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April 4, 2011

The new definition of crazy: Our wars on Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq & drugs

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 2:51 pm

Recently I’ve become a fan of ABC’s new television show “Off the Map,” and last week’s plot featured a schizophrenic woman who kept imagining things that didn’t really exist in the real world. Inside of her own mind, however, it was a different story — and, as far as she was concerned, the scary phantoms who peopled her own mental world really did exist. “What I see IS real,” she kept sobbing.

And, apparently, all the scary phantoms and bogeymen who seem to people the minds of diagnosed schizophrenics have also been living inside of the minds of America’s current leaders as well. Everywhere from the Pentagon to Wall Street, it appears that a whole bunch of crazy and false images are also running through our leaders’ brains. “All our wars are humanitarian wars,” they keep telling us. “All our wars are necessary and good. And we are also winning all of these wars.” Sounds crazy to me.

In the last several decades, Americans have been sold a whole laundry-list of military, financial and/or moral disasters, such as our wars on far-off God-forsaken places like Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, Serbia, Grenada, Somalia, Guatemala, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, El Salvador, Africa, Latin America and Iraq; and we’ve also been sold a bunch of wars on various miscellaneous things such as Terror and Drugs. And don’t forget all those other miscellaneous undeclared wars that are also being sold to us daily — such as corporatists’ undeclared wars on unions, sick people, infrastructure, women, school children and what’s left of our American middle class.

Just look at this list. It’s basically loony-tunes. To a sane person, it would appear that our leaders have declared war on practically every single person in the world but themselves. That’s craziness. Just what the freak is going ON inside of these people’s minds?

And while all these horrendous and insane disasters keep on draining America’s treasury — approximately seven trillion dollars has gone down the drain so far, a nest egg that we’ll never see again — still our leaders keep on trying to sell us even more of these loser wars, telling us over and over again that they are not only moral, necessary and affordable, but that they are actually keeping us safe and that we are actually WINNING these wars. How schizophrenic is that?

“What we see IS real,” our leaders keep sobbing — just like that crazy woman on TV.

Is it really normal human behavior to spend trillions of dollars on bombing, torturing and murdering untold numbers of strangers? Women and children and babies who we don’t even know?

Is it really normal human behavior to elevate weapons of mass destruction to the position of becoming America’s top national product? Especially in these modern times of recession and need?

Sounds more like schizophrenia than sanity to me.

For instance, let’s take a look at that ever-popular War on Drugs. America is losing the War on Drugs. So far, we have spent untold billions on this craziness and yet the results are obviously certifiably abnormal — to say the least. Mexico and Columbia have become armed fortresses, while here at home Americans by the millions are losing their brain functions — and/or their lives — because of unregulated street drugs that are being cut with everything from corn starch to shoe polish.

We are twenty or more long years into this “war” and nothing has changed — except that the rich are getting richer. According to the Guardian newspaper, “[The illegal] drug industry has two products: money and suffering. On one hand, you have massive profits and enrichment. On the other, you have massive suffering, misery and death. You cannot separate one from the other.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

What kind of alternative reality do our leaders live in if they actually think that this kind of behavior is okay?

And let’s look at the war on Iraq next. In “Off the Map,” the schizophrenic woman runs into the village marketplace and starts trying to kill people. On the TV show, this sort of behavior is presumed to be clinically insane and the good guys rush in to stop her. Yet when this same behavior gets repeated again and again on a massive scale in Iraq, no one seems to be calling it crazy. Why not?

Next, let’s attempt to get inside the distorted minds of those American leaders who actually think that we are winning the war on Af-Pak. Yeah right. If you think that spending billions per month on a ten-year-old “war” that kills thousands of women and children living on the other side of the world and still keeps slogging on and on and on with no end-game in mind or in sight is called “winning,” then you are way out of touch with reality here as well.

If anyone were to start exhibiting this type of behavior on the streets of any small town in America, they would immediately have several large men in white coats running after them with straight jackets.

How crazy can it be to spend trillions of dollars on slaughtering human beings on the other side of the planet — while huge numbers of our own children here in America cry themselves to sleep at night because they are homeless and hungry due to the huge deficit caused by these “wars”? And we are calling Muammar Gaddafi crazy?

Isn’t Einstein’s definition of insanity, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? Yet our leaders, both Democrat and Republican, keep plunging us into loser war after loser war even after every one of their wars so far have been unnecessary, avoidable and psychopathic disasters.

Perhaps it’s time to do something different for a change, something that actually works.

Perhaps it’s time for Americans to switch paradigms here and start looking at our leaders from this new “Off the Map” perspective — and to finally begin to realize that if America’s leaders are incapable of keeping us out of all these useless, inhuman and unnecessary loser wars, then they are the ones who are acting crazy. Nuts. Bonkers. Bananas. Looney-tunes. Fruitcakes. Certifiable. Off the map.

And also, I just gotta ask, why is the rest of America putting up with all this craziness from our leadership time after time — and continuing to keep electing these obvious lunatics to office. Am I the only one who can see the insanity of this? I’d hate to think that I was the only sane person left in America.

PS: Speaking of crazy murderers, I just filmed an audition tape to send off to an up-coming reality show called “Get a Clue”. The show will be similar to some popular murder-mystery board game — and I’m trying out for the part of the innocent-looking little old lady who nobody would ever suspect of being the killer. Here’s my audition tape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Xh9v2YHJA

PPS: Speaking of financial craziness and war, for the last three or four years I’ve been waging a losing battle against the Department of Labor in order to receive federal workers compensation benefits regarding injuries to my right foot and knees received while on the job. And why is my battle with the D.O.L. proving to be so hard to win? I suspect that it is because our leaders have been squandering far too much of America’s money on murdering women and children in Juarez, Kabul, Tripoli and Baghdad, and are now cutting corners here at home so they can still keep their war-profiteers friends happy. And that’s totally crazy too. Guys, it’s time to get your priorities straight. America first!

Anyway, here are the latest details with regard to my struggles with the D.O.L and workers’ comp:

After I went to see two excellent independent podiatry and orthopedic specialists who both agreed that my injuries were job-related, I then went off to see the U.S. Department of Labor’s own doctor and he also told me that I was injured on the job. All sides agreed. Clearly a cut-and-dried case, right? Not exactly.

A few months later, this very same D.O.L. doctor then submits another report telling me the exact opposite — that I was NOT injured on the job. Then this very same D.O.L. doctor gets his certificate to practice medicine in the State of California revoked, allegedly because he is a bad doctor. And then the D.O.L. itself has the chutzpah to turn down my case once again, apparently because this same crumby former D.O.L. doctor now suddenly knows what he was talking about — but my own two excellent independent specialists don’t. Huh?

And now I gotta go out and file yet another appeal with the D.O.L. Dudes! Wouldn’t it have been cheaper all around to just have given me my earned-the-hard-way workers comp benefits in the first place? We’re only talking about the price of some orthopedic shoes here, one arthroscopy and seven months of back pay. Geez Louise.

For the price of making the quality of my life 100% better, it would only cost the same as approximately one leather bucket-seat in just one of some war-profiteer’s fleet of BMWs, or perhaps just a case of French champagne for some corporatist CEO who recently got bailed out by Congress. Chump-change money to them, direly important to me.

PPPS: Here’s even another example of craziness. Corporatists are so much more of a danger to America and have done so much more damage to our country than terrorists have ever done — including the nightmare of 9-11 — and yet no one seems to be getting on their case about that damage or screening for them at airports or even torturing them to confess or sending them off to Guantanamo. In fact, America seems to be even in LOVE with these creeps.

In addition, more damage has been done to America by corporatists in terms of job losses than any illegal immigrants could ever possibly have done. Just think of all the tens of millions of jobs that corporatists have stolen and outsourced from America, including probably yours. And yet you never see any corporatists shunned or jailed or deported. Why not?

Not only that, but all-too-many corporatists don’t even pay any freaking taxes here at all because the corporations that they own — even though they have been happily granted all the same kinds of rights of personhood that real Americans have — aren’t even American citizens at all, having fled abroad in order to avoid paying taxes.

These corporations/persons are now officially living abroad and have chosen some foreign country over us? Well, fine. However. If these same corporations/persons ever try to sneak back across our borders to get work in America again, that will make them wetbacks! So let’s sic the Migra on them and send them all back to the Caymans where they belong.

PPPPS: Here’s a crazy-but-funny video from my son Joe: http://brightspectrum.tumblr.com/post/4275752800/after-the-car-crash-and-the-burned-down-house-a

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March 18, 2011

Yay for the new war?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 12:23 pm

A friend in Concordia Kansas sent an e-mail to this columnist that we interpreted to mean that she was training her Chihuahua dog to participate in a Kansas based Iditarod style race for the breed of dog that we thought would be considered “illegal alien” status in her area. Do dogs need green cards?

It might seem irresponsible and frivolous for a columnist to consider writing a column on the dig topic at a time when the tree huggers are concerned about “an atomic plume” arriving on America’s West Coast and a new “It’s not about the oil” war being added to the gripes of the unpatriots who are celebrating the start of the Afghanistan phase of the perpetual war on terrorism.

We noted a story on the Romensko Media News page at the Poynter website that stated that the Wire Service Guild has asked writers to withhold content and honor the strike against the Huffington Post website. Obviously, the Huffing and Puffing Aggregator website isn’t going to cross post that story and so if we mention it in this column, there is a slight chance that some of our readers (the ones who don’t check Romenesko daily) might not be aware of that development in the strike. [This just in: On Friday, March 18, 2011, Uncle Rushbo reported that the use of by-lines on AP stories is now a labor issue.]

The ego boost allure of crossing the picket line and giving Arianna permission to cross post something isn’t the only dilemma facing bloggers today. Many bloggers will have to wrestle with their conscience and decide if they will recycle an old “It isn’t about the oil” conservative augment from the Bush era and update it to sound relevant to the “no fly” zone military adventure in Libya or will they merely declare President Obama to be the black sheep of the Bush family and consider any effort to protect British Petroleum’s interests in Libya to be a new item for the list of Bush family outrages? If Britain helped the US invade Iraq, doesn’t the USA owe reciprocal military support for BP? Aren’t they a major part of the petroleum industry in Libya?

The prudent thing to do would probably be to hold off on this column and listen to some liberal talk radio shows and take a measure of the depth of their commitment to everything President Obama does or says. Then, if they concur with the effort to send more troops to install democracy in Libya, add our voice to the choir of admiring sheep or should we just dummy up and join in the silence of the lambs?

If Randy Rhodes and the Daily Kos are very adamant in their support of a new Obama military venture, shouldn’t this column disregard the old question about “if all your friends were jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge” and bang out a “one state, one people, one leader” column offering unquestioning commitment to a new war? If they balk at the opportunity to rubber stamp approval of all things Obama, won’t they appear to be subscribing to some weird conspiracy theory cult belief if they don’t “go along to get along”?

It certainly seems that a stance, that would condemn aggression and torture by Hitler and George W. Bush, but not if Obama does it, is a bit of a stellar example of using convoluted logic to rationalize your political views.

For those who are partisan critics of the George W. Bush wars of aggression, it would seem that they are now (metaphorically speaking) caught taking a long lead off first and will fall victim to a pick off throw. If you condemn Hitler and Bush, but make allowances for Obama to do the same thing, you are inconsistent and sound like a conspiracy theory nut.

If, however, you subscribe to the Henry Louis Mencken philosophy that the only way for a columnist to look at a politician is downwards, then it will be perfectly acceptable to ridicule Obama just as enthusiastically as one did George W. Bush during his stint as commander-in-chief.

The squad of Obama cheerleaders will be a bit uncomfortable this weekend, equivocating about how the Libya situation differs greatly from the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. If they look to Bush fans for a show of sympathy, they might get a bit of the old “you’re on your own, pal” cold shoulder from the likes of Uncle Rushbo et al because no matter how much Obama tries to imitate George W. Bush, they will always hate Obama and never give him any credit or praise for his efforts to retroactively get the Democratic voters to approve of and support the Bush agenda.

Before this columnist plunges brashly ahead with a sarcastic column that asks what social services programs will have to be scrapped to pay for a new bit of jingoistic colonial empire deployment in the dark continent, we might postpone our efforts and go see the new movie, “Paul,” and see if there might be a few laughs and a way to mix a movie review with some political commentary on it.

Maybe we should send an e-mail to our friend in Kansas and ask for more details about this intriguing but Google search illusive topic of an Iditarod style competition for Chihuahuas?

Maybe we should go buy a Geiger counter and walk around Berkeley CA and see just how accurate the “nothing to worry about” assessments really are? Nah! That makes us sound like a conspiracy theory nut.

If some Americans are going to stage anti-war rallies on Saturday, perhaps we could make an appeal for funds to hold a pro-Obama rally? Aren’t their several really good automobile museums rather close to Nuremburg? If we could get some patriotic well funded organization to subsidize it, we could go over there and (perhaps) do the work necessary to have a picturesque pro-Obama rally of expats?

Hunter S. Thompson coined the folk advice: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Now the disk jockey will play “Over there,” “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” and “Just before the battle, mother.” We have to go check out the rumor that the teachers unions, which want smaller classes, are funding the drive to give children the freedom to choose factory work (and $ $ $) over school. Have a “Cathedral of Light” type week.

July 4, 2010

Islamic Terrorists: Creating a Frankenstein monster

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 12:51 pm

Back in approximately 1528, when the very first black man was snatched from a village in Africa and shoved onto a slave ship, somehow a ball got rolling that has consequences even down to this day. That single act of brutality began a long, slow process that eventually resulted in the proliferation of violence and crime in America’s inner cities four centuries later.

Cruelty always gets the ball rolling, gets the party started — but in a bad way.

So. What cruelties, exactly, got the Islamic terrorist ball rolling? Was it when Mohammad (PBUH) wrote the Qu’ran? And if it was, then why aren’t most American Muslims now terrorists too? And why don’t their teenagers run in violent gangs like so many Christian teenagers here do? Dearborn, in Michigan, for instance, has a very large Muslim population and the largest mosque in America. So why aren’t the Muslims of Dearborn all terrorists? Obviously it’s not their religion per se that is turning Muslims into terrorists. So it must be something else.

“But what could it be?” you might ask. I think you could get an answer to that question from any competent psychologist since Freud. Terrorists aren’t shaped by their religion. And terrorist aren’t just born that way either. Terrorists are created by their childhood experiences. Terrorists are created by cruelty.

Take Afghanistan for instance — a country that’s known for its terrorists. Those terrorists didn’t just suddenly spring full-grown from the head of Zeus. No, they were systematically created by centuries of systematic cruelty.

First the Brits brutally invaded Afghanistan. Then the Russians brutally invaded Afghanistan. Then the Americans brutally invaded Afghanistan. Brutality. Cruelty. Injustice. And now we wonder why that poor country is overrun with terrorists? Duh.

And then there’s Iraq. The Brits systematically destroyed democracy in Iraq. And Americans gave Iraq three gifts that kept on giving: Saddam Hussein, Shock and Awe and Abu Ghraib. In Iraq, Brits, Americans and their European allies created a Frankenstein monster — step by step, day by day.

And during approximately the last 90 years, Palestine has been systematically invaded by various forms of Europeans — not to mention the Crusades. Whether it was Lord Balfour, King Richard or David Ben Gurion who invaded the Holy Land, these Europeans have all worked really hard to create Frankenstein monsters in Palestine too — and America to this day still keeps footing these invaders’ bills.

Sure, a few Palestinians have hijacked some airplanes in protest — but Europeans and Americans have hijacked their entire region.

And remember how British Petroleum and the CIA worked in tandem to violently destroy democracy in Iran and to replace it with the West’s own bloody Shah, king of torture?

Face it, guys. The whole Middle East has been under the jackboots of American and European colonialism, imperialism and cruelty for a long, long, long time. And, keeping that thought in mind, you might also consider the suggestion that perhaps we are looking at Islamic terrorists from the wrong perspective. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for the calming and civilizing influences of Islam, all these Frankenstein monsters that the West has cheerfully created in the Middle East might have turned out even worse.

Consider what happened when Europe and America unleashed their cruelty on the Congo, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. At least the Middle East didn’t turn out as badly as all that. Maybe Islam actually helped give Muslims something hopeful to cling to in the face of all that Shock and Awe.

PS: As you may have already noticed unless you’re brain-dead or watch Fox News, the military-corporatist structure that brought us Rwanda, Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib is still in the driver’s seat in Washington now and still happily doing all its usual cruel nasty stuff. Which can only make me wonder — as our democracy dies and so does our economy — what kind of Frankenstein monsters are they happily creating here at home too?

PPS: And what, exactly, is the justification for all this cruelty? Apparently the justification is greed. Geez Louise! Just how many extra yachts do you guys need? Is it true that Dick Cheney is the world’s first trillionaire? And has all this endless supply of big bucks flowing seamlessly into his coffers from faulty oil platforms and endless wars made HIM happy? Yeah right.

PPPS: I am assuming that you do know that the oil spill in the Gulf could be worse than anything even the most fiendish terrorists could ever have done to us, right?

I just read somewhere that there are billions of teeny-tiny little crustaceans in our oceans and they are using all that excess carbon dioxide in sea water (which would otherwise be harmful to us) to build their sweet little teeny-tiny shells. And if they didn’t build these shells, there would be too much carbon dioxide in the oceans, it would be released into the air and we would all die. So if the oil spill kills off all these cute little guys in the same way that it is now killing off dolphins and turtles, we will be doomed.

To quote Wilbur the talking pig, “I don’t wanna die!”

And speaking of pigs at county fairs, me and my family are going off to the Alameda County Fair next Wednesday. Joe and Ashley are going to buy me a chicken — to eat all the snails in my postage-stamp-sized yard so that I can plant a victory garden. I’ll let you know how that goes.

June 30, 2010

Screw Iraq, Afghanistan & Gaza: Let’s invade Detroit!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 2:36 pm

Returning from the 2010 Social Forum in Detroit, I saw several soldiers at the DTW airport, waiting for their flights. And once again I was struck by the thought that every American soldier seems to be a whole autonomous unit unto himself or herself. Every American soldier truly IS an “Army of One”. Highly trained, efficient, skilled, confident and respectful — these men and women in uniform are just the kind of people that Detroit really needs to get itself out of its slump. And every other city in America needs this caliber of person too.

So please tell me why, exactly, are these walking human resources being wasted way over on the other side of the world when their dedication and skill sets and — let’s face it — salaries and healthcare benefits are so desperately needed here at home?

No, we don’t need our soldiers’ weapons skills in places like the Gulf Coast states or the Rust Belt. But we do need their dedication and heart.

We need the Marine Corps’ skill sets. “The few, the proud.” We really do. And we need that kind of bravery and willingness to get the job done here rather than there.

Second Marine Regiment in Al Anbar. Tarawa. “Keep Moving.” I was there. I saw for myself what our Marines can do to help re-build a country.

We need our soldiers’ ingenuity, dignity and courage here at home, helping to put America back on track — not over in Afghanistan, not over in Iraq and not even over in Gaza — where the corporatists who run America pay the cream of Israeli youth to do their dirty work for them, wasting their young lives being thugs to the brutal Occupation instead of being honorable men who refuse to shoot babies at point-blank range.

When I see a soldier at an airport, I just want to go up and hug him. Or her. You think that our boys aren’t doing a good job? Then go see Sebastian Junger’s new documentary movie “Restrepo” (http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/restrepo/) That’s the kind of ability and dedication I saw demonstrated again and again and again when I was in Iraq.

These guys are good.

But we need these men and women’s dedication and skills here at home, not over on the other side of the world.

And we need to be paying these men and women to be using their skill sets here, in America, in civilian life — in a job corps as well as a Marine Corps.

Screw bailouts for bankers, oil executives, Wall Street schemers and global corporations with no ties or loyalties to our country. They have done nothing with the money that Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama gave them except to use it to rip us off even more.

Let’s take back all that money — and give it to our returning soldiers instead. Let’s fill up ALL of our airports with returning soldiers. We truly need this lost generation’s abilities here at home. Now.

PS: While I was at the Social Forum representing the Free Palestine Movement, my booth was next to a booth manned by Peggy Logue and her husband. Logue is another dedicated Marine Mom. And she was selling her new book, “Skin in the Game,” all about her Marine son’s experiences in Haditha and her conflict between wanting to support her son’s efforts and her moral obligation to try to stop the needless bloodshed caused by global corporate wars. “Intense, raw, and profoundly honest, ‘Skin in the Game’ illustrates the human side of war and the daily struggle for peace.” http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Game-Journey-Mother-Marine/dp/142692433X

At the Social Forum, I also talked with Kyle Kajihiro, a representative of the American Friends Service Committee (http://afschawaii.org) in Hawaii, and he told me how the entire Pacific Rim area has become just another highly-militarized “American Lake” — to the benefit of global corporatists, not us.

Screw that.

We need skilled men and women here at home, not hunkering off somewhere in faraway places like Guam or Okinawa, defending rich people’s interests — not ours — because that’s the only job that our young men and women can get.

PPS: The Detroit airport is the only airport I have ever seen besides, of course, the Norita airport near Tokyo, where all signs are printed in both English and Japanese.

May 1, 2010

Lost in Juarez: Everything America touches turns to death?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 5:27 pm

Every day when I open my inbox, I get at least one press release from various American armed forces in Iraq, letting me know that some insurgent there has just been killed or some AQI group has just been captured. Even now, over seven years after the Iraq occupation began, our troops are still out hunting and capturing insurgents and rebel groups there — and the bombings are still going on. Does that mean that Iraq is still unstable? What else am I supposed to think? That constant stream of e-mails seals the deal.

Then we have Afghanistan, the world’s most productive narco-state by far, source of most of the heroin on the market today. Heroin is deadly. Worldwide, how many addicts have died from overdoses or AIDS or violence resulting from their use of heroin that has been supplied by American-occupied Afghanistan? One million? Two million? I can’t even begin to guess.

Palestine is another killing field that America finances. “Why are you always running off at the mouth about Palestine,” I’m always asked. Why? Because Israel and Palestine would have worked out all their problems in a manner acceptable to both sides decades ago if America hasn’t kept pouring gasoline on the fire in the form of weapons, weapons, weapons and more weapons.

And let’s not forget to mention Pakistan, America’s good ally which is now yet another killing field. And then there’s Columbia, home of Latin America’s longest-running bloody war on farmers and trade unionists, bought and paid for by America the beautiful.

“I would really like to go back and embed in Iraq,” I keep telling my son Joe and my daughter Ashley, “but, frankly, I’m just not up to it physically — the flight there is just too long for me. 20 hours in the air? Followed by days and days of jet-lag? Forget it. And I’d like to embed in Afghanistan too. And also go and report on the brutal siege of Gaza as well. I’d like to be everywhere in the world that the action is. I want to be able to see for myself — up front and personal — all of the places where America’s treasury and America’s future are all being pounded down into a bunch of bloody rat-holes.”

I want to go where the blood flows, to bear witness and to send messages back to America that all this warfare and bloodshed and killing is not necessary, is a waste of time and money, does NOT make us safer, goes against every religion we believe in — and doesn’t even make sense.

But I’m getting less and less willing to face all the hassle of interminable plane rides across the globe and wearisome jet-lag that lingers for weeks.

“Hey, no problem,” replied my friend Larry, who lives in Texas. “No need to travel to the other side of the world to see American violence and American weapon sales and American bloodshed in action. You can always just go down to Juarez.”

Ah. So now there’s also Juarez, bloody Juarez, to consider — where people die as violently on the streets of Juarez as they die on the streets of Kandahar or Baghdad.

According to one CNN report, “Tim Crockett, head of the security firm Pioneer Consulting and security adviser for CNN, described Ciudad Juarez as ‘probably more dangerous for journalists than the Middle East’.” Probably more dangerous for journalists than even the Middle East? Yikes!

Remember back in 2007 when I embedded in Iraq and the Army told me that if I left the fortified Green Zone area and walked across the 14th of July Bridge into Baghdad itself, I’d most likely be dead within five minutes? Well, according to several articles that Larry just e-mailed me, there’s almost exactly the same situation happening in Juarez right now. Juarez is a war zone. Juarez is a failed-narco-state. Juarez has insurgents, a military build-up of American weapons, American occupation advisers who run a surrogate war from DC and terrified citizens who keep turning up dead.

“But the beautiful thing about Juarez, Jane,” continued Larry, “is that Juarez is only five miles from Texas. You could hop a plane in the morning, fly to El Paso without getting jet-lag, be inside a war zone in time for lunch — and be getting your head blown off by dinnertime.” Plus it wouldn’t be too hard on my poor knees — and I wouldn’t be required to bring a flak jacket either. Sign me up!

PS: Here’s a headline from a Los Angeles Times article that Larry sent me on the subject, just in case you think I might be exaggerating: “Mexico under siege, the drug war at our doorstep.”

The Times then goes on to state that 45,000 troops have been deployed so far and that 10,031 people have been killed. “That’s more than the U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war.” http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/

And here are some more articles from Larry:

From the Overseas Security Advisory Council: The U.S. State Department has issued a warning about Juarez. “Mexican cartels battling for control of drug trafficking routes cause widespread disruption in the city and state.”

https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=113317

From Current News: Gunmen murdered 19 people this weekend, including two U.S. citizens associated with the American consulate. http://current.com/news/92323550_in-juarez-mexico-gunmen-murdered-19-people-this-past-weekend-including-2-us-citizens.htm

And here the Huffington Post seems to be hinting that America is losing the drug war in Juarez as well. Shades of Afghanistan! I wonder how many drug addicts in the U.S. have died from drugs illegally imported by the Juarez cartels?

“Sinaloa takes over Cuidad Juarez: After a two-year battle that has killed more than 5,000 people, Mexico’s most powerful kingpin now controls the coveted trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez. That conclusion by U.S. intelligence adds to evidence that Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico’s drug war…. [The] Sinaloa cartel has edged out the rival Juarez gang for control over trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez, ground zero in the drug war. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/sinaloa-takes-over-ciudad-juarez_n_531378.html

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December 3, 2009

The Tattlesnake – The Reality Behind Obama’s Afghanistan Policy Edition

First, forget Obama’s purported reasons for staying in Afghanistan; those are just easily understood anti-terrorist bromides for the media and the viewing audience. He supposedly knows we aren’t fighting any real threat to the US in Rock City, nor are there enough Al-Qaeda hanging around the Af-Pak border waiting to be captured to make it worth the billions we are pouring into this new ‘surge’.

Word is the real reasons – the ‘clinchers’ presented by the Pentagon chieftains and the president’s staff – for maintaining an American and NATO military presence there are threefold:

1. Pakistan’s government, contrary to Obama’s speech, is weak and has little sway in the northern and western parts of the country, the same regions where various anti-American groups operate with impunity. Ostensibly, the Pakistan military has the country’s nuclear arsenal under tight control but, then, it’s known Muslim extremists have infiltrated the army. The nightmare scenario, barely touched on by Obama, is of a band of Islamic fundamentalists getting their hands on nukes. The thinking is that, if such a scary scenario unfolded, the US and NATO troops in Afghanistan could move to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before the wackos could launch. Obama could not say this publicly without offending the Pakistan government, damaging our relationship with them, and causing a diplomatic furor. He also allegedly privately promised India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he would not hesitate to use American troops to keep Pakistan’s military in check, if need be.

2. The Pentagon believes that a large military force on both Iran’s eastern and western perimeters will staunch any ambitions they may have in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forget the nuclear distraction; the fear is that Iran will try to fill the power vacuum left by US withdrawal from either nation. Whether this is a valid concern, the groupthink in Washington convinced Obama of this even before he started his run for the presidency.

3. Obama’s most trusted advisors and the Joint Chiefs believe he must not be trapped into a test of his resolve and willingness to employ force. While he has extended the olive branch of peace with one hand, and repaired most of the damage done by George W. Bush’s my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy, the world must know he will be ready to use the sword that’s in the other. In order to avoid another ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ test of wills, it’s believed by this faction that he has to show that he’s capable of bucking the peace faction in his own party and US public opinion in order not to appear weak and invite challenges. Afghanistan is a chess move to establish his readiness to use force to avert future, potentially more disastrous, tests of his strength. Another example of Washington groupthink with dubious legitimacy, but a theme Obama has embraced entirely.

If you think we will be withdrawing from Afghanistan completely in 2011, put down that crack pipe. There may be some troop withdrawals by then, but a sizable US military force will remain in the country until, like the USSR, we are forced out by economic circumstances and/or insurgents, a highly probable outcome historically.

© 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 20, 2009

Tenet’s Slam Dunk House of Secrets

cartoon-cia-house-secrets

For a partial list of CIA lies to Congress, go here:

“Does the CIA Ever Lie? Parsing the Pelosi Torture Controversy”
Peter Hart, Common Dreams, May 20, 2009.

May 16, 2009

The Real Enemy in Iraq

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:42 am

cartoon-real-enemy-in-iraq

May 12, 2009

Stop-Loss in Iraq Shows Results

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March 12, 2009

The Tattlesnake – More Randomized Odds and Ends Edition

Or, Once Around the Poop Deck

Rumor Du Jour: Word is, the Big Money Boys are holding back from dumping any more kale into the GOP, especially since new RNC Chair Michael “Hip-Hopper” Steele has inspired about as much confidence as Jim Cramer’s investment advice. With ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum and former Republican contractor Newt Gingrich both taking swipes at the Mighty-Mite Talk Radio Leader of the Rabid Right, how long before the schism between the more-or-less sane Party Insiders and the Christopublican-Conservative Brown Shirts, flopping around crazily to Rush’s goose-step? Place your bets now – the money to put the chug in the GOP is drying up – nobody wants to back a loser, and the GOP is the bob-tail nag running last these days – and 2010 doesn’t look rosy.

Besides, even some of the faithful Christopublican ground troops are backing off – after 30 years of getting out the vote for the GOP, they’ve noticed the Republicans, even when in the majority in Congress and holding the WH under Junior, didn’t ‘get ‘er done’ on outlawing abortion and hanging atheists and Unitarians in Lafayette Park. And where’s the Armageddon they were promised? Plus, they aren’t thrilled with Limbaugh – he’s not pious enough for their taste.

Without the Christo vote, no GOP seat is safe in 2010. Folks, grab your popcorn and settle back: we’re watching the self-immolation of the GOP on a scale not seen since the Whigs bickered themselves to death. Something will take its place, probably led by more moderate conservatives like Susan Collins and Dick Lugar, while the Christopublican crazies and demented Dittoheads spin out of orbit, lost forever babbling baloney somewhere out near Uranus.

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February 17, 2009

The Tattlesnake – It’s Time For Obama to Fire Petraeus Edition

GOP Candidate-in-Waiting Petraeus’ Machinations Are a Threat to the President’s Civilian Authority

Lincoln had his George McClellan; Truman had his Douglas MacArthur; there’s a history of politically ambitious generals undermining their elected Commander-in-Chief to bolster their own prospects at the presidency. In McClellan’s case, he dragged his feet and lost battles that he should have won, setting the stage for his promise to negotiate an end to the conflict with the Confederacy in his 1864 run for the presidency against Lincoln, a man he privately loathed and irrationally blamed for the Civil War. Fortunately, the self-styled ‘American Napoleon’ lost that election. Dugout Doug MacArthur openly flouted Truman’s orders and tried to widen the Korean War into a war with China, including the use of nuclear weapons, hoping to capitalize on his war hero status to glide to victory over Truman as a Republican in 1952. In both cases, the generals were appropriately fired: McClellan was quietly relieved of his command of the Army of the Potomac in 1862; MacArthur publicly axed by ‘Give ‘em hell Harry’ in 1951.

It’s an open secret that CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus lusts to be the GOP presidential candidate in 2012, and thinks he can ride to the White House as an Eisenhower-like hero who ‘won’ the war in Iraq, thanks to his Surge plan, which mostly amounts to bribing warlords with US taxpayer money. However, his CinC President Obama, elected on a promise to end the unpopular Iraq War and concentrate on our collapsing economy, has ordered Petraeus and his deputy, chief US commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno, to have US combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months. Petraeus’ reaction, according to Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service, was to put pressure on Obama to change his policy, offer to disguise our continued presence in Iraq by calling combat troops ‘support troops,’ and enlist the aid of military brass to push for a continuation of our occupation of Iraq. As Porter notes:

“A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama’s decision.”
– Gareth Porter, “Generals Seek to Reverse Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Decision,” Feb. 2, 2009.

It is not up to Petraeus nor any of his deputies to ‘mobilize public opinion’ against a presidential decision, to find ways to keep troops in Iraq contrary to a presidential directive, nor to use their command to enhance their future in politics. (The CENTCOM commander himself would hardly countenance such scheming by a member of his staff.) Petraeus’ only two options, according to the oath he took when he joined the US Army, is to either follow a legal order from the president, or resign his commission; anything else smacks of insubordination. Since it’s unlikely Petraeus will resign, that leaves only one choice for Obama, the same one exercised by Lincoln and Truman before him – fire his insubordinate subordinate and replace him with someone who will follow orders.

October 21, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The True Meaning of Powell’s Obama Endorsement Edition

On Meet the Press October 19th, Colin Powell took out a very thin, very sharp stiletto and carved up John McCain without ever raising his voice or uttering an angry or blatantly demeaning word, culminating with his endorsement of Barack Obama for president.

Powell has been on a crusade to resurrect his lost integrity and honor since he submitted a noxious pack of lies to the United Nations Security Council in support of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He knows his performance was the clincher that ended the debate for many Americans – if the reasonable and straightforward Powell was behind it, it must be true.

This is the final stage of Powell’s reclamation of his character and veracity – rejecting the aggression and insanity of McCain’s more-war stance in favor of the kind of diplomacy he advocated before he served the interests of BushCo at the UN in 2003.

While his endorsement is unlikely to move many civilian voters, former Joint Chiefs of Staff head Powell is still respected in the military and his nod to Obama will signal to many in the armed forces, including the top brass, that it’s safe to support the Democrat this election.

Beyond that, it’s also a sign of the deep fissure in the Republican Party between the Old Guard secular conservatives, such as Powell’s former boss George H.W. Bush, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, and the emergent power of the Christopublicans, embodied by the elevation of the inexperienced but devout Sarah Palin to vice presidential nominee.

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August 22, 2008

The Tattlesnake – McCain’s Latest Shameful Four-Play Edition

Double-Deuces This Month — And August Isn’t Over Yet…

1. McCain’s Threadbare Surge Suit, Part Deux: The most recent misinformational sludge oozing its way through the Big Media pipeline is John McCain’s continued insistence that Bush’s build-up of US troops in Baghdad, AKA ‘The Surge,’ worked to quell most of the violence over there. This is more bizarre McCain piffle that any decent journalist could demolish in a few hours of research on the Inner-tubes. The increase in US troop strength focused on Baghdad, not the al-Anbar province and the rest of Iraq. For most of the country, and in neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital city itself, it was millions of dollars in baksheesh bribery to Iraqi warlords, courtesy of the flat-broke American taxpayer, and a tacit agreement among the warring Iraqi factions to keep a low profile for a while, to perhaps lull the Americans into finally leaving, that has resulted in a lessening in violence, much more so than any enhanced US military presence. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, estimated to be 50 to 100,000 strong, are temporarily dormant, and the tribes of Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province, formerly our most dedicated enemies, have taken US bribes to pursue Al-Qaeda, whom they hate a tad more than the American military. Both factions, however, will not be quelled indefinitely. Now, even the marionettes in the al-Maliki government are asking us to get out within 16 months, per Obama’s withdrawal plan. Since the Iraqis follow the election news in the US very closely and clearly favor an Obama victory in November, here’s an October Surprise for the Republicans – if it appears a month before the election that McCain is likely to win, look for an upsurge in violence in Iraq on such a scale as to make McCain’s fevered “The surge is working!” chant as repugnant and risible as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.

2. This is Leadership? There was McCain all over the airwaves last week, delivering a speech per day on the Russia-Georgia dust-up that Putin ungraciously ended with a truce, denying wannabe CinC John-Boy the ability to play the “Russians are coming!” panic card he so obviously salivated over like Flounder in Animal House: “Oh, boy, is this great!” Naturally our leash-trained Punditrocracy and their fellow carnival performers in the BM barked on command to spotlight McCain’s fear-inducing drivel, most of which sounded like it was lifted straight out of some Red Scare pamphlet from the McCarthy Era. For days, I heard all about McCain’s ‘leadership’ for informing us the Russian Bear was back with teeth and claws; of his daily intimate phone chats with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili; and about how totally awesome it was that he dispatched Tweedle-Dum Joe Lieberman and Tweedle-Dumber Lindsey Graham to illegally conduct US foreign policy overseas without portfolio. Had the vacationing Obama done any of this, he would, of course, have been grimly called to account by the BM for being too presumptuous – the nerve of the guy, pretending to be president when he hasn’t been elected — particularly if he’d attempted, as the arrogant McCain did, to speak for the American people. But one question left unasked in the midst of media praise for the GOP Golden Child — a seasoned military leader who’s never commanded anything that didn’t end in disaster, and a master at foreign affairs who advocated the idiotic Iraq invasion and has supported nearly every Bush catastrophe since – was this: What did all of McCain’s speechifying and posing and dispatching of minions actually accomplish? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between zip and zilch. If this is an example of his ‘leadership’ in a crisis, it may be time for the nation to collectively take the gas pipe, should McCain wheedle his way into the presidency.

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August 3, 2008

WE’RE DYIN’ HERE FOLKS!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — kerry @ 1:51 pm

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GOP Senators filibuster Defense bill for their oil company benefactors
makeprofilelink(“Joe Sudbay (DC)”);
Joe Sudbay (DC) · 7/31/2008 10:07:00 PM ET 

Wow.Just when you think the GOP Senate obstructionists can’t sink any lower, they do. Brandon Friedman at VetVoice posed the question: “Will Senate Republicans Vote Against the Troops?”

We have our answer. Yes, the Senate Republicans did vote against the troops.

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July 25, 2008

Obama Mia!

Filed under: Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Volt @ 8:55 am

July 24, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Humor You Can Use Edition

Or: Further Examples of Why It’s Hard to Write Satire These Days

“Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this?”
– Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) from the film “Casablanca,” 1942.

Be Careful What You Wish For: Republicans snickered and goaded Obama over not visiting the Middle East; Obama took the bait, called their bluff, and turned the trip into a three-point photo-op score showing him looking presidential with various world leaders and greeting smiling US troops. For a bonus, he even got an endorsement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his 16-month Iraq troop withdrawal plan, leaving Blinky McCain to impotently twist in the wind. Obama also defined the role of a US commander-in-chief in strong Trumanesque terms – no more of the weak Bush Boy’s lame ‘I’ll leave it to the generals to tell me what my policy is’ nonsense. Meanwhile, back stateside, Ol’ Crazy-Eyes is left with egg dripping off of his face, peevishly grousing about the amount of media coverage Obama is receiving and whining that The New York Times won’t publish his op-ed wherein he waves the bloody flag of victory in Iraq without bothering to define it.

12-Step On You Program: “Wall Street got drunk,” dribbled our Worst President Ever last Friday trying to explain why the country’s headed into its second Great Depression. Gee, how’d that happen, Junior? Was Cheney providing them with firewater while you were on vacation in Crawford, recovering from your ‘hard work’ vacationing in Washington? Remember when this goof was advertised as the first MBA president? Was that ‘MBA’ as in ‘Master of Bumbling Assessments’? Oh, brother.

Hit and Run Off at the Mouth: Creature of the Night Bob Novak emerged from the Soil of his GOP Homeland recently to float the story that McCain was going to name his Veep pick this week in a desperate attempt to counteract the massive media coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip. Then the Prince of Darkness flipped later in the week, and claimed he thought the Republicans may have played him and the story wasn’t legitimate after all. “Pretty reprehensible,” is the hilarious way Bob the Impaler described the possible McCain camp attempts to ‘use’ him to garner publicity for their candidate. Imagine that – Rove’s Water Boy on the Plame leak and the shoehorn for scores of other GOP-inspired balderdash entering the media mainstream ‘shocked, shocked’ to discover gambling at Rick’s Café. Roll your eyes and laugh, children.

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