3/27/2007 12:13:49 AM
alcohol rehab
REHABILITATION CENTER

no time like the present to get your car switched over to ethanol...

The seven "elements of power" cast a shadow in the shape of Orwellian control to limit the thoughts and behaviors of the masses, most of whom are innocent of anything except that they may hesitate in giving up constitutional liberties.

Counterinsurgency -- if that is even a meaningful term to use -- looks a bit like a license issued to military commanders for omnibus supression of individual dissent and public association. Just as people naturally resent having their country occupied any longer than their desperation may require such an unpleasant experience, we can expect people will generally resent systematic invasions into their minds and their ordinary dealings, even when fear is used as a tool of leverage or political strategy to submit them to such "elements of power." These are potentially very dangerous schemes for people in political power to dream about, particularly without strong civilian leadership dedicated to respecting both constitutional and traditional cultural liberties.

It is good to remember that our national identity originated with a popular insurgency; one that rose up against a colonial power that made people criminals for their opinions alone. The American Revolution was a national battle for liberties in a previously unknown scope and level of protection. Then, as a reaction to direct attacks on democracies and allies, WWII was a battle for liberty on a more global scale. While we need a military to fully combat those who attack us and our democratic system, we don't need a military or a government to analyze all we do and think for any suspicious tendencies. However, it sure looks like that is the track that people with power want us on today.

Brenner, Alex, and Dimitry,

Come back to reality and off the WWII tangent. If you want to be Harry Turtledove with alternative historys, then write a novel. There is a new topic, pursue it!

J brenner writes:"and in that sense World War II was very much an American victory."

I agree the pacific was really all american. Europes a bit complicated. There are alot of what if's. Without 2nd front pressure, the Russians would have faced a more robust defense but what would the allies have done ? concluded a separate peace ?, As long as the allies threatened a 2nd front, Hitler would be tied down. But on the other hand,in 1943 the Russians were rolling like a snowball down a hill, a very formidable force. Could the Russians have rolled over nazi germany without a 2nd front ?, close call but the Russians were unhampered in the rear and as time went on seemingly were just getting stronger, while germany at best could only mount defensive operations. But say the allies for whatever reason concluded a separate peace and hitler had no pressure on the other side /rear, then I think yr right , Russia would have ground to a halt.

"But USSR would have won this war, even without Western help."

Dimitri, if by winning you mean that the Soviet Union would have survived and probably gained back most of the territory that it lost in 1941, then I agree. However, the idea that the Soviets could have destroyed the Nazi regime unaided seems very unlikely. A far more plausible scenario is that they would have been forced to accept some kind of revived Non-aggression pact not far from the original line. Further, the prospect that the Soviets ever could have provided the economic and political basis for a peaceful and prosperous Western Europe is just plain ridiculous - and in that sense World War II was very much an American victory.

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Breaking news!!!
Bush departments alliance with Al Qaeda related groups in Lebanon Part II

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH(The New Yorker)

The Saudi said that, in his country's view, it was taking a political risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. "We have two nightmares," the former diplomat told me. "For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I'd rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed."

In the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about their new strategic direction. At least four main elements were involved, the U.S. government consultant told me. First, Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran.

Second, the Saudis would urge Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party that has received support from Iran, to curtail its anti-Israeli aggression and to begin serious talks about sharing leadership with Fatah, the more secular Palestinian group. (In February, the Saudis brokered a deal at Mecca between the two factions. However, Israel and the U.S. have expressed dissatisfaction with the terms.)

The third component was that the Bush Administration would work directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region.

Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah. The Saudi government is also at odds with the Syrians over the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, in Beirut in 2005, for which it believes the Assad government was responsible. Hariri, a billionaire Sunni, was closely associated with the Saudi regime and with Prince Bandar. (A U.N. inquiry strongly suggested that the Syrians were involved, but offered no direct evidence; there are plans for another investigation, by an international tribunal.)

Patrick Clawson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, depicted the Saudis' coöperation with the White House as a significant breakthrough. "The Saudis understand that if they want the Administration to make a more generous political offer to the Palestinians they have to persuade the Arab states to make a more generous offer to the Israelis," Clawson told me. The new diplomatic approach, he added, "shows a real degree of effort and sophistication as well as a deftness of touch not always associated with this Administration. Who's running the greater risk--we or the Saudis? At a time when America's standing in the Middle East is extremely low, the Saudis are actually embracing us. We should count our blessings."

The Pentagon consultant had a different view. He said that the Administration had turned to Bandar as a "fallback," because it had realized that the failing war in Iraq could leave the Middle East "up for grabs."

JIHADIS IN LEBANON

The focus of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, after Iran, is Lebanon, where the Saudis have been deeply involved in efforts by the Administration to support the Lebanese government. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is struggling to stay in power against a persistent opposition led by Hezbollah, the Shiite organization, and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah has an extensive infrastructure, an estimated two to three thousand active fighters, and thousands of additional members.

Hezbollah has been on the State Department's terrorist list since 1997. The organization has been implicated in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed two hundred and forty-one military men. It has also been accused of complicity in the kidnapping of Americans, including the C.I.A. station chief in Lebanon, who died in captivity, and a Marine colonel serving on a U.N. peacekeeping mission, who was killed. (Nasrallah has denied that the group was involved in these incidents.) Nasrallah is seen by many as a staunch terrorist, who has said that he regards Israel as a state that has no right to exist. Many in the Arab world, however, especially Shiites, view him as a resistance leader who withstood Israel in last summer's thirty-three-day war, and Siniora as a weak politician who relies on America's support but was unable to persuade President Bush to call for an end to the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. (Photographs of Siniora kissing Condoleezza Rice on the cheek when she visited during the war were prominently displayed during street protests in Beirut.)

The Bush Administration has publicly pledged the Siniora government a billion dollars in aid since last summer. A donors' conference in Paris, in January, which the U.S. helped organize, yielded pledges of almost eight billion more, including a promise of more than a billion from the Saudis. The American pledge includes more than two hundred million dollars in military aid, and forty million dollars for internal security.

The United States has also given clandestine support to the Siniora government, according to the former senior intelligence official and the U.S. government consultant. "We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we're spreading the money around as much as we can," the former senior intelligence official said. The problem was that such money "always gets in more pockets than you think it will," he said. "In this process, we're financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences. We don't have the ability to determine and get pay vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don't like. It's a very high-risk venture."

American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.

For the rest please go to:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh?page=1

==it's the enemies at home that defeat our brave heroes, not the evil ones.==

Perhaps it is time to fight the real enemy, then. I say, to concentration camps for all those (about 2/3 of the population by now) who want to end this war!

"The fact is that tens of millions of our brothers and sisters.... have seen little improvement in their daily lives," Mr. Bush said, "and this has led some to question the value of democracy." Can you guess who said that ? Those words came from GW Bush while speaking about South America. I only left 3 words out of the quote, " to the south"

Mr. Arkin- we are in the middle of a war on terror, which we didn't start. The Islamo-Nazis started this war and brought it to our homeland on the date of infamy 9/11. I was in NYC that day Mr. Arkin, and friends of mine were killed by the terrorists in the Twin Towers. What is YOUR plan for winning this war? All you do is criticize our leader, our commander-in-chief. I sware, if today's media was around during WWII, we would all be speaking German right now. Let the military do their jobs and stop pulling the rug out from under them. Our military is undefeated in wars- it's the enemies at home that defeat our brave heroes, not the evil ones.

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1814.shtml

Iran, the target for the next Bush preemptive attack; Congress remains in a state of mental paralysis

By Michael Payne
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Last Nov. 7, the American electorate stated in the clearest terms that "enough is enough, we want change and we want it now."

Bush and Cheney not only have ignored that loud and powerful voice but they now have even more ambitious plans for dominating the Middle East. The new Democratic majority is still searching for its identity and is feverishly trying to pass non-binding resolutions. It stands the chance of being blindsided by a preemptive attack on Iran.

Iran is now directly in the crosshairs of this war machine, and this Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, cannot seem to address this potential disaster, even when the future of America and the entire world is at stake. They did not have the foresight to prevent the first Iraq debacle and they are now on course to make the same mistakes again relative to Iran. Let there be no doubt that the American people now, after almost four years of enduring a catastrophic foreign policy, want to bring an end to this incompetence and madness.

The GOP in Congress has now begun the process of committing political suicide in the 2008 elections. This gang of completely tone-deaf Republicans, which the American electorate chastised in the November 2006 elections, has learned not one single lesson from the beating that was administered to them. Instead of listening, absorbing how the vast majority of Americans now feel about the direction America has taken and their anger over the insane Iraq war, they have decided to yet again to "stay the course " and go down with the decider-in-chief. In doing so, these thickheaded disciples of war face political suicide in 2008 when many GOP senators and representatives come up for re-election. The American electorate will be waiting, ready to administer another well-deserved beating. These GOP lemmings are ready to go over the Iraq cliff following their delusional drum major.

Each day I read more and more articles in which knowledgeable Middle East journalists and analysts are predicting that this administration is poised to attack Iran in the very near future. This unimaginable, unthinkable event, if it happens, will: 1. Ignite a massive Middle East conflagration and 2. Congress will then have no choice whatsoever but to initiate impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, for certain, and quite possibly against the de facto president of the United States, Dick Cheney.

Cheney, the puppeteer-in-chief, and Bush the puppet decider continue to thumb their noses at the entire nation, which they no longer serve but are hell-bent on dominating. They now have most clearly stated that they will not only continue to stay the course but that they will escalate it as they see fit, no matter what the Congress or the American people desire. Cheney has said that they will not be stopped.

As they see Iraq completely coming apart, and our military slowly, but surely, being decimated by the never-ending deployments and re-deployments, Bush & Co. are showing signs of panic. Their dreams and plans of controlling the rich resources of the Middle East are now in a state of disarray and extreme danger of totally failing. The virus of the Vietnam experience has now infected their Iraq adventure and so, in a repetition of history, they will not only stay the course, but they will up the ante. These reckless, oil-thirsty gamblers are totally jeopardizing the future of the entire Middle East, the United States and, yes, the entire world.

As we know, when a powerful animal is mortally wounded and cornered, it becomes extremely dangerous. And so this totally incompetent, but now decidedly wounded, cabal of neocons sets it sights on Iran, the next Saddam-like bogeyman, the next obvious target for the Bush doctrine of preemptive war. We are now watching the Bush & Co. propaganda machine of misinformation revving up, fabricating the same type of reasons for attacking Iran that they used to justify the attack on Iraq. They are trying to plant the same insidious seeds into the mind of America that they planted prior to the invasion and occupation in Iraq. We are now continually hearing all about Iran's plans to develop WMD, i.e., nuclear weapons, their involvement in furnishing weapons to the Iraq insurgency, and of their goal to destroy Israel. And so, "we must prepare to strike Iran before they strike us. We have to fight them over there so that we do not have to fight them here." Can the 30 percent of Americans that still support Bush & Cheney, those we refer to as "sheeple," continue to feed at the trough of slime, lies and smokescreens?

This is déjà vu all over again as Bush & Co. are on course to repeat history. They will repeat history as Captain G.W. Bush of the modern-day SS Titanic steers this nation directly into the field of icebergs and brazenly states, "Full speed ahead, damn the icebergs, damn the opinions of the American electorate and the entire world," as he stays the course, escalates it and forces America and the world into a disaster of the worst magnitude.

It now appears with each passing day that an attack on Iran, while unfathomable to the 70 percent or so of Americans who no longer support Bush in any way, could take place in the next month or two. Already positioned in the Persian Gulf is the U.S. aircraft carrier group, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, while a second battle group, the John C. Stennis, has just arrived. Newsweek reports that a third carrier group will soon leave for that region. Just recently Bush nominated Admiral William J. Fallon for the position of commander of U.S. Middle East forces. Fallon, an expert in Naval air and amphibious operations, was initially a strange choice to lead a ground war, but now we understand his entry upon the scene completely. All the pieces are rapidly being put into place. Iran is clearly in the crosshairs.

If that catastrophic preemptive event happens, then I predict that the American people will completely erupt, the slow-moving turtle-like Democratic majority will finally say, "Enough is enough," the lemming-like Republicans will completely cave in, and, without a doubt, impeachment proceedings will be initiated for Bush. As the Middle East then explodes into a hellfire, there will be no more time to initiate futile debates, and political maneuvering will end when America and Congress will act and act quickly. Impeachment proceedings will be brought against Bush and, hopefully, a group of Republican senators will head for the White House to give this completely failed leader an ultimatum: resign or face sure impeachment, just as a group of senators did with Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

Let's hope that this nightmare scenario never takes place, for if it does, we will witness a war like nothing we have ever seen or even imagined. We do not need this, the world does not need this and so it must be stopped, but how? I know not what it will take to motivate Congress to somehow rise up and stop this next act of insanity before it begins. If the Democrats can somehow convince enough Republicans to support legislation to ban any action against Iran without congressional approval, it would be a major step to sidestep disaster. However, Bush & Co. have shown in many other actions that they will not be stopped by anyone, so this monumental disaster could be on the way.

Even if this nightmare scenario is followed by impeachment or resignation, the damage will have been done and the Middle East will erupt in flames. This will be a total no-win situation with no good way to stop a massive regional war, as those whose lust for oil cannot be satiated will never back off. And as the situation escalates, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and possibly others nations in that region will have no choice but to take sides, be it siding with Sunnis or with Shiites. There will be no winner, only losers, as the world will be at the brink of World War III.
Is this U.S. Congress a modern-day version of the German Reichstag, the governing body that watched in silence and total submission as a powerful war machine was assembled and then launched those preemptive attacks that led to the horror of World War II?

Mr. Arkin,

Still waiting on that column of yours, pointing out the obscene amenties being provided to our military.

*chrrp-chrrp*

Still waiting.

My point was most Americans think WWII was won by the USA, with a bit of help from those European slackers.

1) Could the USSR have destroyed the Japanese Navy?

No. But it would have routed the Japanese in the mainland as it began to do at breakneck speed in Manchuria just before we dropped the nuclear bombs. The war in the Pacific was certainly a US accomplishment, from start to finish. The land portion would have been handled by Russia in the existing timeline, which is not to say that the timeline wouldn't have been different and hence a different result.

2) How successful would the Soviet war effort have been if it had not been supplied by the U.S., UK and Canada? Supplies that included:
-13,000,000 pair of boots
-1,900 locomotives (plus the cars to pull and the rail to ride on)
-400,000+ vehicles (mostly heavy trucks)
-enormous amounts of fuel, food, weapons and raw materials

It would not have been nearly as successful, which is why I always acknowledge the large materiel contribution of the allies to the Eastern war effort. But USSR would have won this war, even without Western help. Many think that Western entry into the war in earnest happened because of Soviet successes in reversing the course of the war in 1943-44. Now tell me if there would have been a victory for the allies if not for the USSR?

Here is a neat story about the landlease goods in Russia. At the end of the war, Russians cleaned up some of the remaining equipment and returned it to the American ships at Murmansk (or Vladivostok), which were sent to pick it up. These were really precious trucks that Russia couldn't make and did not have. Americans came in, took the cleaned up vehicles and crushed them, not having any interest in using them. I guess it was a real heartbreak for the Soviets to see this. Oh well...

Russians still owe us some money from the landlease, by the way.

Dimitry, since my post did not purport to address the relative importance of allied contributions during World II the "strange" thing is that you have chosen to respond as though I had done so. Of course it is also strange that you claim to know what most of the hundreds of millions of people of European extraction (a category that, by the way, includes most Americans) think about this subject. Strange also that you seem to assume that I know nothing about the history of the Eastern front. Finally, it is strange that having declared that the USSR could probably have won WWII unaided by Great Britain, the United States, Canada, you have done nothing to demonstrate why this is the case. I'll get you started:

1) Could the USSR have destroyed the Japanese Navy?

2) How successful would the Soviet war effort have been if it had not been supplied by the U.S., UK and Canada? Supplies that included:
-13,000,000 pair of boots
-1,900 locomotives (plus the cars to pull and the rail to ride on)
-400,000+ vehicles (mostly heavy trucks)
-enormous amounts of fuel, food, weapons and raw materials

Does the U.S. engage in terrorism? No, not overtly. But that doesn't answer the question. Does the U.S. engage in terrorism? Few people know, but those who do might want to watch their backs if the U.S. really ever declared war on terrorism.

==HOwever, you are really stating a hands off policy here...not arguing with that, you are correct that sometimes you try to fix something and it ends up worse...but am I clear that you are stating that if we see another Rwanda, another Bosnia, we dont interfere?==

We should help, not interfere. We did not interfere in Pakistan, after the earthquake, nor in Indonesia, after the tzunami. We helped, and the goodwill and gratitude followed. When we interfere, we often, very often make things worse. Motives are key and too often there is a backstory to our "humanitarian interference", and it is not pretty.

There is time for killing, but it is VERY rare. Engagement with the world is good and the military can play a very constructive role, due to its superior logistics. But killing people to "help them" smells like a skunk because too many times it is one.

The counterinsurgency doctrine is a tool that still has value, but it has limited application beyond Afghanistan and Iraq. COIN efforts also cannot be successfully executed if all levels of the effort are not fully staffed and integrated. We have never had a true COIN at work in Iraq, and we do not now. Staffing in civilian and bureaucratic areas remains short-changed, and the emphasis still seems to be exclusively on the military angle.

It also seems ill-advised to use COIN in a purely unilateral approach. The end result is a colonial face to work that is supposed to be focused on nation building, rather than empire building (sorry NeoCons, the U.S. never has been, and will not be in the business of empire building if Americans have their say).

I agree with the larger point concerning support of repressive "moderate" regimes in the Middle East. The U.S. should not be picking sides in a 5 sides centuries old regional conflict. We need to "constructively disengage" from a region and find a way to realign our interests elsewhere. Long-term the U.S. cannot and should not that expend its lives and treasure to support tyrannical regimes. Nations on the Middle East's periphery, especially in Europe, need to take a more active role in promoting regional stability.

Gil Herron
Your song is pathetic, your politics immature, your knowledge of human nature is zero and hippies is usually short for hippocrites...

Dimitri:
Killing a bunch of Hutus in 04 would have likely led to a genocide by the Tootsies of them in 05 - the country is an artificial French construct, where these tribes have been warring for centuries, would never be in the same country if not for colonialism. Kosovo deserves a special place in the pantheon of fake humanitarianism. Serbs got killed, Albanians took over and have been killing an brutalizing leftover Serbs for years now, right under the nose of the UN peacekeapers. It is a disgusting mockery of our declared intentions for that conflict. Where are the hundred thousand mass graves that were anounced by the US/UK to justify that war? Almost none found...the numbers were in the low thousands...impossible to even say they were civilians...civil war with terrorism on both sides for years preceding our involvement.

sean: I wont argue the points about sanctions on teh previous conversation. I just thought you were against all sanctions. Now about the killing people, I agree with you 100% on kosovo...but not Bosnia which was the other one I brought up. I can see your point on Rwanda, I thought of that myself after reading "We wish to inform you tomorrow we will be killed with our families" or whatever that title was. HOwever, you are really stating a hands off policy here...not arguing with that, you are correct that sometimes you try to fix something and it ends up worse...but am I clear that you are stating that if we see another Rwanda, another Bosnia, we dont interfere?

==Sean: The only reason we can do what we do is because we have the military hardware and the personnel available to do these things. You are not being realistic to think that teh US government is going to fund a large military for the upcoming Tsunami do you? The fact of the matter is, teh military is the only place you can support humanitarian relief to a hurricane or earthquake...and the military is a direct byproduct of our hegemony...I simply cannot imagine China or Russia performing those deeds. So yes Dimitri, it is a choice at least in supporting a large military...and how you do you sell that anyway?==

You can "sell" it many different ways. But you don't have to use it to attack countries half way around the world that are not a threat. That action alone bloated the military budget by 25% over the last few years, at the least. So no, you don't have to be a bastard to be strong. We did not have to kill in Pakistani relief operations, nor in Aceh, Indonesia. The goodwill from those cheap (on the Iraqi scale) undertakings was considerable. So here we are, spending billions in Iraq to kill and being hated for it (any surprise?) and spending millions in Indonesia and being loved for it (any surprise?). You do the math.

==Sean: I am waiting to hear better avenues of approach to sanctions...I am sure that unfortunatly there were shortages of things that the populace needed...but how do you enforce international law or do you think it should not be enforced?==

Several heads of the sanctions regime resigned in protest over US/UK draconian and unnecessarily savage approach to sanctins, denying vaccine precursors over unfounded fears of WMD potential usage. It always comes down to intent. Ours was not good.

==Sean: I am trying to think of one instance outside of humanitarian relief, that it was not necessary to kill people to help other people. I think that killing a bunch of Hutus in Rwanda in April 04 to get them to stop a genocide would have been killing to help people. Killing Serbs in 95 to stop the slaughter of Muslims was killing to stop killing. There are numerous examples of killing some people to help other people==

But do think this through, it is a very simple cause and effect logic. Killing a bunch of Hutus in 04 would have likely led to a genocide by the Tootsies of them in 05 - the country is an artificial French construct, where these tribes have been warring for centuries, would never be in the same country if not for colonialism. Kosovo deserves a special place in the pantheon of fake humanitarianism. Serbs got killed, Albanians took over and have been killing an brutalizing leftover Serbs for years now, right under the nose of the UN peacekeapers. It is a disgusting mockery of our declared intentions for that conflict. Where are the hundred thousand mass graves that were anounced by the US/UK to justify that war? Almost none found...the numbers were in the low thousands...impossible to even say they were civilians...civil war with terrorism on both sides for years preceding our involvement.

There are times when you have to kill, but they are very, very, very rare. We do it as easilty as sneezing. It a ready-made answer. The road to hell is paved with them.

Someone named sean:

Gil Scott Heron...I think your song sucks but don't be blue...I know a baby boomer, draft dodger leftist that will sing along with your lame hippie song...he is the former hippie, wanna be hippie again, my namesake

.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,

get together whenever they think its necessary,

They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,

Mr. Arkin,
Good points all. We need to coordinate and collaborate in our efforts to deny, degrade, disrupt and destroy terrorism and an Information Warfare czar is absolutely necessary in conjunction with a special operations and special forces campaign. There are mechanisms in place to do this already but they are seemingly powerless to direct. The problem is if we have one "IW czar" that person will have one of two power structures: The power to direct gives him or her directive authority over cabinet level member and that will never fly. Anything less and you must beg cooperation. The position already exists at the USG level: the Deputy National Security Adviser - Strategic Communications and Global Outreach, with the unenviable task to coordinate the Presidential message through the Office of Global Communications as well as through the State Department's Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and through multiple offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
LTG Boykin did not make it clear; is he advocating the IW czar for just within DoD or for all of the USG?
I especially applaud one of the terms you use: Information Warfare. The politically correct term "Information Operations" that is used by the Department of Defense now does not do the phrase any justice.

==Despite these rather imperfect partners, our nation succeeded brilliantly in its monumental undertaking.==

Most people of European extraction find this American-centric view of WWII very strange. The war was actually won by USSR, with allied help, to be sure. But it is more likely than not, that they would have won it even without allied help.

i think that we should just seened BUSH over seas to fight in this war that he likes so much... we should not be at war... BUSH JUSTS WANTS THAT OIL THAT IS OVER THERE.... people open your eyes and look at how much gas is and why... look back on it.. when was the last time gas was a Dollor. you look and gas has went up from day one when the war started.... will the war end.... i hope it does beform i lose more friends because of the war.... they are going over there to fight for something that they don't like but they are doing it... now if we have to have the DRAFT that means that men that don't want to fight over there will be forced to go adn fight and they might just lose their lives.... I HAVE OPENED MY EYES IT IS NOW TIME FOR THE WORLD TO DO THEY SAME... FOR NOW THE AGE OF PEOPLE KNOWING WANT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD IS GETTING YOUNGER.... THIS IS ONE THAT IS FROM SOMEONE THAT IS 18YEARS OLD...... PLEASE READ THIS AND OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE WORLD ADN STOP BEING SO CLOSED MINDED...... OPEN UP AND LOOK AROUND.....

Gil Scott Heron...I think your song sucks but don't be blue...I know a baby boomer, draft dodger leftist that will sing along with your lame hippie song...he is the former hippie, wanna be hippie again, my namesake

Sean #1!!!! He will love your song...puddleheads all over will be singing it...

i think that we should just seened BUSH over seas to fight in this war that he likes so much... we should not be at war... BUSH JUSTS WANTS THAT OIL THAT IS OVER THERE.... people open your eyes and look at how much gas is and why... look back on it.. when was the last time gas was a Dollor. you look and gas has went up from day one when the war started.... will the war end.... i hope it does beform i lose more friends because of the war.... they are going over there to fight for something that they don't like but they are doing it... now if we have to have the DRAFT that means that men that don't want to fight over there will be forced to go adn fight and they might just lose their lives.... I HAVE OPENED MY EYES IT IS NOW TIME FOR THE WORLD TO DO THEY SAME... FOR NOW THE AGE OF PEOPLE KNOWING WANT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD IS GETTING YOUNGER.... THIS IS ONE THAT IS FROM SOMEONE THAT IS 18YEARS OLD...... PLEASE READ THIS AND OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE WORLD ADN STOP BEING SO CLOSED MINDED...... OPEN UP AND LOOK AROUND.....

Gil Scott Heron...I think your song sucks...it is that oh too cute 60s nonsense all over again...so, since you are putting it out there for everyone to see, I want you to know that I think it sucks...out loud

[June 26 2006] Travus T. Hipp Morning News Commentary: Words Are VERY Important - The Semantics Of The Phrase 'Weapons Of Mass Destruction' And 'Terrorism''

http://www.archive.org/download/tth_060626/02_tth_060626.mp3

"So counterinsurgency it is, for now -- that is, until the terrorist hunters realize that the very people and governments we align ourselves with are part of the problem."

During World War II our principle allies were a Marxist state run by a psychopath (the USSR), a decrepit failed state "ruled" by a brutal warlord (China), an arrogant, grandiose and overextended colonial power with an empire it could no longer afford or control (the UK) and a general (Charles De Gaulle ) who pretended to represent a defeated nation (France)whose population mostly considered him irrelevant - until the conflict had clearly been decided in his favor.
Despite these rather imperfect partners, our nation succeeded brilliantly in its monumental undertaking. A similar observation is in order with respect to the Cold War - a list of our undesirable partners during this conflict could fill pages. In the first Gulf War, some of our principle allies included Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria.
My first point is that if we were to limit our involvement in world affairs to those instances in which we could acquire the backing of pristine partners, we would have achieved very little - and the world would be a much worse place. My second point is that we have avoided such an unhappy outcome by ignoring ninnies like Bill Arkin.

The Military and the Monetary,

use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary,
they make so many decisions that are arbitrary.

The Terrorist organization that attack us on 9/11 was al-Qaida. No other organization was involved in that attack. It is not our business to deal with every terrorist organization in the world. If they do not pose a threat to the U.S., they are none of our business. Most of the organizations are dealing with national interests of the countries they represent, or, in their view, they are being repressed by their own government. These are political problems that can only be solved their own government, or the governments of near neighbors. This shot gun approach to fighting terrorism only increases the Terrorist for the Americans.

We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
by talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war
and the preparation for war.

Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.

Get together whenever they think its necessary,

they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T2A0QdJVA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T2A0QdJVA[/video

WORK FOR PEACE
Gil Scott Heron

Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was politically dead.

But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed,
Because I remember him saying something,
mumbling something about a

Military Industrial Complex.

Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,

get together whenever they think its necessary,

They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,

use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary,
they make so many decisions that are arbitrary.

We're marching behind a commander in chief,
who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
but the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
so we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.

The Military and the Monetary,

were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a b-tch,
now all of a sudden he's legendary.

They took the honour from the honourary,
they took the dignity from the dignitaries,
they took the secrets from the secretary,
but they left the b-tch an obituary.

The Military and the Monetary,

from thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
cause we couldn't understand the f-ckin vocabulary.

Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
but there was some dumb ones as well,
scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.

The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,

War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
but they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
keeping the citizens secondary,
scaring old folks into coronaries.

The Military and the Monetary,

from thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
kept us all wondering if all of this was really truely, necessary.

We've got to work for Peace,

Peace ain't coming this way.

If we only work for Peace,

If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,

we'd have Peace.

The only thing wrong with Peace,

is that you can't make no money from it.

The Military and the Monetary,

they get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.

We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
by talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war
and the preparation for war.

Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.

Get together whenever they think its necessary,

they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,

We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
and saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.

Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
they may bomb the Pennsylvanians.

The Military and the Monetary,

get together whenever they think its necessary,
they have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
but its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over the world
in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.

When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though that,
thats not really any kind of contribution to make,
but we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the subway nowadays.

So this is a song about tommorrow and about how tommorrow can be better.
if we all, "Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one".

Nobody can do everything,
but everybody can do something,
everyone must play a part,
everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.

Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Cant be wavin your head no more, go to work.

---30---

For uncensored news please bookmark:

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www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

US severe poverty highest in three decades

By Naomi Spencer
5 March 2007

Extreme poverty in the US has reached its highest point in at least three decades, according to an analysis of Census Bureau figures by McClatchy Newspapers published February 22. The increase reflects the stark reality of declining living standards for the majority of the population in the so-called capitalist recovery of the past five years as well as during the period that preceded it.

In 2005, individuals earning less than $5,080 a year were considered severely poor; a family of four with two children was severely poor if they lived on less than $9,903. The data review found that nearly 16 million Americans in 2005 were living in severe poverty, or below half the federally designated poverty threshold.

This figure represents nearly half of the total poverty population, the highest proportion of the poverty population in dire straits since at least 1975. Between 2000 and 2005 alone, this group grew by 26 percent, even as the economy recovered from recession.

According to Tony Pugh, the author of the report, this growth in severe poverty was 56 percent more than the growth of the poverty population overall, which also grew substantially over the period.

In 2005, 12.6 percent of the population, or 37 million people, including 13 million children, lived below the official poverty line. The McClatchy report notes that about one in three severely poor people are under the age of 17, and that nearly two thirds of the poor population are female. Families headed by women bear a great deal of the deepest poverty in the US.

Minority families are disproportionately impoverished. Census data suggests that low-income blacks are more than three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be severely poor. Poor Hispanics are more than twice as likely to suffer severe poverty. In 2005, 4.3 million of the severely poor were black, and 3.7 million were Hispanic.

Many of the severely poor among minorities are older, having worked for decades in the now-collapsed manufacturing sector and developed job-related injuries and other health problems. The McClatchy report quoted congressional testimony from Community Service Society of New York City president David Jones, who remarked, "You have this whole cohort of, particularly, African-Americans of limited skills, men, who can't participate in the workforce because they don't have skills to do anything but heavy labor."

For the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/pov-m05.shtml

SEAN #1: "SSean likes to make the statement that if you're paying taxes, then you're the blame for the Iraq war.

sean: It is a simple point that your simple mind cannot grasp. You are a citizen in a republic. You are responsible for the decisions made in this country. If you are paying taxes, you own a part of the war machine and the war by extension...Was that easier mr baby boomer leftist draft dodger?

Posted by: sean | March 5, 2007 01:18 PM

Bush continues to lie, and use the surrogate assassins of the C.I.A. to foist his, his corporate, and his imperialist backers' fascist vision for the world, on the American public. Just business as usual for the most anti-democratic leader the U.S.A. has had to suffer. The Bush lie machine will not slow down; maybe it will even speed up now that Bush is a lame duck.

Dimitry: That sounds like faulty and dishonest logic to me. Let's make a strawman for the "bleeding heart liberals", by giving them a "choice" of hegemon that saves lives and a isolationist country that lets millions perish. In their "zeal" to "save lives" they will surely chose the hegemon...

Sean: The only reason we can do what we do is because we have the military hardware and the personnel available to do these things. You are not being realistic to think that teh US government is going to fund a large military for the upcoming Tsunami do you? The fact of the matter is, teh military is the only place you can support humanitarian relief to a hurricane or earthquake...and the military is a direct byproduct of our hegemony...I simply cannot imagine China or Russia performing those deeds. So yes Dimitri, it is a choice at least in supporting a large military...and how you do you sell that anyway?

Dimitri: We make a lousy hegemon, with a persnikety population that just doesn't like American casualties and billions spent in hegemonic wars of occupation. At the same time, our hegemonic ambitions continuously distort and subvert the humanitarian impulses of some of our policies. Dominate Iraq through sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands due to lack of vaccines? Sure.

Sean: I am waiting to hear better avenues of approach to sanctions...I am sure that unfortunatly there were shortages of things that the populace needed...but how do you enforce international law or do you think it should not be enforced?

Dimitri: The simple truth is that you don't have to kill people to help people. This truth continues to evade people and especially American people for some time now. Until this simple truth is realized, we will continue to destroy in the name of humanitarian intervention.

Sean: I am trying to think of one instance outside of humanitarian relief, that it was not necessary to kill people to help other people. I think that killing a bunch of Hutus in Rwanda in April 04 to get them to stop a genocide would have been killing to help people. Killing Serbs in 95 to stop the slaughter of Muslims was killing to stop killing. There are numerous examples of killing some people to help other people

Arkin,
"So counterinsurgency it is, for now -- that is, until the terrorist hunters realize that the very people and governments we align ourselves with are part of the problem."
It seems to me that in this clearly imperfect world, "terrorist hunters" surely realize that some governments we work with will be part of the problem. But since the "elements of national power" include, among other things, diplomacy, finance, information and intelligence, it appears to me that those "terrorist hunters" are considering that the US may actually use some of these to put pressure on to nudge those governments in the right direction. Will this be perfect? Of course not. But we have been doing this to some extent with Pakistan already.

"Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, I suppose it is a good thing that the terrorist hunters can come together to identify the task and the solution."
Smart aleck, this is not some new idea or stragegy cooked up in the last couple of months. Bush outlined this approach shortly after 911. From his speech on 9/20/2001: "Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.... And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It appears the only thing lacking was the actual word "counterinsurgency". (But that is too many syllables for Bush, isn't it.) Do tell if you have any better ideas on how to fight the "war" against terrorism.

Besides folks who have spent way too much time in situation rooms, does any remotely human person think counterinsurgency is the calling of this generation? This, in a nation that has had a very small set of terrorist acts, but has no effective terrorist groups?

Are we that afraid? Are we willing to define ourselves only by force (plus 6 other elements when we have to), often misdirected at civilians and innocents, in order to achieve some near-religious sense of being saved? What a shallow, cowardly, and unltimately futile attempt that would be.

War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
but they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
keeping the citizens secondary,
scaring old folks into coronaries.

The Military and the Monetary,

from thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
kept us all wondering if all of this was really truely, necessary.

We've got to work for Peace,

Peace ain't coming this way.

If we only work for Peace,

If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,

we'd have Peace.

The only thing wrong with Peace,

is that you can't make no money from it.

The Military and the Monetary,

they get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.

We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
by talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war
and the preparation for war.

Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.

Get together whenever they think its necessary,

they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,

We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
and saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.

Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
they may bomb the Pennsylvanians.

The Military and the Monetary,

get together whenever they think its necessary,
they have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.

I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
but its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over the world
in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.

When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though that,
thats not really any kind of contribution to make,
but we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the subway nowadays.

So this is a song about tommorrow and about how tommorrow can be better.
if we all, "Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one".

Nobody can do everything,
but everybody can do something,
everyone must play a part,
everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.

Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Cant be wavin your head no more, go to work.

---30---

They took the honour from the honourary,
they took the dignity from the dignitaries,
they took the secrets from the secretary,
but they left the b-tch an obituary.

The Military and the Monetary,

from thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
cause we couldn't understand the f-cking vocabulary.

Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
but there was some dumb ones as well,
scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.

The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,

The Military and the Monetary,

use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary,
they make so many decisions that are arbitrary.

We're marching behind a commander in chief,
who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
but the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
so we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.

The Military and the Monetary,

were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a b-tch,
now all of a sudden he's legendary.

WORK FOR PEACE
Gil Scott Heron

Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was politically dead.

But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed,
Because I remember him saying something,
mumbling something about a

Military Industrial Complex.

Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.

The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,

get together whenever they think its necessary,

They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet into a cemetery.

The Military and the Monetary,

GWOT?

It's a global moneymaker... That's for sure.

Just follow western financial interests to any corner of the earth and you will find people who hate us enough to want to terrorize us back.

Have you ever seen an AC-130 gunship in all it's blazing glory as it rains down a hail of chain gun fire on a village in Vie... I mean Afghanistan.

An awesomely terrifying sight.
Shock and awe.

...and we owe it all to "The military... the monetary... they get together whenver it is neccesary.

See you @ The Pentagon Mr. Arkin.
March 17 2007

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T2A0QdJVA]

Good to see Jerry My God is better than your God is running the counter insurgency operations...and people ask why we're losing. If you have incompetents running the show, than failure is not an option but a certainty. Why is Boykin still being paid thru the taxpayers money?

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

Breaking news!!!
Bush departments alliance with Al Qaeda related groups in Lebanon

A major focus of the US strategy is to weaken the Syrian government of President Bashir Assad and his alliance with Iran, and to undermine the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Bush administration actively encouraged Israel's savage bombardment and invasion of Lebanon last year as the opening shot in a broader campaign against Syria and Iran. But in a significant blow to US plans, Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah, which emerged from the rubble with heightened political stature. In an interview on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio, Hersh described Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as "the single most popular figure among Sunnis and Shias" in the Middle East.

In its efforts to counter the Shiite-based Hezbollah and shore up the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, the US is now covertly supporting Sunni extremist groups in Lebanon that are known to have close ideological ties to Al Qaeda. Nothing is more revealing of the criminal character of the Bush administration. In the name of fighting its bogus "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascists" to defend the American people, the White House has no compunction in forming in a de facto alliance with Sunni fanatics who pay homage to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

A former senior American intelligence official told veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh: "We are in a program to enhance Sunni capacity to resist Shiite influence, and we're spreading money around as much as we can... In this process, we're financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences. We don't have the ability to determine and get pay vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don't like. It's a very high-risk venture."

Former British MI6 agent Alastair Crooke, based at the Conflicts Forum think tank in Beirut, explained that Fatah al-Islam, which broke from the pro-Syrian group Fatah al-Intifada in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, had been offered money to fight Hezbollah. A larger Sunni fundamentalist group, situated at the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal security forces and militias associated with the Siniora government.

An article in the British-based Telegraph last month confirmed that President Bush had given the green light to the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the Lebanese prime minister. The classified presidential order "authorises the CIA and other US intelligence agencies to fund anti-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon and pay for activists who support the Siniora government. The secrecy of the finding [order] means that US involvement in the activities is officially deniable."

All these activities are going on behind the backs of the US Congress and the American people. It is no surprise that Elliot Abrams, who was convicted over the Iran-Contra affair, is a central figure in these dirty operations. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was involved in secretly selling arms to Iran as a means of covertly funding and arming the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua without congressional approval. Now Abrams is directing another criminal operation, involving the Saudis, to fund Sunni extremists to undermine Tehran and its allies as the US prepares to launch a war on Iran.

The close involvement of Saudi Arabia in the enterprise is particularly significant. The Saudi monarchy, which has a long history of financing Sunni fanatics, was a close partner in the 1980s in the CIA's backing of Mujaheddin fighters against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. The "blowback" from that operation included the creation of Al Qaeda, which called for a jihad against the US after American troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the first Gulf War in 1990-91. Now with Saudi assistance, the Bush administration is unleashing the same reactionary forces in its efforts to undermine Iran, with cynical disregard for the consequences.

As a US government consultant told Hersh, Prince Bandar and other Saudis had offered assurances that "they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was, 'We've created this movement, and we can control it.' It's not that we don't want the Salafis [Sunni fundamentalists] to throw bombs; it's who they throw them at--Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran." No doubt similar assurances were given in the 1980s that Riyadh would control a little-known Saudi engineer, Osama bin Laden, and his followers.

For the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/iran-f28.shtml