Sometimes, You Need Some Straight Talk

After eight years, you finally get it:

Obama Press Conference, South Dakota, May 16, 2008

Privatize Everything!

America's New Army - Can you live with it?
Blackwater USA
Blackwater USA - Wikipedia
Democracy Now
Sourcewatch
Corpwatch
Iraq For Sale - Blackwater
Hattip list, Rare!

The Age of Irresponsibility - Newsweek - Michael Hirsh
U.S. Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints - Washington Post
Top Ten PR Moves for Blackwater - Danger Room Blog; Wired
Iraq Limits Blackwater's Operations - Time - Adam Zagorin and Brian Bennett
Iraqi PM disputes Blackwater's Version - USA Today














Blackwater accused of Illegally Smuggling Weapons Into Iraq - CNN/Youtube

A different view
Warriors for Hire - Weekly Standard
Iraq Reviewing Security Firms After Blackwater Shooting
Blackwater Blackballed - Captain's Quarters Blog

Just asking.

And yes, I remember this.

Oh Woe Is Me

Between Dick Cheney's killing all of the fish in Oregon to today's Supreme Court decision on school integration, all I can think is that we're all doomed. And that's not even taking into account twenty bodies found beheaded along the Tigris River or rumors of rioters being killed in Iran.

Doomed, I tells ya. Doomed.

On top of everything else, kayaking was cancelled tonight due to stormy weather.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

B.(ombs) O.(ver) B.(aghdad)

[Dre] Don't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bang

[Choir] Bombs over Baghdad!
[Dre] Yeah! Ha ha yeah!
Don't even bang unless you plan to hit something
[Choir] Bombs over Baghdad!
[Dre] Yeah! Uhh-huh

Outkast's "B.O.B." (Bombs Over Baghdad), Stankonia, 2000

I'm in an Outkast kind of mood lately. TIME named Stankonia one of the Top 100 influential albums of All-TIME, but then again, TIME likes to name things. It will be to my everlasting shame that it is that album, and not at the least its predecessor album, Aquemini, that was my first radar-glimpse of Outkast. Unfortunately, I spent Outkast's formative years in outcast land myself, otherwise known as grad school, over the period where they first came on the 'scene.' Grad school, work, more grad school and some tiny semblance of a theater life (I could never really leave it... ) kept me away from that *jazzhands* craaazzy beat. Anyway.... look at me now! I got me a j.o.b. AND I'm catching up on my music! Whew....

Anyhoo... One day, I'm going into the Outkast Time Machine and check out their stuff from before and after Stankonia (my life B.S. and A.S, I suppose). One day I might actually buy Speakerboxx/The Love Below, too. In the meantime, there's one song in particular that I can't get out of my head from Stankonia, which works well with annihilating the endless Christmas music currently stuck there. That song is B.O.B. or Bombs Over Baghdad.

I think Andre 3000, formerly known as Dre, had it right: "Don't pull that thang out unless you plan to do something." Well, we certainly pulled the thing out, but our plan after that in Iraq left us all with something to be desired: an intelligent strategy lead by a capable president. Man, did we get shafted.

I'm also thinking of this ditty because I have the feeling we're going to be dancing another ditty and singing another round of 'bombs over Baghdad' before the day is through. I hope not, but the White House's long PR march goes on...

Anyway, sometimes all you can do is dance it out...

News to America: It's a Civil War

If this is not a civil war, Wolf, I don't want to see one when it comes.
-- CNN Correspondent Michael Ware in Baghdad to the Situation Room's Wolf Blitzer.
Today's news has several stories on whether what's happening in Iraq can now be called a Civil War. News Flash, Newsmedia: This question of "Is Iraq a civil war," was predicted for Iraq in 2004. I guess now that the violence has reached a point today were NBC can declare 'officially' that "Civil War" is the correct term for what's happening in Iraq, we can all freaking agree that it's a Civil War! Whooboy, thanks for that clarification, you news reporting, vanilla ice cream brain frozen media numbnuts, because I thought for the past few years that I was just going out of my fucking mind, cause to me, it looked like a Civil War a while ago. Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster in the beer mountain firmament, who in their right mind COULD NOT THINK A CIVIL WAR WAS A'COMING NOT TO MENTION, ALREADY HERE?!?

Jiminy freaking cricket!
Jumping jehosophat!

Ack.

I guess now we can 'safely' discuss the facts of this war.

The facts as I personally see them are:
Fact #1: We started this Civil War.
Fact #2: We started this fucking Civil War because our leaders are incompetent boobs who lied to us and adeptly went about this war to help their bottom line.
Fact #3: It's a Civil War. End of story. Move on.
Fact #4: We Americans, as a unified nation (some fucking how) have got to get off of our asses and really tackle the problem of Iraq. Together.
Fact #5: Unfortunately, we have no fucking clue what to do to fix the problem.
Fact #6: We're all fucked.

OK, there are some things we can do to fix Fact #5:
1. Get out of Iraq. I don't know what's going to happen to the people of Iraq. I do care about what happens to the people of Iraq. I care about what happens to our men and women there as well. I know that us staying there is not the solution and is only making the problem worse.
2. Go back to the drawing board. Go back to the place where we dropped the ball first: Afghanistan. Shore that up now.
3. Start talking to not only the Israelis, but the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Russians (and shall I add, tell them to stop killing journalists and ex-spies), the Saudis, the Koreans, the wooly space monsters. Talk to anyone about anything. Talk about the weather, for all I care, just start talking.
4. Start using diplomacy. God, I wish Colin Powell were at least still Secretary of State. Condi is too contaminated to be affective anymore. Powell still has some modicum of respect in the world, if only an iota.
5. Smack the American people up side the head to get them involved in this war thing. How do you do that? The draft legislation that Rep. Charles Rangel, of New York, talks about might be one thing to do, but another way is to actually have an administration that will stop using bullheaded rhetoric laced with Christian eschatology. Lou Dobbs tonight asked three former military leaders what they thought our biggest mistakes have been in Iraq. Retired General Bernard Trainor said, "We have failed to mobilize the Nation." To do what, I don't know, but it's better than not even knowing we are at war.

Here's some more coherent things we can do, as suggested by this 'gold-leafed' er, "blue ribbon" (whatever) panel, the Iraq Study Group.

Other that, I got nothing. I'm willing to put my head together with the rest of the Nation to figure this crap out. Fact #6, though, is that we're still all fucked. It's mindboggling. But at least we now know it's a freaking Civil War.


iOblivious t-shirt, in the RottenApples series, may be purchased from Good Storm.

Who's Exploiting the Situation?

It's 2:05 AM here in NYC, and I'm up awaiting the forgone verdict on the guilt of Saddam Hussein mid-afternoon and a billion miles away in Iraq. It's funny how this verdict has been manipulated to coincide with the U.S. election. I've heard a lot of chirping lately from Republicans about Democrats manipulating this and blurting out that in an effort to sway the election. I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander. What a crock of shit.

All I know is that if or when a verdict of guilt and a sentence of death comes out, all hell will break lose in Iraq. God be with us all when it does.

If you don't think this is all an effort on the part of the Bush Administration to manipulate the current election situation here in the States, then you just haven't been paying attention to how this administration works.

UPDATE: Rare88 has brought up a good point: Hussein was convicted for atrocities committed in 1982, when he shook hands with Rummy and was a considered a friend of America's. Not many journalists are bringing this point out. Robert Fisk has:

This was a guilty verdict on America as well

Published: 06 November 2006

So America's one-time ally has been sentenced to death for war crimes he committed when he was Washington's best friend in the Arab world. America knew all about his atrocities and even supplied the gas - along with the British, of course - yet there we were yesterday declaring it to be, in the White House's words, another "great day for Iraq". That's what Tony Blair announced when Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti was pulled from his hole in the ground on 13 December 2003. And now we're going to string him up, and it's another great day.

R.I.P.: 2nd Lt. Emily Perez

Second Lieutenant Emily J.T. Perez graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point in 2005. At West Point, she was the first black woman to serve as corps commander sergeant major, and finished academically in the top 10 percent of her class.

In Iraq, she served as a Medical Service Corps Officer and was assigned to the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. She deployed in December 2005.

She died in Al Kifl, Iraq on September 12, 2006. She was 23 years old.



Thank you, and rest in peace, and I'm sorry.

Sign a legacy guest book for her family here.

The Daily Kos has more information on this remarkable young woman and American patriot.