11 thoughts on “Strained

  1. I’ve considered myself a responsible parent. When my boys were little, it was my responsibility to keep their immature hands off dangerous items like electric cords, hot cooking pots, or the steering wheel of the car.

    Suddenly, that ‘responsible parent’ model has relevance. The adults in Congress must act forcefully RIGHT NOW to grab up and, if necessary, whup this out-of-control child Bush before he, playing games with his little neo-con chickenhawk friends, actually burns the house down.

  2. I believe it may already be too late to impeach and imprison these criminals against the constitution, ostensibly neocon repubs but better known as a criminal enterprise. How long before people rise up and stop this nonsense? It has not happened yet and all the provocation in the world has been given. How is the president not a criminal? How is chinney not criminally responsible for his secrecy? I fear that the comfort this country has allowed all of us has lulled us into a stand still in the headlights sort of stance, kind of like a deer in the headlights. We stand still, transfixed by the oncoming train wrecks headlight, till we are about to get run over.
    Unless someone stops bush quickly, right now even, we will only get more war. america is gone.

  3. The Republic is not gone yet, but it is slipping away. While recovering from the flu the other night, I actually watched AC 360, something I haven’t done since Katrina, and Michael Ware was on with a very descriptive piece about the realities on the ground in Iraq, particularly how Iran and Al Qaeda our winning because of our strategy. From the transcript:

    COOPER: So the focus is on Baghdad. Is there a cost that will be paid because of that?

    WARE: Absolutely. This focus on Baghdad that we’ve seen evolve in American strategy over the last 12 to 18 months does not come without a price.

    While you’re pouring all your attentions, all the thrust of your attentions militarily, politically and economically into the capital, the question is what’s happening beyond the city?

    So while you focus on Baghdad, part of the cost of that is that over here in Anbar Province, that’s suffering for want of troops and a real thrust of effort, al Qaeda, which the Marines themselves say more or less politically owns this part of the country, is becoming stronger. Focusing on Baghdad has given al Qaeda the oxygen it has needed to grow.
    —-
    Elsewhere in the transcript Ware discusses how the expatriated Shia, who fled Iraq by the 100s of thousands after Gulf War 1, have reoccupied the south with governing militias accommodated by the British.

    So our mess will widen until courage arrives. The lesson of VietNam is that to stop a war during a imperial presidency requires regime change. And it appear that the time frame is oh so very short that each day matters.

    To honor Ms. Ivins’ last “Molly-ism”,

    “We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, Stop it, now!”

    At to that end, Mr Swanson and Schwarz have give us a very nicely organized laundry list of actionable items in:

    Beyond Oral Sex
    The Bush Investigations

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=

    We are no longer governed by fellow citizens, but ruled by criminals. I for one do not know where the handle on “political will” is, but we need to keep looking. Would it surprise any reader here if a “cross border incursion” occurred the very day Cheney is on the stand?

  4. I read the Silber article yesterday and a few other that just left me helpless because it is the MSM now that is going to get us into the war because they have forgotten their job. The next time the Times or Post goes to the public wanting our support on their “freedom of the press” rights, we need to remind them how they lost those rights all by themselves by not holding this administration accountable early on so that W could have never been re-elected. That is when I believed all was lost.

  5. Off Topic: I have a friend at work whose cousin is George Tenet. I have mostly kept my thoughts about her cousin to myself because of our friendship. She told me yesterday that Tenet has book coming out on Feb. 6. It may have new info but had to be cleared by the powers that be that we know have censored others. However, I look forward to finding out what he has to say.

  6. The news tonight features the Democratic hopefuls saying the war in Iraq is wrong and that they will end it if elected. Yeah team! What took ya so long, I was antiwar before it was cool to be antiwar and suffered the slings and arrows for it, screw’em, especially Hillary. We can’t forget that under Bill, Iraq was bombed at least weekly, no dialog was ever attempted If Hillary was too blind to realize that which I figured out with the help of Scott Ritter
    , Mohammed ElBaredi, and Hans Blix, how in the hell can anyone trust her with the office of the Presidency ?
    This is frustrating…..
    Every place a conflict is or has been blazing in recent history has a new pipeline. The Balkans, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.Rumor has it that there is a pipeline planed to extend from Iraq to Haifa, Israel. Kinda makes ya wonder if Syria is in the cross hairs because they have a Mediterranean port and could have a pipeline from Iraq too , but that’s just crazy talk……
    Not that Exxon-Mobile didn’t post record profits…..

  7. “Dad?”
    “Yes, son?”
    “I think Mr. Ahmed across the street is a child molester.”
    “Do you have any proof?”
    No, it’s just a feeling.”
    “Remember you had that feeling about our former neighbor, Mr. Hussein? And then, after you shot him, the police couldn’t find any evidence”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, why is this different?”
    “I just feel like it’s different… Shouldn’t ALL options be available in the case of child molester’s?”
    “I guess so…”
    “Dad? Can I borrow your gun again?”

  8. “How’d it go, Son?”
    “The bastard’s dead.”
    “Are the neighbor’s pissed off?”
    “Yes. Again.”
    “Why’d you do it, Son?”
    “Cause I wanted to show the neighbor’s that I could, Father.”

    What happens next?
    From the great Jim Morrison song:
    “The killer awoke before dawn.
    He put his boot’s on…”
    “Father?”
    “Yes, son?”
    “I want to kill you.. Mother? I want to …”

    Bomb Iran?
    “This is the end. My only friend, the end…”

    Sometimes, I think, there is no God. Why did Morrison die, and Bush live? Why did Molly Ivins have to go? WHY NOW?

    The poet’s and prophet’s always die young. That’s the price they pay for trying to clear up the muddy waters. Witness Keats, Pushkin, Lermontov, Poe, and the rest of the greats throughout the centuries.
    The rest of us idiot’s survive to gambol and fight along the banks of the river and stir up the sediment. Again.
    More fodder for the next poet, I guess…
    More muddy waters to hide what the powers that be are doing.

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