No-Joke Killer Punch Line
Filed Under Just Plain War, Madness, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Tonight President Obama is reportedly set to go on national TV and proclaim the end to the Iraqi war, of course, without using the infamous phrase, “mission accomplished” — a tightrope walk between half-truth and full-blown lie.
And the peace president will also not mention the other war zone, Afghanistan, where it’s been a nightmare for US GIs — four more died today, bringing the the total to 16 killed since last Friday.
The end to hostilities my ass.
(Illustration found here).
Jeff Huber, one of my most favorite war commentators, has a piece this morning on Obama’s plea for everyone to understand how the Iraqi war has ended and the US has won — and so there.
Huber blogs at Pen and Sword, but this one was found at antiwar.com.
Money quote:
The entire planet knows Obama’s “fulfilled promise” to end the U.S. combat mission was an exercise in sleight-of-tongue Neo-speak, and all signs indicate that the December 2011 status of forces agreement (SOFA) deadline by which all U.S. troops are supposed to leave Iraq has already gone the way of the pay phone.
I’m also outta here! Mission unfounded!
Krugman at 4 a.m.
Filed Under Finance, Media, Musings | Leave a Comment
In keeping with the reality of early morning, it’s always a heart-touching, easy embrace to read Nobel Prize-winner and NYT columnist Paul Krugman, especially on Mondays — in a quiet, peaceful pre-dawn it’s hard to believe the USA and the world is going to shit in a wire basket.
A lot of folks don’t like the guy, he’s a Democrat, which puts him on the same bus with Hitler, book-burners, mass-killers, and ah, let’s see, maybe Satan.
I’ve always enjoyed his work, though, sometimes he gets a bit technical and one-sided, but overall he seems to see the holes in the fabric of economic policy and all its side issues.
He said early on Obama’s financial stimulus package was way-too small, and sure-enough, now everybody seems to agree much-more cash-up-front was required way-back 18 months ago.
This morning, Krugman’s column is about the horror of the coming mid-term elections and the extreme-near future.
There’s concern about a nasty-mouthed, right-wing saying whatever ugly thought comes to its mind, i.e., asshole, fat-cheeked, Rush Limbaugh’s recent “Imam Hussein Obama” bullshit:
To get a sense of how much it matters when people like Mr. Limbaugh talk like this, bear in mind that he’s an utterly mainstream figure within the Republican Party; bear in mind, too, that unless something changes the political dynamics, Republicans will soon control at least one house of Congress.
This is going to be very, very ugly.
Yes, most indeed.
Frank Rich, Krugman’s stable-mate at the NYT, also had a Sunday piece on right-wing bullshit.
Money quote at the end:
When wolves of Murdoch’s ingenuity and the Kochs’ stealth have been at the door of our democracy in the past, Democrats have fought back fiercely.
Franklin Roosevelt’s triumphant 1936 re-election campaign pummeled the Liberty League as a Republican ally eager to “squeeze the worker dry in his old age and cast him like an orange rind into the refuse pail.”
When John Kennedy’s patriotism was assailed by Birchers calling for impeachment, he gave a major speech denouncing their “crusades of suspicion.”
And Obama?
So far, sadly, this question answers itself.
And at 4 a.m. that’s a real ugly, sad reality.
Ain’t Goin’ Back
Filed Under Just Plain War | Leave a Comment
Soldiers are people, too.
(Illustration found here).
War fucks people up in more ways than maybe 200.
Fighting with the US military nowadays is a 24/7/365 ordeal — none of this back in (the) world Vietnam bullshit describing being in country and anywhere else, particularly hometown USA.
In the near-nine years since Sept. 11, 2001 (on-point since the original invasion of Afghanistan), people serving in grunt divisions of the US armed services have been shredded to pieces, especially the poor peoples in the Guard units — a weekend, non-serious-military, regular-guy-on-a-job, then in a few weeks, a frightful, ready-to-puke guy picking up body parts in Fallujah.
Some degree of soldier blowback should be expected from close to a decade of constant, horrifying, mind-bending warfare with the Iraq debacle (let’s not even go there in any detail, it would only make me puke anger onto my laptop, the damn thing is already in bad enough shape) decimating whatever there was of a US military.
Bringing home war-zone memories has become part-and-parcel of being a modern soldier: “…at 12 months following combat, the prevalence of mental health problems among veterans does not abate, and in many cases, increases.”
And killing oneself is a release from these mental health problems.
Last year, according to an in-depth US Army study released in July, 160 active duty soldiers took their lives in the 2009 fiscal year, putting the army suicide rate at a record 20.2 per 100,000, exceeding the national average of 19.2 for the first time.
Which in turn, concluded the study: “Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”
And the problem isn’t just repeated deployments to horrible war zones, it’s also the very anticipation of going to battle as “79 percent of the soldiers who committed suicide had had only one deployment, or had not deployed at all.”
And those poor weekend warriors.
From McClatchy: Suicides among Army and Air National Guard and Reserve troops have spiked this year, and the military is at a loss to explain why. Sixty-five members of the Guard and Reserve took their own lives during the first six months of 2010, compared with 42 for the same period in 2009. The grim tally is further evidence that suicides continue to plague the military even though it’s stepped up prevention efforts through counseling and mental health awareness programs.
If soldiers aren’t killing themselves, they’re just not coming back to work.
Buried deep in the recent US Army report on military suicides is a eye-opener about the status of ordinary service people.
Via HuffPost:
Since 2004, the number of soldiers going AWOL, deserting, and “missing movement” — that is failing to deploy when they’re supposed to — has gone up a shocking 234 percent.
The Army includes this fact on page 92 of the 350 page document, in a section on misdemeanor crimes — alongside motor vehicle violations, substance abuse, and other crimes — which collectively have been rising at the rate of more than 5,000 a year for the last five years.
“Good order and discipline are on the decline,” the report says.
The big, real-vital difference, of course, between Vietnam and the US continual wars nowadays is the absence of any kind of military draft — which in itself would not have allowed George Jr. and The Dick to turn whole countries to slaughter houses, not for long anyway, as there would have been a major uproar.
The US did have 500,000 troops in Vietnam, though, but still couldn’t get the war together, and that’s horribly creepy.
Riots and all kinds of animated public displays, Walter Cronkite, a ton of stuff quickly made the Vietnam war a no-win situation and every asshole knew it.
The US is into war, apparently just for the damn sake of war.
A recent instance: The US is currently putting together a $60 billion military-hardware deal with Saudi Arabia, a deal festered first by George Jr. and then aided and abetted by Obama, a package which includes F-15 fighter aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters.
Israel should have been worried, but they’re getting a deal, too — the Saudi F-15s won’t carry long-range offensive gear.
What does it matter, though, because the US is dealing with both sides.
The chief bit from the WSJ’s piece on the arms deal:
The Saudi deal could increase pressure on Israel to quickly commit to buying the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, which Lockheed Martin Corp. could start delivering as early as 2015, around the same time the Saudis would begin to get new F-15s.
How can US GIs be absent without leave in wars conducted with an absence of humanity and sense.
Sweet in the Chaos of Sour
Filed Under Cloud gazing | Leave a Comment
In the daily grind — it’s early AM in California again — there’s some notice of just how sweet little things can be, something to slow the sliver of wood-fragment-splinter of bad shit covering the news of the world.
I’ve sent this to a couple of my children — one posted it on her Facebook page.
Watch and weep with joy here.
And for another one, even more sweet, yet with a touch of hilarious, check this out.
Have a WTF day.
Insomniac
Filed Under Musings, Scratching Sounds | Leave a Comment
Early here on California’s north coast — 4:15 a.m. to be exact — and with Yerba Mate cursing through the veins, the world looks cleaner and nicer without all the pompous sound from a shitload of awake peoples.
Sound and sight is more clear this time of day, as if the misery and wretchedness was faraway and long ago.
Not! A bitch fit does work, sometimes.
A push and a shove with the words of the morning (and day): Steve Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who melted down Monday after a fight with a passenger, has turned into a kind of freakish folk hero: By early Tuesday afternoon, more than 20,000 people had declared themselves supporters of Slater on Facebook, and the number was growing by thousands every hour. At least one fan set up a legal fund on his behalf.
And a friend told a giant gaggle of reporters and photogs after the press became too great: “Leave, leave leave.”
Yes and good morning.