The Rush Subsides
November 17, 2006
Bush in Vietnam -- So Bush finally made it over to Vietnam, 40 years after he could have done some "good" if he really believed in the cause so much. And somehow, in Bizarro Bush Universe, the example of Vietnam is proof of the wisdom of his great folly in Iraq.According to The Guardian, Bush said the lesson of Vietnam is that we should have kept trying in Vietnam, with the implication that we should stay the course in Iraq.
"One lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraqis going to take a while," he said. "We'll succeed unless we quit."
According to Bush logic, based on conservative orthodoxy, the U.S. should have stayed the course in Vietnam. The war was lost because "we quit", and the underlying argument is the old one that the war was lost because the generals "had to fight with one hand behind their back" because of that awful nuisance, American public opinion. Fifty-eight thousand American deaths and millions of Vietnamese deaths were not enough. American should have stayed the course.
But if Bush had really believed in it, if he had gone to fight in the war his father supported, he might have been one of the casualties. What could the young Americans who died there have done if they had been allowed the privilege to avoid the war, to stay safely stateside and grow to maturity and live out their lives? Maybe one of them could have been president now.
One of my best friends was one of those who was never allowed to grow to manhood because he was killed in Vietnam when he was 19, and many many other Americans lost people who were close to them over that war. The Bush family is never forced to make any personal sacrifices over any of the wars they so eagerly perpetrate and "sell" to the American people. They just get rich off of them.
No, Vietnam is not a lesson that the U.S. should stay the course in Iraq. There is no course. There has never been a clearly stated objective. It's the 21st century version of the "domino theory". The Vietnamese wanted self-determination. The U.S. wanted to perpetuate the colonial regime of France, so it would have access to the rich rubber, tin and petroleum resources of Indochina. (Howard Zinn, from A People's History of the United States) It was not about the Grand Cause of Freedom versus Tyranny as the government stated at the time. The only freedom it was about was the freedom of corporations to take the resources they want from third world countries.
And in other news:
The Wisdom of Rummy -- Molly Ivins' "Farewell Rummy" gives an Ivinsesque analysis of the Rumsfeld departure with a list of great Rummy quotes.
Bush War Crimes Smoking Gun -- According to the Washington Post, "After years of denials, the CIA has formally acknowledged the existence of two classified documents governing aggressive interrogation and detention policies for terrorism suspects, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. But CIA lawyers say the documents -- memos from President Bush and the Justice Department -- are still so sensitive that no portion can be released to the public." Class Warfare Surfaces in WSJ -- According to an opinion editorial by Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb in The Wall Street Journal, "America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980."
November 23, 2006
An Assassin Speaks -- Now Henry Kissinger is saying "victory in Iraq is no longer possible under the conditions the Bush administration hopes to achieve", according to CNN. Yet this same Dr. Kissinger in August 2005 wrote in The Washington Post that "victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy." Should he apologize to all the people whose kids were killed in the last year trying to achieve what he advocated a year ago, but now says is impossible?Henry Kissinger, war criminal of the Nixon administration, who dodged the bullet of his crimes in his complicity in the Chilean coup of 1973, the secret bombing of Cambodia...
I love the way the establishment media likes to pawn these old criminals off on the public as if they are respectable authorities whose words should be taken very seriously, but never explains that they are criminals, or even gives any historical background. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North and many other great right wing thugs are now respected elders of the political culture. Kissinger, as a criminal, makes these guys look small time.
So because of the great vacuum of historical background in the establishment press, let's make note of some his criminal history to create a context for his remarks and some sources for further research:
Wanted for War Crimes: Henry Kissinger -- A decent summary of the crimes of an indecent man. ZMag Kissinger's Crimes -- "How Dr. Henry Kissinger orchestrated global repression", Third World Traveler Good Americans -- According to John Judge, Kissinger "worked with General Lucius Clay at Oberammergau, and then with key stateside Army Intelligence and CIA units responsible for bringing in the Nazi spies. Kissinger, who came from Germany to join U.S. Army Intelligence during World War II, had as his 'mentor' the mysterious Fritz Kraemer. Kraemer's 30-year silent career in the Pentagon plans division includes the prepping of Alexander Haig. It may also conceal his real identity -- prisoner #33 in the dockets at Dachau, the special Lieutenant to Hitler, Fritz Kraemer." Kissinger as 9/11 Truth Seeker -- David Corn in The Nation sums up some of Kissinger's colorful history. Kissinger and Pinochet -- "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here," Kissinger told General Augusto Pinochet on June 8, 1976, after years of killing and repression in Chile. Peter Kornbluh And in other news:
Failure is an Orphan -- Now that the neocon Iraq adventure is undeniably an abysmal failure, the original promoters of the project are falling off the bandwagon in a most undignified fashion. According to the Washington Post, the insiders are infighting over the failure as it continues to slide into ever worse territory. Bush got his war. He got total power. Congress ceded their power to him. He used it. He failed dismally. Now what? Old Dogs, Same Tricks -- At the same time that the Iraq debacle is an unqualified failure with no exit in sight, some madmen ideologues are advocating more of the same, like this fool writing "Bomb Iran" in the LA Times. "A show of force is the only answer," writes neocon Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute. Did they learn nothing from Iraq? Do they want to further extend the damage, further bleed our armed forces, further erode America's standing in the world? Are they out of their minds? What do you do after you bomb? Muravchik doesn't seem to care. Deja vu. It's just that mad rage -- to bomb someone. Thicker Than Water -- George Bush Senior met a hostile audience in the United Arab Emirates, where his son is deeply hated, as elsewhere in the world. It's a fascinating glimpse of Bushism, the strangely distorted thinking we've come to know so well over the years. He typically equated disapproval of his sons policies with hatred of America itself. "How come everybody wants to come to the United States if the United States is so bad?" he said. His voice quivered, according to the International Herald Tribune, when he said, "This son is not going to back away. He's not going to change his view because some poll says this or some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the lady who feels deeply in her heart about something. You can't be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you're going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It's not easy." Yet he feels his "heartfelt comments" should be given special consideration. "It takes a lot of guts to get up and tell a father about his son in those terms when I just told you the thing that matters in my heart is my family."
November 18, 2006
Election Fraud Yes, But Not Enough -- According to an analysis by the Election Defense Alliance, "there was gross vote count manipulation and it had a great impact on the results of E2006, significantly decreasing the magnitude of what would have been, accurately tabulated, a landslide of epic proportions. Because virtually all of this manipulation appears to have been computer-based, and therefore invisible to the legions of at-the-poll observers, the public was informed of 'isolated incidents and glitches' but remains unaware of the far greater story: The electoral machinery and vote counting systems of the United States did not honestly and accurately translate the public will and certainly can not be counted on to do so in the future." (Read about it in detail at "Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006") Comparing exit poll data with the official counts, EDA finds that "the exit poll indicates a Democratic victory margin nearly 4%, or 3 million votes, greater than the margin actually recorded by the vote counting machinery. This is far outside the margin of error of the poll and has less than a one in 10,000 likelihood of occurring as a matter of chance."
Read more at OpEdNews.com: "'We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape,' said attorney Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance, 'so "the fix" turned out not to be sufficient for the actual circumstances.' Explained Simon, 'When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater the risk of exposure--of provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1 fell short on November 7.'"
See also "Electronic voting: the silent catastrophe" by Jon Stokes.
November 20, 2006
Murder and More -- It's terrible to be dragged into making a reluctant comment on the OJ story, resurfacing now after so many years. I didn't pay that much attention to the story at the time of the trial, but you couldn't help hearing about it and at the time of his acquittal I remember saying, "He's guilty; he's crazy; and he'll come to a bad end." It seemed from what little I picked up about it that the evidence was powerful that he had done it. And if he was crazy enough to do it, and he was able to avoid being convicted for it, it seemed that would reinforce his wild megalomania, he would be too crazy to moderate his behavior, and would inevitably get into more trouble down the road.
Then I came across some reporting by Alex Constantine that indicated that the whole case was much more complicated than I had imagined, that Simpson was involved in drug deals that involved officials in Los Angeles government, the police department and the CIA and because of those high-level connections, much was being covered up. After that I realized I had been a fool to ever think I knew anything about the case, which I had only heard about in the same corporate media that gives such bad information on everything else.
Now Madman Simpson has a new book that describes the murder "as if" he did it. (See TimesOnline) Apparently he describes the murder of his wife and her friend along the lines of what he would have done if he had actually done it, and some who have read it say it's a confession -- or maybe a boast. Why anyone who wasn't crazy would produce such a foul document is hard to fathom. And of course it deserves no one's attention, but it's so bizarre that it's hard to entirely ignore.
Now even if you can give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether he actually committed the murders, this act is so loathsome, so disrespectful of his murdered wife and her family -- it reveals a character so devoid of human decency, even the most rudimentary social graces -- that it puts him on the level of a murderer anyway. He's murdering them again, as it were, mocking the most elemental laws of human conduct.
Now it brings me back to my initial reaction. He certainly seems guilty of the murder, but even if not, he's capable of it, sympathized with the act. He's definitely crazy, an absolute megalomaniacal madman, a psychopath without empathy or remorse. Whether he'll come to a bad end or not is also in question. In this perverse society that rewards the most wicked, pathological behavior, there may be no consequences that can ever penetrate his mad, psychopathological shell. And it seems the failure to convict may have been a result of the fact that so many important people had to be protected, it was impossible to unravel the whole story in public. Now O.J. is not only free, but empowered with a kind of immunity based on the necessity of keeping most of the story covered up.
See also Virtual Government by Alex Constantine, konformist.com, The Florida/Hollywood Mob Connection
November 22, 2006
Always Worth Noting -- Today was the day President John F. Kennedy was gunned down on a crowded street in Dallas. It's an important part of our history and the fact that it is unresolved is related to the current state of dysfuntional democracy in America. As a country, the U.S. cannot move on until it resolves its history. That is, if the official history of the country is false, its vision of the future cannot be real.
November 24, 2006
BBC on the CIA and RFK -- The BBC aired a segment in which filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan shows his discovery in film of the night of Robert Kennedy's death of three CIA agents in the room, men who had no official business being there, who were outside of their jurisdiction in Los Angeles. O'Sullivan shows quite a bit of evidence that the CIA operatives were involved in the assassination. The autopsy of RFK, by the way, showed that he had been shot from behind and nearly point blank range, while the Palestinian who was nabbed as the alleged lone assassin was six feet in front of Kennedy. Check out the haunting video clip at the BBC site. Will anything ever be done about these unsolved murders of the '60s?Presidential Ludicrousness -- Robert Sheer: "President Bush has said many dumb things in defense of his Iraq policy. Citing the Vietnam War as a model, however, is perhaps his most ludicrous yet." Kennedy Assassination 40 Years Later -- According to a CBS poll, only one out of 10 people believe Oswald was the lone assassin. Why The JFK Assassination Still Matters -- Attytood
November 25, 2006
Former German Defense Minister on CIA and 9/11 -- I came across an interview by Alex Jones of former German Defense Minister Andreas von Bulow, who has written a book called 9/11 and the CIA. Not new, but very interesting, coming from a man of his stature in the German government for many years. The transcript is here, the video is here."Fresh Eyes" for Blood -- Robert Gates advocated air strikes against Nicaragua. So much for these fresh eyes. "The target of Gates' anxieties was Nicaragua's leftist president, Daniel Ortega," said the Washington Post.
November 28, 2006
Look Out Bush -- Here comes Henry Waxman. Associated Press Howard Zinn -- on the uses of history and the so-called war on terrorism. "One of the things we can learn from history is that history is not only a history of things inflicted on us by the powers that be. History is also a history of resistance. It's a history of people who endure tyranny for decades, but who ultimately rise up and overthrow the dictator. We've seen this in country after country, surprise after surprise. Rulers who seem to have total control, they suddenly wake up one day, and there are a million people in the streets, and they pack up and leave. This has happened in the Philippines, in Yemen, all over, in Nepal. Million people in the streets, and then the ruler has to get out of the way. So, this is what we're aiming for in this country. Everything we do is important. Every little thing we do, every picket line we walk on, every letter we write, every act of civil disobedience we engage in, any recruiter that we talk to, any parent that we talk to, any GI that we talk to, any young person that we talk to, anything we do in class, outside of class, everything we do in the direction of a different world is important, even though at the moment they seem futile, because that's how change comes about. Change comes about when millions of people do little things, which at certain points in history come together, and then something good and something important happens." democracynow.org
November 29, 2006
Lyndon's Girlfriend -- On the subject of the Kennedy Assassination, see Alex Jones' Prison Planet, for footage and transcript of an interview with Lyndon Johnson's girlfriend at the time of the Kennedy assassination. That Johnson would have been in on the Kennedy assassination is just too obvious. So much points to it, that it happened in Texas, Johnson being the most obvious immediate benefactor. And yet, as obvious a suspect as he would have been in an impersonal analysis of the crime, it was rarely considered except in nasty jokes. Johnson's complicity would not mean that other well-known suspects in the mob, the CIA or the anti-Castro Cubans were not also complicit, of course. But this interview is worth looking at. You will not see this on network TV. Now Add the Sense of Hearing -- New BBC special on 9/11 shown last September around the five-year anniversary of the event, shows a shot of the Trade Center from pretty close as it came down, close enough to hear clearly a rapid fire succession of explosions, rat-tat-tat almost like machine gun fire. If you really think some smoldering black smoke fires at the top of the towers caused both of them do disintegrate into dust, take a listen to this. Keep your ears open. This was no spontaneous building collapse. ricksiegel.com More on Demolition -- For a more in-depth look at controlled demolition, see the film 9/11 Mysteries. This gives you a little more background on the rare specialty of controlled demolition, how it's done, the few in the world who know how to do it, the language they use, such as "pull it", as the WTC landlord himself said when discussing the collapse of WTC 7. Who are you going to believe, Bush or your own eyes, ears and common sense? Don't be afraid to know. Be afraid not to know. See it at Google Video A 100-Year War -- Alex Jones' Terror Storm, a good film on government manipulation of populations through phony attacks.