On McCain's Foreign Policy

From Sully:

What the Obama campaign has lost sight of, I think, and what it needs to regain control of, is the essential message of his candidacy. After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing, ideological and deceptive foreign policy of the current crew. The damage that neoconservatism has done to America, to the Middle East, to democratic norms, to Israel's security, to civilized values and fiscal sanity is immense and deep. From his knee-jerk COld War posture over Georgia to his Rovian campaign tactics, McCain is simply too close to this disastrous record to contemplate. McCain's trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk. He is a recipe for more, wider and far more destructive warfare.

Kanye West Heads To Iraq To Help Kanye West

The famous crybaby rapper is going to Iraq for an MTV doc. There, he'll hand out money to the troops or something. By the end of the trip he'll revert to his usual asshole self and be drug kicking to a helicopter screaming "THESE PURPLE HEARTS IS MINES!!!"

9 Out Of 10 Terrorist Leaders Agree With Hopey

Barack's plan for Iraq got a thumbs up from someone who might know what the hell is going on over there..........Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Josh Marshall reax:

I've spent a couple hours now trying to process the probable impact of Prime Minister al Maliki's explicit endorsement of Barack Obama's 16 month timetable for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. My first instinct is always to try not to overstate the impact of momentary developments. But I don't think it's enough to say this is a huge development. It's huger than that. In a stroke, I think, al Maliki has cut McCain off at the knees in a way I'm not sure his campaign strategy can recover from.

...McCain has invested his entire campaign in support for the purportedly nascent Iraqi democracy al Maliki represents and the claim that Obama's support for a timetable for withdrawal irresponsibly risks losing the gains we've achieved and giving Iraq back to al Qaeda.

Here, with a brush of the hand and in so many words, al Maliki says, "No, we're good."

McCain responded, called everyone in the room a cunt, then complained about it being "too goddamned cold in here."

Notorious I.R.A.Q.I.

How have I not seen this before?

Not That Important

Someone forgot to take his meds.

Shut Up And Enjoy Your Delicious Freedoms

From HuffPo:

The U.S. military fired guided missiles into the heart of Baghdad's teeming Sadr City slum on Saturday, leveling a building 55 yards away from a hospital and wounding nearly two dozen people.

AP Television News footage showed several ambulances destroyed and on fire, thick black smoke rising from them as firefighters worked to put out the flames.

The strike, made from a ground launcher, took out a militant "command-control center," the U.S. military said. The center was located in the heart of the eight-square-mile neighborhood that is home to about 2.5 million people. Iraqi officials said at least 23 people were wounded, though none of them were patients in the hospital.

Elderly Juan McCain Throws Oil Under The Bus

Topping learning there is no Santa Claus and seeing Hermione Granger's whatnot on the intertubes on the list of things that have shattered my worldview, the kindly ol' senile gent from Arizona just let me know that George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to me.

Juan McCain had another senior moment: slipping up and telling me Operation Iraqi Freedom was not at all about freedoms or terrors or little Iraqi lapel pins. It was all so that stupid bitch next to me at the gas pumps that can't drive her Excursion in the first place has plenty of oil to endager people for 100 miles.



The elderly man immediately blacked out and fell asleep for 14 hours. He awoke the next day and, after someone reminded him of what had happened, had this to say:

"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.


One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.

"If the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.

"The Congressional Record is very clear: I said we went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Still confused by the flashing lights and the crazy image taking contraption that was stealing his soul, McWALNUTS! then had this to say about the above stuff that he didn't say:

But then when specifically asked by an Associated Press reporter if, when he made the statement, he was “thinking about the first Gulf War,” he said no.

“No, I was thinking about- it’s not hard to- we will not,” McCain stumbled. “By eliminating our dependency on foreign oil, we will not have to have our national security threatened by a cut off of that oil. Because we will be dependent, because we won’t be dependent, we will no longer be dependent on foreign oil. That’s what my remarks were.”

He then screamed "What the hell are you lookin' at!?!?", punched the reporter in the throat, and shuffled his way back to his plane before he miss Jeopardy.

via HuffPo and MSNBC

War, Lies, and Misjudgment

via BraveNewFilms

Last Call Home

via BraveNewFilms

Fucking Hippies

Yesterday, a bunch of stinky whiney hippies decided to protest the Iraq war. Wonkette was on the case:

Simple and subtle. Best of the day. Thank you for drawing this masterpiece of crayon for us, Senator David Vitter. We'll change your diaper shortly.

They also had great coverage of the D.C. clusterfuck here, here, and here.

via Wonkette

5 Years

The cost?

At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.

Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.

Not to mention:






via BraveNewFilms / NY Times

Depraved

photo via Getty

Whether or not you agree with the war in Iraq, there is an undeniable evil on the streets of Baghdad that we should all be thankful doesn't exist on Main St., USA.

Friday, Al Qaeda strapped explosives to two mentally disabled women and set off an explosion that killed at least 65, wounding 150.

The war may have been a mistake, and maybe even have exacerbated the violence. But, no one should live in a world where the least of us are used as ideological or religious pawns in a malignant bloodbath.

via NY Times

Jeebus is Lord of Iraq

The 700 Club never fails to deliver:

Blackwater Cool with Killing Non-Brown People Too

Capt. Kincy Clark with 2005 photo showed a Blackwater helicopter releasing CS gas at a checkpoint in Baghdad.


Blackwater, known for it's delicate and diplomatic handling in the Iraq War, dropped CS gas over a Baghdad checkpoint back in May of 2005.

Only 1 problem.

Our American soldiers were there:

“This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. “It’s not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.”


via NY Times