport costs (and help the environment) if those 150,000 skYanki GameBoy warcriminals could just be sacrificed down there, their blood used to water the tree of Iraqi Patriotism – then the Ay-Raab Sand-Niggers won’t feel the urge to surge and purge any of us Homelander Rapists for revenge.
Keep payin them Taxes, Good Monkey, as wars don’t pay for themselves, despite what your PNAC brainbugs try to tell you. Over
Comment by KneeGrowPope — March 20, 2007 @ 1:11 am
I would hope that Ms. Clinton was referring to a multilateral force which the US helps to coordinate to hopefully partially contain the huge shitstorm that has been building between Shia and Sunni extremists ever since we took out the political buffer that was Saddam.
As many posts responding to the venerable Bart’s statements illustrate, extremism is the problem. Extremists are the enemy who will eventually either blow us up or just make the world ugly for a thousand years.
Right wing extremists, Left wing extremists, Catholic extremists, Jewish extremists, Muslim extremists, even Buddhist extremists (if that isn’t an oxymoron) are all part of the problem.
The saddest part is that the majority of the world is made up of moderates who just let the extremist handjobs make their decisions for them. I say lets ignore ALL the extremists… not get extreme on the particular extremism that happens to be fucking us up at any given moment!
The next time you hear any extremist rant… ask them (or yourself) ‘Have I thought this out to it’s inevitable conclusion, or am I just having a knee-jerk reaction?’ Maybe you can introduce a seed of sanity into this otherwise extremely volatile world.
My two cents.
Comment by p0ltergeist — March 20, 2007 @ 1:17 am
OK, people, just for a test, right-click-save to download + watch , the type of thing your petty 2-party PSYop’s opinion-controllers like BlurtCrap will never show you – LEARN SOMETHING, then ask yourself – “Is it POSSIBLE for Bush/Clinton and their whole skYanki Army to beat this? What would it take to enable ME to do something like THAT?” – because if you truely loved freedom and democracy, or had a clue what those words mean, this is exactly what you would be doing RIGHT NOW to the Bush/Clinton SYSTEM and THEIR troops also.
Al Furqan Multimedia Foundation – (5 minute clip, 33MB .rmvb)
PS: BushCock has not yet censored this material, but I remain confident he will reflexively do the bidding of his masters just as soon as he wakes up from his latest drunken dreams of slobbering over Clintona’s soiled Übermensch unterkacks – such politically illiterate little automata make the best Nazi party functionaries, just give them the armband, they get all high on it.
Comment by KneeGrowPope — March 20, 2007 @ 1:20 am
Q1 – Was it extreme for Hitler’s Imperio-Capitalism to invade and destroy Poland in 1939 onwards, based on the transparent lies that Polish ‘Terrorists’ were about to bring down the Third Reich and that the people starving in the Warsaw Ghetto (which he later created) were developing anti-German WMD?
Q2 – Was it extreme for US Imperio-Capitalism (not just Bush – Clintona and her hound-dawg hubby helped set the stage) to invade and destroy Iraq in 2003 onwards, based on the transparent lies that the Iraqi people starving in the no-fly Sanctions Ghetto were about to bring down the US-Rapist-Reich using magical anti-American WMD, and were in league with bad ‘terrists’?
Is it an option to ‘just ignore’ such extremists – I’d say NO, the world needs to unite to decisively defeat such barbaric criminal enterprises.
Most people on this blog are thoroughly confused by the propaganda of their ‘masters’, which tragically leads them to adopt ‘US Imperio-Capitalist Ruling Class Interests’ as their own – the problem with this is, they have never identified their own (class) interests, or gotten any political education to enable logical thought on the issue.
And that is EXACTLY how your ‘masters’ would like to keep you, ignorant and in line.
Surprise me, disappoint them!
Comment by KneeGrowPope — March 20, 2007 @ 1:45 am
Folks, I invite you to dl this short REALITY SHOW, the type of thing opinion-controllers would not want you to see – then ask yourself – “Is it POSSIBLE for the whole skYanki Army to beat this? What would it take to enable ME to do something like THAT?”
“Iraqis Welcome US Invaders to Ramadi – 14 Mar 2007″
h.ttp://ia300003.us.archive.org/2/items/jhwqAY/V1.rmvb
Comment by Bl4ckP0pe — March 20, 2007 @ 2:06 am
!! WOO-OAUW !!
That viddy sure IS a sight for sore eyes, thanks P0pe
Looks like them Iraqi Patriots are developing an insatiable taste for flame-grilled piggie, and they don’t seem to mind picking the shrapnel out from between their teeth neither
“Yee-harr – Bring ‘em on, Dude, ah’m a-comin Home ina Baax!”
HOTLINK : (right-click + save)
Comment by FunBot — March 20, 2007 @ 2:24 am
To get around BlurtCrap’s warmongering censorshit, paste the URL-address for video above, remove the dot from h.ttp et voila, DL + save
-or-
use this HOTLINK (between the “–>… …… Iraqis Welcome US Invaders to Ramadi – 14 Mar 2007 …
Comment by BlackPope — March 20, 2007 @ 2:45 am
Iraqis Welcome US Invaders to Ramadi – 14 Mar 2007
Comment by FunBot — March 20, 2007 @ 3:32 am
Comment by BlackPope — March 20, 2007 @ 3:37 am
Howdy BlurtCrap, – OK, folks, I’ve finally cracked this jesuit’s little censorship tricks, after extensive probes and experimentation:
1. it looks like BlurtCrap ‘accidentally on purpose’ misinforms his trusting readers that QUOTE You can use these tags: etc ENDQUOTE to post a link.
2. that is FALSE INFO, any link tagged in that format results in the whole post being rejected, or the link being editted out.
3. example:- in the last two posts above, the sole difference was that BlackPope used the EXACT format suggested for links by BlurtCrap, the jesuit, wheras FunBot used the HONEST html standard.
4. the correct format for a HTML link tag is … impossible to post here … but just google “common HTML tags” and you will quickly see the difference, and recognise the deep dishonesty of you venerated censor, BushCock.
5. Q.E.D. – censors do not enjoy having their methods exposed and circumvented, so I expect this will all be chopped very soon.
Sincerely etc, Bl4ckP0pe
Comment by FunBot — March 20, 2007 @ 3:49 am
Gee! I go away a few day and lookit!. Hokey smoke, it’s halfway up the walls!
Ok, not to fan the flames but…
this little thingie right above the comment field that begins
has been wrong since bartblog day one. I ran across it within the first six posts in this blog. Wrote a letter to TPTB – never got a reply or nothing (unusual)
Now I will agree oh NubianHeterophant, it sure do “look” like you are being censored when it happens – but you isn’t!
It’s just the HTML that’s totally FUBARed.
Plus a wee bit of WordPress weirdness.
Format your next post on a WYSIWYG editor and see if’n it don’t turn out a whole lot better.
jje
Comment by jje — March 20, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Kerry:
I think I do recall seeing one of your cartoons.
It sucked. Probably you can only give them away.
No, really, you call that “Mayan Purification Rituals” a cartoon? It’s a collage, a composite. Not a cartoon. You might be a cartoon though.
Actually, its OK. Just not a cartoon. But you, you’re the real deal.
Comment by VTindependent — March 20, 2007 @ 10:12 pm
Kerry said:
“Being only a “56″ myself, Bart is my HERO!”
I believe you.
“Now if you folks are though ranting and playing word cutesy we might be able to discuss the subject matter of this thread with a modicum of civility and intelligence.”
Hey DumbAss, you were the one who started the shit. You sound like the rethugs after they got their asses kicked–oh can we be non-partisan now? Hypocrite.
Comment by VTindependent — March 20, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
The Arab Baath Socialist Party Statement – 20.03.2007
The fifth year of the Occupation is the year
of the decisive victory of Iraqi Resistance!
In the name of God the Most Beneficent the Most Merciful
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
One Arab Nation, with an eternal mission
Unity, Freedom, Socialism
Heroic Iraqi masses!
The Baath made no mistake when summing up the US Occupation fate, before it happened, on the mouth of the master of modern times’ martyrs the leader Saddam Hussein when he said that today’s Mongols will commit suicide on Baghdad ramparts’ gates warning the US from undertaking any idiotic step to invade Iraq.. Here are today’s Mongols, incarnated by both occupations US and Iranian of Iraq, getting killed and slaughtered at the ramparts’ gates of Baghdad.. in Mahmudya and Youssifya to the South.. in Abu Ghraib and Falluja to the West.. In Diyala to the East..In Balad, Dur, and Samarra to the North.. These are the strategic gates and the principal entries to Baghdad.. With US and Iranian enemies committing suicide thanks to the intrepid Iraqi Resistance weapons, Baghdad the pearl of the Resistance and martyr Saddam’ Capital City, remained liberated in most of its neighborhoods and districts except some tiny little pockets including the Green Zone.. The fact that Baghdad remains liberated and combating heroically the Occupation and defeating every (security) plans and every Safawides attacks, is nothing but the greatest symbol for all Iraq to resist and to defeat the occupation, every single one of its big projects into mere utopia and recording through its armed Resistance gun, the greatest Resistance epic in Iraq, in the Arab nation and in the human histroy.
On the land of Iraq, wrecked were the US, Zionism and Safawide Iran dreams to establish a regional colonialist system as a basis for a new colonialist world order.
While we enter the fifth year of the invasion, the Baath findings before the invasion and the Baath’ and the Resistance’s directly after the invasion.. So what are these findings?
1- The Baath has ascertained that the US occupation and whatever overwhelming material force it possess, will be fatally and absolutely defeated in Iraq. Yes indeed! For the people of Iraq has prepared itself in an excellent manner by the Baath and its patriotic government for a guerrilla war for more than ten years before the invasion and has provided all the necessary means to endure a cruel and long liberation war without relying on any external help.. Also the Patriotic, the national and the Islamic cultural edifice, built by the Baath for 35 years of government, has prepared the people of Iraq to support and nurture the Resistance and give whatever price or sacrifices to see her triumphing.
Thus the Resistance found herself living in a favorable, supportive and friendly environment where she can breath, providing her with every kind of progress and triumph means.. The inexhaustible flow of the volunteering combatants, the financial, intelligence and political support for the Resistance from every Iraqi has been and will always be the reason of the Resistance victory upon the most ferocious colonialist force in ancient, modern and contemporary history..
The Iraqi armed revolution has confirmed what the Baath has already established before the invasion that the victory at the end of the war and the conflict will be for the high moral and never for the tanks and the war jets.. Indeed! The freedom and independence will which the Iraqis carry in their hearts has and always will be the decisive factor and not the power of blackmail through technology, military,and material supremacy.
2- The Baath has ascertained and in particular by the mouth of the master of martyrs, the beloved leader Saddam Hussein, that the belonging plurality of the people of Iraq (Arabs, Kurds, Turcomens, Muslims, Christians, Sunnis and Shias.. etc) is a source of strength and creativity and not a source of weakness as the enemies imagined. That is why the US colonialism and its colonialist Iranian ally and despite all they did such as destruction and mass murders against the people of Iraq under whatever cover and sectarian names to foment sectarian strife through exploiting the Iraqi pluralism, all these attempts have scandalously failed, and will fatally fail in the future. The disasters and the catastrophes inflicted to Iraq were enough to tear down Iraq, if it was possible to harm and to tear down its social fabric; for the people of Iraq in all its components has endured mass murders based on sectarian identities, and millions of Iraqi have been displaced in an attempt to tear down the social fabric of Iraq! But this fabric remained strong and become even stronger than before, when some discovered and others were convinced that the attempts to divide Iraq in the name of federation and allotment and wealth sharing is nothing but a US Iranian plot, whose objective is to wipe Iraq out from the map and eradicate its national identity.. this pushed all Iraqis to stand with the unity of Iraq.. The plot failed..
Today while we enter the fifth year of the invasion, we see the Armed Iraqi Resistance striking in the south as it does in the center and the north.. This is nothing but an added proof that the Resistance against the US – Iranian occupation is a common denominator in amongst all Iraqis.. in spite that the militants of the south and mainly the Baathists are exposed to ferocious corporal liquidation leading to the murder of hundreds weekly, on the hands of the Safawides who hate Arabity.
Comment by Bl4ckP0pe — March 22, 2007 @ 8:33 am
3- The Zionist Neo Cons’ plan, was to colonize and transform Iraq into a basis to an absolute and direct control over the petrol and the countries of the region, and move from Iraq and through the main strength of Iraq, to impose a new world colonialist order blackmailing every single nation in the world through using the petrol. This blackmail can’t be opposed for to resist against such a black mail will lead to the halt of every modern life phenomenon and to the destruction of the countries’ economies.. thus achieving the old and most beloved dream to the hearts of the Anglo-Saxon elite : making out of the present century, a US century.. But the Iraqi national Resistance with all its factions has destroyed the basis of this project which was to occupy Iraq successfully, rendering absolutely impossible to achieve the second plan i.e. to be fully in control of all the regional petrol countries and the third plan being to colonize the world.
The Iraqis in this very sense have achieved a formidable global strategic coup d’état against the US colonialism – preventing it from holding successfully to Iraq, i.e. forcing it to a halt and preventing it from achieving any progress, then confronting it through combat and finally make out of it, a daily target which endures killer blows, in order to bleed the US economy and its human resources and destroy its reputation of the black mail and assert to the whole wide world that the US is (a paper tiger) with all the very meaning of this saying.. Failed Nikita Khrushchev, the former USSR Premier when it uttered that..when applying it to a nuclear super power. Mao Tse Dong the historic China leader mocked the Soviet leader at that time saying.: ( It is a tiger paper indeed but with nuclear fangs) !Only the Iraq of the Resistance and the Baath has ascertained that the US is a paper tiger when Iraq succeeded into uprooting the US nuclear fangs and made of the US a mangy itchy errant dog looking for a place to hide fleeing the blows and the wrath of the lions of Iraq!
Following the defeat of the US, the world over freed itself from the blackmail of the US force, challenging the US. as it happened in South America known as the (US back yard). Furthermore the armed Resistance against the US-European Occupation in Afghanistan has evolved fast affected by and imitating the Iraqi revolution and learning from the Iraqis developed combating means and styles which were a creative and unique mix on how to use a guerrilla war and the styles of a regular army which changed into a guerrilla….This army is army of Iraq! The army of one million soldiers, the armly of the experienced one million combatants.. and the world over saw for the first time ever in its history a guerrilla war relying mainly on a regular and formidable developed army.. Thus the US and the NATO alliance realized that they were trapped into a killer quagmire they won’t be able to quit except to the grave of the fatal defeat.
The Iraqi Resistance has severed the claws of the West’ colonialist savages’ and mainly those of the beastly US when they realized that the colonialist era will not rise from its grave after the Soviet Union death except for a glimpse of time because the popular forces combating for freedom, specially in Iraq and Palestine, enjoys a Resistance’ and a sacrifices’ will far greater than that of the Soviet Union’. That is why and for this very reason they succeeded into bringing colonialism to its grave while still alive and kicking!
Today while we enter the fifth year of the Occupation, the world over has become convinced that the armed Iraqi Resistance has been the only super power which dwarfed the US hegemony and has dragged the US filthy nose into the mire of the bitter defeat.. bringing to a halt the rampaging US buffalo’s global and regional ambitions.. and forcing it to delay or to cancel its expansionist projects and completely re consider its global strategy! The most striking proof of the US strategic defeat is when it frankly admitted that the US military strategy relied upon for decades and based on undergoing two wars at the same time in two different countries or regions, has been wrecked by the Iraqi Resistance, for the US failed in one single war which is the Iraq war!
4- The US Zionists have widely spread a false opinion that the Arab nation is the nation of the defeats, underdevelopment, cowardice, egoism and scattering that is why its destiny is to disappear or to be enslaved to the West and to Zionism.. and to Iran..these days..But the Iraqi Resistance has wrecked this theory and proofed to the world over that the Arab is not only more courageous than the Colonialism and the Zionism armies but he is even smarter and more genius and has deeper humanity and farther vision than any Western and Zionism models..Sometime this truth was shaken and has replaced in others the well know model of the Arab in the world and drew a new picture for the Arab known for his rare courage and wisdom and his wish to lead the way.
The greatest and the outstanding incarnation of the mythical and heroic Arab is the image of Saddam Hussein as a combatant who started and led the Resistance, and as an intrepid detainee who put fear into his jailers’ hearts and made the world mock the US.. and as a martyr mounting the execution stage smiling and praying God and cursing the US and Iran. This picture has attracted the admiration of the world.. shook and changed the given ideas and prejudices of millions of people who knew martyr Saddam through a western Media which wanted to demonize him though lies but when the decisive moments arrived, every body discovered that Saddam Hussein refused to make any compromise with the US while he was threatened with death and refused every backing off over principles and Iraq and the Arab nation interests. The Baath has drawn again the image of the Arab in the world as it is in reality and this an outstanding formidable achievement.
On the fifth year of the occupation, the Arab will not be seen by the world with his ogal and keffiah, his fat protuberant potbelly and through the fleet of his concubines’ cars as drawn by the Zionist west, but the Arab has become Saddam Hussein with his nobility, heroism, purity, wisdom, a symbol and a good example to follow, smiling, while the jailer- torturer puts the death rope around his neck.
Comment by BlackPope — March 22, 2007 @ 9:56 am
5- In the fourth year of the invasion, the Iraqi Resistance forced Bush to replace his idiotic laughs with tears and the world over saw him crying on his soldiers whose corpses are daily flown to the US in plastic bags.. Broken was his arrogance which was replaced nowadays with the defeat which filters from any word Bush says, begging some organizations and regimes he used to despise !
The Iraqi Resistance knocked the US and the colonialist West into shape and taught them their real place and mainly through the real fabric of the Arab nation and showed the ability of the free loving human kind to repeat the Iraqi model through a successful Resistance in general.
Terms like, (an exit strategy from Iraq) has replaced those of (achieving victory)! Further more! The most important invasion hawks such as Dick Cheney, the US vice president which was the main motor behind Bush stubbornness, has admitted in a suffocated voice that (the US is looking for an honorable exit from Iraq). The US game in Iraq is over and with this, are over the hopes to see the present century as a US’ century.
6- The US defeat in Iraq has become a well admitted reality and which needs three final steps to render the withdrawal (honorable) as said Cheney. The first step is to get an oil contract which put Iraq petrol into the US bosom for may be some 99 years and the US will get according to this contract 80 percent from the Iraqi oil revenues. This US’ request is decisive to make the invasion profitable to the US to compensate its losses and for this reason and with the approach of the US withdrawal the US has ordered in a accelerated way the puppet government in Baghdad to set an oil bill to give the US all the petrol of Iraq. This means one single thing that the US time in Iraq has become short, very short indeed. The second step is to achieve destroying Iraq through assassinating its symbols and its patriotic leaders quickly too.. that is why martyr leader Saddam Hussein was murdered and assassinated were both martyrs Barzan al Tikriti and Awad Bandar al Saadoon. Today preparations are set to kill the militant leader Taha Yassin Ramadhan. This series of assassination is nothing but some of the preparations to withdraw from Iraq and to prevent it from having experienced leaders from the legitimate leadership. The third step when we see the US using its dearest reserves, preciously kept until the decisive day and the most important being to unleash the most dangerous factors in amongst sectarian forces from both sides Shia and Sunna to divide the armed Resistance and make the sectarian strife the number one problem. The sectarian terminology practiced by some elements which say they belong to the Resistance is nothing but the other side of the US Iranian coin and which completes the role of Badr brigade and Mahdi army. The Resistance will triumph as long as it strengthens its patriotic character and avoid falling into the sectarian trap encouraged by both the US and Iran and some other parties.
That is why our Party draws everyone’ attention in particular within the Resistance to isolate the elements with sectarian orientations and to have a spirit which overcomes sectarism and to hold on to patriotic and Islamic unity cleaned from the despised sectarism.. other wise the only beneficiary will be the occupation.
Our great Arab people from Mauritania to Oman!
Your Mujahid Arab socialist Baath Party ascertains to you that the assassination of the Leaders of Iraq will never lead as the US expects to prevent Iraq from its best experienced leaders! Rather for any assassinated martyr hundred field’s leaders will appear to lead the Jihad until the victory. Also the attempts to foment loggerhead in amongst the Mujahideens will fail for the patriotic Resistance is stronger than these exposed tactics. The coming phase will witness an unprecedented and terrifying expansion of the Jihadi operations in Iraq to wreck any Occupation attempt to deviate it from its patriotic and liberation path. As for the US attempt to steal Iraq oil before cutting and running, we say today that the Resistance will transform any petrol agreement into a mere torn worthless piece of paper and the oil will remain the property of the people of Iraq.
What is required today while the decisive hour is approaching and the US defeat is getting clearer like the shining sun in the middle of the day.. is the unity in amongst all the Resistance factions and the utter discipline for every one of their elements and prevent any of them to indulge in a patriotically negative behavior.
May the fifth year of the occupation be the decisive year for victory and for expelling the Occupation!
Long live the Iraqi armed Resistance, the path for freedom and independence!
Long live the Iraqi patriotic Resistance with all its factions!
Victory to the Mujahid people of Iraq!
Glory and eternity for the master of martyrs, the Revolution starter, its designer and its leader Saddam Hussein.
Glory and eternity for the martyrs of the Iraqi Resistance!
Shame and dishonor to the US and to Iran!
The Iraqi Leadership
Iraqi Cultural and Information Bureau
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
Baghdad – Martyr Saddam Capital City
20th March 2007
Translated by Abu Assur. Al Moharer.net
Comment by KneeGrowPope — March 22, 2007 @ 9:58 am
I’m sure Bart must be tired of explaining every day to every obnoxious ranter who cannot explain why he hates Hillary and why backing her as the Democratic front runner makes sense and why Democrats should unite and stop bashing her and why it would accomplish nothing for her to admit guilt for the bushgangs lies.
I wish Bart would write it up in detail, put it on a separate page with a link to it on his WebPage for those who only “look at the “cartoons” and humor then bitch about your views without knowing the facts. Then do the same thing with the “troop withdrawal” information so those with a lesser ability
to think and reason for themselves may just possibly be able to understand.
There was a point when we could have started bringing the troops home but thanks to chickenhawk dubya’s fake machismo “Bring ‘em on!” and “Staying the Course” BS we have passed the point of no return and our exhausted troops are mired in bush’s quagmire with no end in site.
Evidently no one ever explained to the idiot-in-chief that to continue hitting a hornet’s nest will not calm the hornets or that you cannot put out a fire by throwing more wood on the flames!
VT, I’m sure we are all waiting breathlessly to see the creative endeavors of your GENIUS mind. So won’t you please tell us where they are published…. or do you only use your computer to look at “TOONS” and to bitch and bash those whose talents you envy?
Comment by kerry — March 22, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
Kerry the Cute said:
“VT, I’m sure we are all waiting breathlessly to see the creative endeavors of your GENIUS mind. So won’t you please tell us where they are published…. or do you only use your computer to look at “TOONS” and to bitch and bash those whose talents you envy?”
I can assure you that I do not “envy” your self described talents. But, you can go to the source of all knowledge, Bartcop himself, and ask him how he likes the photograph I sent him of a lobster boat off the coast of Maine. Do it.
Comment by VTindependent — March 22, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
And Kerry, if I ever needed a reason to abandon Bartcop, it has been provided in the form of his very own Dittoheads, like you. It is amazing, and amusing, that the person who he despises the most has provided the template for his own fan club. Dittoheads. Ditto, just as stupidly in lockstep. BC should be embarassed, but as we can see from the emails he posts, he loves it. Egotistical vanity is so…….Bill O’Reilly like.
Comment by VTindependent — March 22, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
America’s original sin
by: Hana Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty*
in: Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
on: March 22, 2007
Four years into its illegal and barbaric war on Iraq, the United States cannot, nor will it ever, win.
The illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq is not only the biggest crime of recent history, it is the original sin of the 21st century, a depravity. In its war on Iraq, the United States has sought to destroy Iraq as both a state and a nation.
It decimated an entire class — the progressive middle class of Iraq that had proven its capacity to manage Iraqi resources independently and to the benefit of all; it killed nearly a million while sending millions more into exile; it orchestrated death squads and looting and invented new horrors in torture and rape; in the name of bringing democracy, it brought material destruction on a mass scale to a people, aiming also to erase their identity, memory, culture, social fabric, institutions and forms of administration, commerce, and everyday life; it even attacked Iraq’s unborn generations with the 4.7 billion-year death of depleted uranium.
It has engaged in civilisational genocide as well as its own moral suicide. Force, however, does not dictate right. The brutality of power and imperialism has been definitively exposed while the project for a new American century has utterly failed. The consequences for American and international history are conclusive. The world order that formed around erstwhile US liberal values has evaporated.
The US invasion and occupation of Iraq is a military, economic, political, moral and cultural disaster for Americans and the world.
US military failure has been demonstrated by the inability of the best funded and most sophisticated armed force in the world to defeat the resistance of a small country and its poor people, tired of 13 years of sanctions, exposing war as useless.
While the Americans may attempt to secure their presence in Iraq, they cannot destroy the belief of Iraqis that they have the right to live as any other people in the world, free and independent and sovereign in their land and over their resources.
Occupying Iraq is an economic disaster because the costs of the war for the United States have increased beyond any economic gain it could have from controlling Iraqi oil.
Politically, the occupation is a disaster for the United States because no one in the world can argue that it is playing a progressive role. The occupation is also a moral and cultural disaster for the US. Following the enormous human suffering of World War II, the world — Americans included — established international law and human rights law that set the standard for civilised societies.
US neo-conservatives and imperialists are trying to destroy this civilisation, refusing to be subject to international law and replacing it with the law of the jungle. How can the world — Americans included — be identified with such a savage enterprise as the war on and occupation of Iraq?
Arabs are not strangers to neo-imperial attempts to prevent their development. They recall the systematic demonisation of their popular movements: the attempted toppling of the democratically elected Syrian government in 1956 for being “communist”, the characterisation of Nasser as a “fascist” when he nationalised the Suez Canal, the criminalisation of the Iraqi Baath Party, referred to as “Nazis”, when it refused to surrender control over Iraq’s resources. Even the Palestinian and Lebanese people who heroically struggle against occupation are considered “terrorists”. We know well what are colonial policies in general and in this region in particular. The US always pretends to defend the rights of a minority — whether its demands are justified or not — in order to control the majority. In Iraq, since 1991, the US appealed to Kurds and Shias to rebel, trying to insinuate that those who govern them are Sunnis. Anyone with intellectual honesty knows that the Baath Party was neither sectarian in its thinking nor in its membership.
US-Israeli plans, based on creating divisions among Arabs in one country, or between countries, have failed. In Iraq, the policy of charming some groups of the Iraqi Resistance or their supporters in order to divide them and isolate the resistance has failed completely.
Despite repeated declarations made by war criminal Jalal Talabani, resistance groups are united in their position. Second, the policy of dividing Iraqi movements into Shia, Sunni and Kurd, is disintegrating; large movements of opinion insist on the unity of Iraq and the common interest of its people. Ever more groups in the south enter the struggle against the occupation and its local puppet government.
The unity of Turkomen, Assyrians and Arabs on the fate of Kirkuk is an example of underlying unity, as is the deepening of tribal solidarity, spreading demands for a large political national front, demonstrations in the north, and ever unifying positions concerning the future of Iraq’s oil wealth.
Iraq has been a socio-economic and geopolitical entity for more than 4000 years, it cannot be divided. It is the cradle of several civilisations. When united this entity has proven able to enhance human civilisation and be an engine for progress.
Where the Sumerians invented writing, the Babylonians invented law, followed by the Abbasid who introduced the idea of a state of all its citizens and of social solidarity in society, opening the path for the unifying Arab-Muslim civilisation that survives proudly to this day. The Iraqi people are the expression of this heritage, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Never in history could two states cohabitate the area that is now Iraq. It has always been in the interest of the peoples who settled in the Iraq basin to organise together a common geopolitical future.
There have been many unsuccessful imperial attempts to divide this natural entity. No form of aggression, regardless of how criminal or vengeful, can destroy the Arab-Muslim identity of Iraq or Iraq’s geopolitical unity. In its attempts to destroy this civilisation and reality, the US administration has thrown the entire idea of the so- called West into disarray. Definitively exposed are all the racist and condescending attitudes that had remained latent or covert. The “West” — and the United States in particular — stands naked as a culture of force. The moral accounting, which will develop inexorably, will change world history. It is the resistance of the Iraqi people that demands it.
Attempts to choke Arab development cannot but fail. The three main socio-economic and political currents developed by Arab societies — nationalists, Islamists and leftists — are intrinsically anti-imperialist and therefore opposed to US- Israeli regional designs.
For nationalists, retaining control of national resources to serve the general interest is sacrosanct. For leftists, opposing the international chains of imperialism and globalisation is a baseline. For Islamists, resistance to foreign occupation, as written in the Qur’an, is a duty. Their interest lies currently in achieving unity in struggle. They are united by their Arab-Muslim identity. They share common principles and values as follows: natural resources, material heritage, and the riches of culture and civilisation are the property of the totality of the people; the totality of citizens constitutes the people; the people are the sole source of sovereignty and of constitutional, political and judicial legitimacy; government is responsible for and accountable to all citizens; solidarity between citizens — between generations, the able and ill, the elderly and young, the orphan and every human being who finds himself in a state of weakness — should form the basis of any government’s social policy.
Comment by Bl4ckP0pe — March 23, 2007 @ 9:36 am
The general interest is the justification and basis for the operation of the state, with every citizen, free of all forms of discrimination, sharing in the fruits of national wealth and social development.
The United States established a collision course confrontation with Iraqi society when it liquidated the Iraqi state, destroying its accomplishments and erasing its memory. It was oblivious to the simple truth that society is not a political movement or head of state that can be conquered, apprehended, bribed or killed; rather, it is all the living people in a given country.
Like other live societies, Iraqi society possesses huge capabilities — a sophisticated legacy based on ancient civilisations and an experienced patriotic movement. Occupation forces faced from the first day a resolute resistance, culminating in an uprising by all Iraqi movements and organisations, including those defending women or unemployed youth, human rights organisations, trade unions, professional syndicates, agencies defending Iraq’s environment and the rights of prisoners, and all other cultural and political organisations, side-by-side with provincial and tribal communities and peaceful and armed resistance groups. A national popular movement, opposed to occupation and sectarianism, developed taking various forms, from civil to armed resistance.
In struggling against military-imperial powers, Iraqis fight in defence of values around which a majority in the world gathers in consensus.
In contrast, the sheer level of force to which Iraqis have been subjected by imperial powers — from systematic murder and rape, the desecration of religious and cultural sites and the destruction of Iraq’s historic heritage, the poisoning of Iraq’s landscape and rivers by radioactive weapons that will mark the lives of its future generations for hundreds, if not thousands of years, the terrorising of a whole national population and its attempted division along lines leading to all out civil war, the plunder of its resources — prove the decadence and utter immorality of the neo-liberal/neo- conservative agenda.
The struggle of Iraq is a struggle for civilisation, for culture, for justice, and for not reducing human life to mere production and consumption or the conquest of others. Indeed, the present uprising of Iraqis is not only a part of the wider struggle against savage globalisation and “free” capital, it is its forefront battle. It is because the Iraqis refuse to surrender their sovereignty to multinational corporations that Iraq is being destroyed so viciously.
While the occupation is a disaster for the United States, for Iraqi society it is a catastrophe. With the aid of its allies, the US has destroyed all that Iraqis built in modern times.
It should come as no surprise that Iraqis will continue struggling against the occupation in order to restore their society. The large educated and marginalised middle class, along with the impoverished working class and unemployed youth deprived of state subsidies, have no interest in collaborating with the US policy of creating a class of blood-soaked feudal warlords. Resistance is the only path for Iraqis to true liberty, democracy, peace, dignity and achieving their interests, both as individuals and as a people. The US administration has succeeded in nothing but destruction, bloodshed and lies.
The Iraqi Resistance is by definition democratic as it is the spontaneous expression of a people who took its destiny into its hands, and is by definition progressive as it defends the interests of the people.
While Western societies pose as being democratic, street action and popular consensus over the past four years has proven that Western structures of political governance are impervious to popular will. Despite its failure to solidify our trust in our ability to change history, the anti-war and anti-globalisation movement, in its various forms of expression, proves that the people understand the current divorce between their aspirations and the individuals, parties and institutions that are supposed to represent and defend them and their interests.
New ways of civil struggle must be found, and urgently. While its failure is comprehensive, this US administration shows no sign of changing course. Iraq and the world cannot wait until November 2008, by which time this US administration and its local collaborators could have killed another one million Iraqis on top of the one million killed since 2003. Rigorous action is needed, including the impeachment and prosecution of responsible state leaders and officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide.
We should support the call of Tun Dr Mahatir Mohammed to criminalise war as a means of resolving disputes among nations. We should support this call not only because war is a crime, but also because war again has been proven useless. Iraq cannot be broken and cannot be subjugated.
The defeat of the United States and the occupation should be a lesson; that never again a military force tries to subjugate the people of another country. The US did not and cannot achieve its goals, even if it exterminates whole sections of Iraqi society. To succeed in stopping this insanity, the anti- war movement must revise all its terminology and refuse the terms dictated by the occupation.
We must condemn the ignorance that accepts the dehumanising of the other. We must refuse the word “insurgency” and substitute it for what exists in reality: legitimate and legal resistance against a vicious foreign occupation. Occupation is a de facto condition, not a de jure determination. With around 200,000 foreign forces on Iraqi soil, Iraq cannot be but described as an occupied country. Detainees in Iraq should thus be considered prisoners of war, with all the protected rights the Third Geneva Convention assures them.
We ought all to be humbled by the losses this people has been prepared to endure for our sake and demand the complete, unconditional and immediate withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraqi soil, along with the cancellation of any law, treaty, agreement or contract passed under occupation and the fair payment of reparations and compensations for the tragic human and material loses the Iraqis have suffered in defence of civilisation.
We must refuse in total the culture of the military-imperial state if we are to contribute to the wave of resistance rising worldwide in defence of civilisation, justice, independence and coexistence.
We must retrieve recognition from any entity imposed by the United States and that claims to represent the people of Iraq. Long live the Iraqi people and its sole representative, the Iraqi Resistance.
—
* The writer is a member of the Executive Committee of The BRussells Tribunal (www.brussellstribunal.org). A version of this article was first published on Global Research (www.globalresearch.ca).
Comment by BlackPope — March 23, 2007 @ 9:38 am
BBC Report – Resistance shows Ban the Surge
by: Foreign Correspondents
on: 22 March 2007
in: Baghdad
US’ chief-puppet tastes a blast of potent Baghdad laxative
The US’ chief-puppet Ban Ki-moon’s bowels were today involuntarily loosened by a nearby rocket blast which interrupted a brown-nosing session with the ‘Iraqi’ Prime Quisling Nouri Maliki inside the Invader’s Greed Zone in Baghdad.
Cloth-ears Maliki had just finished telling the assembled presstitutes that Mr Ban’s visit was a “sure sign Iraq is on the road to stability”. He then wiped the foam from his chin as Mr Ban dutifully began to mumble out the platitudes written on flash-cards for him by US CentCom’s General CockEye Kimmitt during the live televised event. Also present were a bunch of embedded warmongering Hush-Puppies and the British Viceroy to the Colony, who had come to grind his organ and see the new monkey perform its tricks, when a powerful rocket landed about 50 metres from the building, causing Ban-Ki-BOOM to instinctively duck and deposit several bricks of compacted shit onto the stage.
Attended immediately by his personal physician, the diagnosis was quickly returned that Mr Ban-Ki-BOOM had not been physically harmed by the bomb, but that his testicles appeared to have retracted into his body, like a rabbit, and that his chronic constipation had been temporarily relieved by the sudden expulsion of 4kg bodyweight. “Ah yes, I have felt the Surge, an urge to purge”, squeaked the midgit castratto.
No-one bothered to check on ‘Dead-Man-Walking’ Maliki, who had shown no reaction at all to the blast, but from a distance he seemed ok, though he will likely have a damp shadow on his lungs, due to steam inhalation from Ban-Ki-BOOM’s sour cloud. In any case he continued to chew the cud, as calmly as a hindu cow on drugs. His pupils have been abnormally dilated since last September.
The US’ chief-puppet had earlier snuck into Baghdad like a thief, on his first secret visit since being fitted with new strings in January this year to replace the previous mealy-mouthed Mannequin, whose name or label nobody can now remember.
Iraqi television showed live footage of Ban-Ki-BOOM and Maliki dancing on a puppet-stage – suddenly, as a Hush-Puppy journaillist pompously coughed up a rehearsed butterball question, there was a massive bang, at which moment the camera shook and juddered to the left. Buildings and windows shook when the huge explosion reverberated throughout the city shortly after 1530 (1230 GMT), and Ban-Ki-BOOM felt the wing of the Angel of Death brush the back of his empty head. Chunks of debris could then be seen falling from the ceiling above Mr Ban-Ki-BOOM, who did not delay in hauling his shrivelled yellow pecker to the airport.
A blank-eyed USA-Rapist Spokesdrone commented that in future their whore-gopher will wear adult diapers, borrowed post-haste from those US Latrine Corpse GameBoyz hiding out back in the Greed Zone.
Meanwhile, word on Haifa Street had it that most Iraqis remain united in their hunger to see the scurvy running-dogs of US Imperialism being ‘DeMellowed’ on live TV (which they call ‘Getting The Nobel Prize’) as a sharp warning to all would-be quislings and collaborators that there will be NO IMPUNITY for Crimes against Humanity, not even for those who recently began to carry the water. In any case, it was generally felt that it will be a long day indeed before this particular filthy US-puppet returns to Iraq for a final dose of reality, if indeed he managed to escape at all in one piece past the well-placed Resistance ‘Strela’ teams operating daily around Saddam City Airport.
A reliable source from Mujahideen Resistance Intelligence later stated that its 5th Column inside US-CentCom had been able to identify Ban-Ki-BOOM’s top-secret itinerary and exfiltrate the data on exact location in time to mount the targetted-strike operation, which unfortunately failed due to an unreliable US-built GPS-unit integrated in the warhead guidance system. Therefore, the Resistance have vowed to only use the superior Russian GLONASS system for his next visit, and hopes that he will return soon, once his balls have dropped.
Víve la Résistance!
- BBC World News
Comment by KneeGrowPope — March 23, 2007 @ 11:09 am