Buying time...for bush and the petros to get out of town and dump the flaming shitbag in the dems laps.
And then, a nanosecond later, turn around and yowl about the mess the democrats have made of "mission accomplished."
Tanbark:
Got it in one. That's pretty much the MO for every Republican shitbag who never served yet is content to send other people's children, husbands, wifes, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, to die for their oil interests.
er... wives
sheesh...
I just added a link to the reports of a 33% increase in civilian deaths that Juan Cole first reported.
I think it pertinent.
The "Surge" strategy was based on US domestic propaganda efforts all along. As has the entire occupation.
Juan Cole noted the genocidal aspect of the Tal Afar strategy when McMaster was doing it three years ago. We have seen that strategy writ large in Baghdad with the elimination of Sunni Arab neighborhoods in that city. Understandably this is something that the right wing does not care about. But we need to look beyond and no longer cede arguments to people in this country that have occupation on their mind.
We need to realize that the corporate media is back on board with this occupation full hog. Every attack against the US and Iraqis is al-Qaeda again, every month where "only" 30 US soldiers died is an acceptable rate of death. They are going to be "surprised" as the violence climbs again due to the intractable political uncertainties, but they will go back into idiot mode and claim that "no one knew".
We need to make it very clear in a strong voice that the US occupation of Iraq ends today. That US Marines at a US embassy does not constitute a "residual force" as Democratic candidates for President have gotten away with saying. NO! We don't occupy every country where there is a US embassy. Only Iraq. It's time to hold the candidates feet to the fire and promise hell and high water if they don't. This occupation doesn't end in 1 year or 10 years or 100 years. It ends now.
I think that $800,000 a fucking DAY being paid by bushCo to Sunni insurgents (along with small arms) is like paying the mob, protection money...what happens when you stop paying?
yup, it's not "like protection", it is protection.
what happens is we go back to 2 or 3 a day instead of 1.
We are losing what, $12Billion a week? A month?
On this war?
But let's factor in the moral shit.
People are dying because of our policy's.
Policy's NONE of us have for the masses, taken to the street, like we did in the 60's n 70's.
Nope, the moral shit in THIS case, is lost cuz we the people ain't in the streets by the millions like we were then.
N so, it's not until the economy begins to fail that we decide to MAYBE become more involved, across the country, political sides of aisles aside.
And life as we know it, is headed to the shitmire as a result of the shitmire, we let happen.
It's on us all. And it's on us all to get us out of this.
But who will march? Tomorrow? Who?
We've let the elections distract us, once again, instead of marching.
We've played stupid, thinking that elections really mean much, and those elected really want to CHANGE, anything.
They don't.
N we sit, at our keyboards, like I do, raging.
And we are stupid to think, our typed out rage will halt the shit, or change the politics, or put the Big Guys on notice.
Not till we march. In the heat. In the rain. In the snow.
March. Till we drop.
Or we can all go to work and hope our jobs aren't cut soon . . . *G*
No we aren't wasting our time. The typing is just an extension of the activism. For some it is the activism, and it has been more than effective.
It has made all the difference in the world. Think about where we were 4 years ago.
completely feel the frustration, larue...but we have come a very long way from 2004 (ugh). In fact, we (ie, sane people) have come a long way from 2006.
We have to save the country, not change it at a leisurely pace like the GOP has done for the past 30 years, but very, very quickly. And it's been happening, in part because of the counterbalance of knowledge and community that all this thinking and typing represents...
I wouldn't say it if I didn't truly believe it...and of course, we have a long way to go.
larue,
I did march many times before this thing even started. I can tell you firsthand that marching may be part of the solution, but it ain't getting it done.
This isn't Vietnam. It's hard to say it but this is more like Afghanistan circa 1985. Invade a country to support/create a friendly regime. Watch your economy go to hell as your army gets chewed up by the environment and the unfriendlies.
Of course the ironic part is that we are IN Afghanistan at the moment stewarding a NATO mission to overlook what has become a narco-terrorist state.
And now in Colombia there are major rumblings over the killing of a top FARC leader who was in Ecuador at the time. If Bush goes all in for his pal Uribe, you know its time to start placing bets on the other side.
Everything this administration touches turns to shit. They don't know how to lead. They only know how to run and hide just like they did all day on September 11th, 2001. Cheney in his hidey-hole and Bush on Air Force One. The sooner they are removed from power the better.
I couldn't agree more. The big giveaway was when they handed the whole thing off to republican rising star Buffalo Bill Petraeus. And where ever Buffalo Bill goes, so goes the Wild West Show. An epic proportion propaganda bills and shills magical shock and awe grand illusion guaranteed to wow - at all costs! - to stave off bankruptcy, foreclosure, and certain defeat, for just one more short little tiny insignificant year. When the democrats (as scheduled) will come shuffling along after the big parade to sweep up the shit littered all over main street. So then the republicans can piss and moan about those smelly uncouth second class democrats who lost the war, for many a year to come.
YAWN.
Oh well.
Birth.
School.
Work.
Death.
Good points, Sonic. And thx for bringing up this topic again. Yup, the surge is very much a "stop loss" measure, designed to reduce the US blood toil, but it didn't achieve anything politically or for the self governance of Iraq. Actually, ain't it suspicious that political progress and the training of police and troops have all but vanished from the news reporting from Iraq? Obviously, there's nothing newsworthy happening there right know.
Well, I can't understand why the Dems don't raise the point that the current situation of simply keeping the status quo isn't what was promised with the surge and also isn't good enough, since the goal has to be a reduction of US involvement. Large parts of the public seem to think the surge is a success, and the Dems do nothing to correct this false view. What's behind the strange reluctance to engage the topic?
:-/
Problem is, spending on this whole Iraq 'thing' has only been $222,000 per minute. Bunch of cheapskates! I'm sure if that figure was doubled, all would be fine and dandy......
"What's behind the strange reluctance to engage the topic?"
Politics as usual, where the priority in a race not involving an incumbent is 1) going after your in-party rival in the primary, 2) going after your second-party opponent in the general and (a distant) 3) going after the previous second-party administration. 3) is seldom an area of focus because of a mix of misguided respect/comity, and a cynical concern that one might be undermining oneself by limiting options.
The problem is, of course, is that politics as usual is not called for at the moment. A smart Dem candidate would incorporate the message into every stump speech that the main and perhaps only job of the new President's first term will be trying to shovel this country out from the Bush disaster, be it at home or abroad. (if that Dem candidate, say, had the humility to apologize for enabling in any way the Bush agenda over the last 8 years, even better).
But aside from vague calls for "change" from one Dem (sadly, the only one left in the race worthy of support), we're not hearing what really needs to be said. That sorry situation may be enough for myopic peasants like Sean, above, but most of us here are correct in demanding something more in advance of what's looking like at least four ugly years.
Larue; Hub's right. We're like pebbles being dropped in the pond. And the ripples are going out, out, out...
and they are making a wave.
Believe it. :o)
And the tall black guy "in the tube" looks like he can shred pretty good. :o)
Tanbark,
We're also going to start paying people in Pakistan.
When asked to give up the cause, the question always has to be "What is the alternative?"
Larue, what is your alternative to protest, comment, campaigning, letter writing, donating and speaking to end this monstrosity of a War?
Not trying to be a smart ass, just wondering if all that is futile, what would be effective in Larue's opinion.
larue: marching anit goign to work, teh 60's have been demonized in this nation, marching will turn your cause into a lughing stock....
two choices take teh slow road and cahnge the system from the inside, that invovles gettign better reps elected at every level in every election.
or take to the woods.
our nation needs a revolution, it can be bloodless and peacfull like we had in the late thirties, or it can be violent...but we need renewal
November 2008 - Obama elected President.
November - January 2008 - MSM will begin reporting progress with the surge.
February 2008 - One week after Obama's inauguration, MSM will announce the surge as an overwhelming success and hail Obama as a courageous war hero.
"February 2008 - One week after Obama's inauguration, MSM will announce the surge as an overwhelming success and hail Obama as a courageous war hero."
In Bizarro World, maybe. 
I do like the typo on the date, though. It would be great to have Dubya out of office one year early.
hey Sean, unless you're posting from Iraq, FUCK YOU you yellow cur
Obama needs to pound away at the Bush-Iraq recession
unfortunaitly Sean has a point, its the inertia that we are fighting agenist...that we have been fightenign agenist for a long time. Sub humans expresed it very well way back when.
"when the people of the country have forgotten how to disagree
and the national economy is said to be o.k.
and the wages that you get will help you to forget
will you keep your ideologies or throw them all away?
when the system has you beaten
even though you haven't eaten
cos you can't afford to eat and drink to keep your brain alive
you blame the system for the weather but carry on as ever
you got to work at half past 8 and come back home at 5
you can go blue in the face talking about the human race
how they got to outer space but it never stopped the wars
and how the whole of this humanity is based on greed and vanity
the ones who make decisions are the ones who make the laws
but you're still in this society, so what's your main priority?
remain in the majority who never really cared?
or cultivate the hate to annihilate the state
are you prepared to die for your beliefs or just to dye your hair?
the anarchist, the nihilist but can you prove that you exist
to a population who just insist that you're just a bunch of fakes?
you can not change the system until you change your own restrictions
communication and conviction got to kick until it breaks"
that is the attatuide of joe public...work, rest, die. and that is the attatuid that our polituitions have cultivated for gnerations...it needs to change.
of course the surge is working. it was going to work all along. no matter what the facts on the ground were they were going to say that it proves their point. if your idea of improvement is to move from the seventh to the fifth circle of hell, then yes, there has been improvement.
these motherfuckers make me sick.
If the corporate media can call the end of overlapping extended brigade deployments "the beginning of withdrawing troops" then we ain't seen nothing yet in this carnival House of Mirrors.
We have to come to the terms with the fact that the corporate-funded, establishment-backed media is still THE major problem in this country. They are still the gatekeepers; if it hasn't been shown on the TV it still isn't real enough for anyone to take action on.
I think that $800,000 a fucking DAY being paid by bushCo to Sunni insurgents (along with small arms) is like paying the mob, protection money...what happens when you stop paying?
There's a historical precedent to look to. Prior to the First Afghan War, the British were paying subsidies to the mountain tribes to get them to refrain from pillaging traffic into and out of Kabul. Then some bean-counting genius decided that the subsidies should be reduced.
You can read about how that worked out in George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman.
I still think General Obama will be credited with the Final Victory. And then Baghdad can be a late add-on to his Change Tour, I mean, if we can get the Taliban Chicks fainting at his concertes, well shazamm, this GWOT will be over toute suite.
can we shitcan the troll
Am I being too disrespectful of the Anointed Obama?
Sorry -- the guy tells workers in Ohio that he's gonna renegotiate NAFTA, then quickly sends his chief economic adviser to tell Canadian officials that he's lying, that he's just trolling for votes.
Is lying-like-a-sack-of-shit-to-whore-votes the kind of "CHANGE" that he thinks we need in Washington?
And Michelle Obama? Telling lower class women in Ohio to forego working in "Corporate America" and do like she did, go into "public service"?? Oh, she forgot to mention that her "public service" is a $305,000/year plum at the University of Chicago Community Affairs department. Yep -- that's the kind of job all those poor women in Ohio are gonna get -- well, those who marry senators, perhaps, the rest can eat shit, right?
I want "change" too. But that Chicago Machine puppet ain't it.
Brad; if you want to talk about lying, you don't get to bring up Obama, until you've unloaded that
Exxon tankerful of blood, bullshit, and koolaid, that has been commissioned and laden by george bush and his petro-pigfuckers.
Oh; while you're at it, you can move Hillary Clinton to the second place in the line.
Think you're a bit off on your NAFTA/Canada/Obama story. Here you go:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/20...2321/755/
468076
My bad to respond to an Obama Cultist -- dare to point out what their Messiah's doing, and it's "but but but BUSH...!!!". The "if-you're-not-for-Obama-you're-for-Bush" algorithm. Wow, that's an effective debate tactic, and one that will really resonate with people who are still on the fence about the Anointed One.
And Kos better do a lot better if it wants to whitewash the NAFTA/Canada scandal. Kos thinks the "revised" version today from Canada is to be trusted more than the 'raw footage' version that came out last week? Is that the best Kos can do? What a disappointment, and what a disservice to those who would've appreciated a real analysis, not a tap dance.
Proof that the more things "change", the more they stay the same.
The trolls at the old News Blog at least used to be funny sometime. We get the Grade F of trolls here at GNB it appears.
Your nominee is McCain. LoL.
"Your nominee is McCain. LoL."
No, McCain still has a chance. I'm guessing he's for Ron "Pay No Attention to the White Supremacists" Paul. 'Cause, y'know, BradGates is an independent who's for the little guy (guy, not girl. And the guy has to be white).
>not a tap dance.
funny how they always give themselves away.
stupid racist troll.
Where's Paula Jones Nose? Now, there was a high class troll.
......... and out of interest, does anyone remember Granny V, who came to berate Steve and Co. just prior to Nov. 2006? Apparently a dedicated progressive. Hasn't said much since.
I think brad must have lost his dlc flag pin.
"Where's Paula Jones Nose? Now, there was a high class troll."
Indeed, and what's more he knew how to treat a female impersonator.
The surge is working great - if you happen to be KBR, Bechtel or SAIC. Death-toll down just enough to claim a PR home-run ... & no real progress. That's their best-case-scenario brought to life.
Strategy schmategy. Victory is a WORST-case-scenario for the ones making a mint off the war. The money's the thing.
On that note: I'd like to suggest an approach with a proven track-record - boycott the bastards. No, you don't shop for F14s, but you probably DO go to franchises that are directly linked to the profiteers, & thus the fun begins.
Find out which of their subsidiaries you're buying products or services from, & put some spine behind your conscience with a serious money-hack. Then get your friends & loved ones to follow suit, & tell them to get THEIR circle of friends & loved ones to do the same. The more the merrier. Call the companies you're boycotting. Tell them you're doing so & why. Watch their reaction.
A well-organized boycott is worth a hundred protests. Money talks a LOT louder than yet another chanting crowd, & unlike simply sending in the Riot Squad to stomp, zap & club said crowd, they can't do jack about a boycott.
These people worship the green - but they need you to open your wallet & let it dance into theirs first. Threaten to take their little gods away, for good.
They need you to keep their profits up. You don't necessarily need to buy anything from them. Get it?
man...its a sad thing when the trolls make you miss jim in la...who was teh fake marian, he was allways fun to laugh at as well...
Commenting by HaloScan
