War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Seemingly so long ago: Before the war with Iraq, Powell bluntly told Bush that if he sent U.S. troops there “you’re going to be owning this place.” Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, used to refer to what they called “the Pottery Barn rule” on Iraq: “You break it, you own…
A peep-hole into the soul of government can be witnessed during this mad-cap debt ceiling bullshit — one can see just how far a small, small portion of the population can near-about bring down a country. The crying, finger-pointing, wailing — i.e., John ‘The Boner‘ Boehner telling his beloved own to “get your ass in…
(Illustration found here). Dawn is still about 90 minutes away here on California’s northern coastline, and a thick Pacific fog compels this little corner of a world-gone-utterly bonkers to remain quiet and still. And bonkers be it — there’s enough ugly going on right now to either make me so sad I want to cry,…
New US DOD honcho Leon Panetta opened his big yap last week and blubbered to the troops in Iraq that they were there “because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” but he, of course, was just playing, talking shit to the troops. He backpedaled, or tried to run it back: “I wasn’t saying, you…
In a horrid news cycle where events fill the airwaves no matter the content — i.e., currently Casey Anthony and the US debt ceiling debate/debacle — blanket everything else, including the ongoing wars all over the place. And especially lost in the bullshit is the horror of US killing of civilians under the righteous banner…
(Illustration found here). Upchucking the ‘toon above: The good news is not gay — it’s pretty-much a hard-packed ass, not happy at all. In reality, there’s no good news. As Sunday morning dawns, the news cycle is still Casey Anthony — she was released back into the wild with all kinds of implications amid death…
(Illustration found here). Even beyond the way-hot weather in the central and eastern US, the disastrous wars all over the globe, and finally even beyond Casey Anthony, the news tearing at the very tattered fabric of everyday life is the infamous, so-called debt ceiling bullshit in which the whacks in DC are deeply bickering. Although,…
Lawyers apparently have always been legal assholes. From Roman third-century lawyer, Ulpian, on torture: “The strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain.” Yet to torture is a righteous path: “…the torment and suffering of the body in order to elicit the truth.” Despite the recorded fact that torture does…
All over the hotel, dignitaries, who had come to the capital to discuss the future of Afghanistan’s security, locked themselves in lavatories or hid under beds as the killing began. — The Telegraph, on the attack last week at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel Despite the slaughter at one of Afghanistan’s supposedly most-secure locations, President Obama still…
One of the most-horrible stories in a long, long list of horrible stories coming from war waged nowadays: Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in a cloth and then detonated the bomb remotely when she was close to a police vehicle, Afghan authorities said…