Tag Archives: Iraq

“Political” humor for the new year

December 31, 2006 – 1:15 am

from Tom Tomorrow:

For Bush supporters, the glass is always half full!

1. David Limbaugh: “It’s easy to dismiss [Democrats’] appeasement mindset now since we haven’t confirmed Saddam had new stockpiles of WMD … �

Sadly No’s response: “‘Haven’t confirmed’ is one way to put it. I also haven’t confirmed leprechauns flying out of my pants, although I’m open to any new reports.â€?

2. White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Frago Townsend: (The capture of bin Laden is) � a success that hasn’t occurred yet.�

Washington Monthly commenter: “My sleeping with Halle Berry is also a success that hasn’t occured yet.�

3. Blogger Jeff Goldstein: “Let them, for one brief moment, bracket their partisan aggressions and reflect on what the US and its allies have done in removing this butcher from power—which, contrary to received wisdom, has made Iraq a far better place, if only for the moment potentially.�

LGM response: And as the year ends, I will reflect on and celebrate the fact that I made a trillion dollars this year, if only for the moment potentially.

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Who would have thought

June 20, 2006 – 12:50 am

that Noam Chomsky would be invited to speak to a class of cadets at West Point academy? Not I, but it’s certainly a welcome surprise.

I haven’t actually watched the whole hour long video yet, since it’s in Real Video format and I don’t have that installed anywhere right now, but here’s an interesting short excerpt to whet the appetite: Noam answers the question posed by an audience member about the invasion of Iraq, and whether it was justified because of Saddam’s human rights record and/or his status as an “aggressor”.
Read More »

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FINALLY

December 14, 2005 – 12:17 pm

… kind of. It’s probably as close as we’re going to get.

“And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As President, I’m responsible for the decision to go into Iraq and I’m also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities.” - Pres. Bush - 12/14/2005

Of course, it would be nice if he also talked about all the intelligence that *didn’t* support their predetermined position that was ignored, but that’s probably not going to happen.

On a lighter note, check out bushspeech.org: “Make George W. Bush say the things you always wanted him to say! You don’t even need to be a multinational company!”

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WWJT?

November 9, 2005 – 7:53 pm

Who would Jesus torture? - by David Batstone

Christians of strong religious faith and sound moral conscience often end up in disagreement. Human affairs are a messy business, unfortunately, and even at the best of times we only see through a glass, darkly.

It is hard for that reason to call Christians to a universal standard of behavior. At this moment, however, we cannot afford to dilute the message of Jesus into meaningless ambiguity. There are certain acts that a follower of Jesus simply cannot accept. Here is one: A Christian cannot justify the torture of a human being.

The practice of torture by American soldiers is a hot topic at the Pentagon, in the Congress, and in the White House at the moment. The U.S. Senate already has passed 90-9 a bill that prohibits “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” of prisoners in U.S. custody. The lead advocate of the bill, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), was tortured by his captors during the Vietnam War. According to The New York Times, the Pentagon adopted a policy last Thursday to rein in interrogation techniques. The new policy uses much of the same language as the McCain amendment - drawn in large part from the Geneva Convention - to adopt standards for handling terror suspects.

Remarkably, the White House opposes the Pentagon initiative, and threatens to veto any legislation to which the McCain bill gets attached. Vice President Dick Cheney has urged Republican senators to allow CIA counterterrorism operations internationally to be exempt from the ban on mistreatment of prisoners, major newspapers reported. Read More »

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Double standards

November 7, 2005 – 10:18 am

[Mercury News article]PASADENA, Calif. - One of the state’s largest and most liberal churches could lose its tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon that a former rector delivered two days before the 2004 presidential election, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

In his sermon, the Rev. George F. Regas did not urge parishioners at All Saints Episcopal Church to support either George Bush or his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. But he was sharply critical of the Iraq war and Bush’s tax cuts.

The IRS in a June 9 letter warned the church that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy because the federal tax code prohibits such organizations from intervening in political campaigns and elections. The church’s current rector, J. Edwin Bacon, told his congregation about the problem on Sunday.

If this happens it will be ridiculous. It would honestly be difficult to count the number of pro-Bush Christian organizations that were very outspoken in the last election, but for some reason this one that was on the other side is being threatened. All you have to do is turn on the local Christian radio station any day of the week and you will probably hear a violation of this code within a few hours.

A long time ago I used to occasionally listen to a show by James Dobson’s organization; back then they called the show “Focus on the Family”, but I’m not sure what they changed the name to after they switched it to being a 30 minute session of telling their loyal followers to call their congress people and telling them what to say and how to vote.

In any event, I really hope that this particular church stands their ground, regardless of whether they keep their non-profit status. Although it would certainly be an unbalanced application of this law, it would be worth it to stand your ground and maintain your principles.

The most encouraging part of the article…

He said the IRS recently offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said.

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Irony?

October 30, 2005 – 6:50 pm

“Now let me get this straight,â€? Judge Mithaqi (The lead Iraqi delegate, and a noted secular Sunni judge) said. “You are lecturing us about keeping religion out of politics, and then your own president and conservative legal scholars go and tell your public to endorse Miers as a Supreme Court justice because she is an evangelical Christian?”

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Stats of a different nature

July 6, 2005 – 11:32 am

Analysis of last Tuesday’s speech by the president on Iraq: (full text here)

  • Five more deliberately misleading references (within 30 minutes) to 9/11, despite the fact that even the administration themselves admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
  • Two mentions of bin Laden by name, (which the administration has done very little of in the last few years), even though he has nothing to do with Iraq. Hmm, is this the same bin Laden he was referring to when he said “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. … I don’t really think about him very much. I’m not that concerned.”
  • 34 mentions of “terror” or “terrorism”, without mentioning the fact this so-called “hotbed” of terrorism in Iraq arose after we invaded, it wasn’t there before.
  • Zero mentions of our original (now disproved) claims of WMDs threatening the U.S.
  • No mention of the numerous polls in which a majority of both “liberated” Iraqis and Americans disapprove of the continued occupation of Iraq.
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Paul Harvey’s Tribute to Slavery, Nukes, Genocide

July 4, 2005 – 10:24 am

Disney/ABC radio personality Paul Harvey, one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast.

Harvey’s commentary began by lamenting the decline of American wartime aggression. “We’re standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we’ve declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies–more moral, more civilized,” he said. Drawing a contrast with what he cast as the praiseworthy nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Harvey lamented that “we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq and kept our best weapons in their silos”–suggesting that America should have used its nuclear arsenal in its invasions of both countries.

Harvey concluded:

“We didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

“And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which–feeling guilty about their savage pasts–eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.”

(Article here)

Unbelievable.

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Who can we believe?

June 30, 2005 – 3:35 pm

The Iraqi insurgency is in its “last throes” - Dick Cheney, 6/23/2005

The insurgency could last five, six, eight, ten or twelve years - Donald Rumsfeld, 6/25/2005

The administration has no good exit strategy for Iraq - People opposing the war, since before it started.

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Americans waking up and smelling the coffee

June 21, 2005 – 9:42 am

(CNN) — Nearly six in 10 Americans oppose the war in Iraq and a growing number of them are dissatisfied with the war on terrorism, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.

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