In Their Memory

Jim over at Nitpicker put up a nice post yesterday honoring our men and women in the armed services which has motivated me to do the same (albeit a day late...):

Casualty Lists:
Operation Iraqi (Liberation) Freedom
Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)
Desert Shield/Desert Storm

Memorials:

Vietnam War
Korean War
World War II
World War I
Spanish-American War
American Civil War
Mexican-American War
War of 1812

Not a memorial per se:

American Revolution

This is a nice video Ava Lowery of Peace Takes Courage did as well. The quote from Douglas McArthur at the end of the video is worth repeating:

"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of War."

Sweet...

No introduction or commentary needed...

Housecleaning

I just found this draft from the end of February while cleaning off my desktop. Not sure why I didn't post it at the time, but the current turn of events, restrictions on modes of communication with the outside world and continuing trends in Iraq make it just as poignant now as back then. I haven't spoken with my friend about his brother's current status, but if nothing has changed, he'll be going back in October sometime after arriving at Fort Hood early last December. However, I have my doubts based on the fudging of the numbers that's been going on where the surge is concerned.

I was out with a few friends earlier tonight and the subject of one of their brothers came up. The individual in question is active duty Army home on leave from Iraq. Several interesting facts came up that are worth noting:

He was due to be home (Fort Hood in central Texas) in mid November in time for Thanksgiving but did not get back until mid December. My friend spent Thanksgiving up there with his brother's wife and newborn baby on Thanksgiving just to keep her mind off of the fact that her husband hadn't made it back for the holiday. I'm pretty sure they had pizza for Thanksgiving Dinner...

He hasn't been back for three months and he already knows that he is going to be redeployed in October of theis year, making his leave time only ten months, if that.

He is already training for his return, giving his body and mind no down time to decompress and try to get over what he saw and did during his time there.

One of his jobs was on the Fire Brigade, which essentially means that he was the first to respond to attacks on patrols in his sector. He found himself having to respond to attacks and put out burning Humvees with guys that he knew and may have been hanging out with a few days before inside. Then after the fire was out, it was his job to haul the burnt out vehicles with the charred corpses of his comrades back to the base.

Another job he did was to resupply the personnel in an active combat zone with ammunition. This meant that he was driving a truck loaded to the gills with explosives into a live fire zone on a daily basis. He saw and knew plenty of people killed while doing that as well as on patrols.

To blow off steam, he and his buddies would hunt the packs of wild dogs which roam the streets of Baghdad with M16s, sometimes emptying an entire magazine of rounds into one animal.

He saw and photographed on a regular basis (for a few weeks until he couldn't take it any more) scenes of utter carnage: the bodies of Iraqi and American soldiers in the streets rotting, animals foraging, stuff that my friend described to me as "World War II scenes of devastation in living, vivid color".

By all accounts that I've been observing, things are worse and getting more so every day. No amount of surging or supplementing is going to turn things around. The only way things are going to even begin to appear to improve is when we get all our forces out of there and let the situation play itself out.

This sucks the big one, but we have to realize that whatever our stated motives are or our physical presence is, if we remain in Iraq, WE WILL BE PERCEIVED AS AN OCCUPYING IMPERIALIST FORCE BENT ON STRIPPING IRAQ OF IT'S GREATEST NATIONAL RESOURCE.

Yes, the civil war will get worse.

Yes, there will continue to be sectarian killings.

No, the Iraq Hydrocarbon Act will not be able to be enforced (sorry, chums)

Our standing in the world as a nation and culture is at stake as well as the lives of countless people--soldiers, contractors, civilians, insurgents, you name it. After a while, who they are and which side they're on matters less and less. They are all casualties of an inane and senseless conflict that they have no interest in. There comes a point in any conflict where all that matters to one is simple survival.

Additionally, the stability of the entire region and possibly the fate of the world as we know it is hanging in the balance. It might take just one more nudge (such as action against Iran) to push matters past the control of anyone or any country. Scarily, this is looking like it will be a reality before the Christmas shopping season gets into full swing more and more.

Scott Ritter discussing his book Target Iran with Sy Hersh last October:

And because this condition exists, there will be war with Iran, unless a little miracle occurs, called the Democrats winning Congress, creating enough friction to stop the war, in the November elections. But even if that occurs, as you pointed out, there is no separation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party on the issue of Iran. Everybody sits there and says. “Wait a minute, we’re losing the war in Iraq, and there’s 65% of the population that’s turned against this war. Certainly we’re not going to go to war with Iran.”

Again, I mean to correct the American public here. 65% of the American public aren’t antiwar. They’re just anti-losing. You see, if we were winning the war in Iraq, they’d all be for it. If we had brought democracy, they’d be cheering the President. It wouldn’t matter that we violated international law. It wouldn’t even matter that we lied about weapons of mass destruction. We’d be winning. God bless America. Ain’t we good? USA, USA! But we’re losing, so they’re against Iraq.

But what happens when you get your butt kicked in one game? You're looking for the next game, where you can win. And right now, we’re looking for Iran for a victory. We’re going to go to war with Iran. When? Not in October, I’ll tell you that.

There’s a couple things that have to happen before we go to war with Iran. There has to be a serious diplomatic offensive to secure the military basing required to support the aerial forces necessary for sustained bombardment and the logistic apparatus that goes along with that -- the fuel, the bombs, the support personnel, the maintenance. We haven’t done that. We’re doing it. There has to be political preparation here at home. The Bush administration is not a dictatorship yet. They still have to go to Congress, and they still have to get a degree of congressional approval for military operations against Iran. Not that much, though. I mean, everybody is aware that after 9/11, Congress pretty much gave the Bush administration a blank check to wage war anyway they saw fit, so long as it dealt with the global war on terror.

Well, the "little miracle" did occur, but it doesn't seem to be working out as well as some of us thought now, is it? I guess we'll have to keep sending messages like the one delivered last fall until someone is under the dome who doesn't worry about how something looks politically and is more concerned with what the people of the country have mandated. Taking action like Hal suggests here might better serve the interests of the American and Iraqi people:

Now that we’ve unleashed a 120 billion dollars for Bush to grab and distribute to his friends – yes, some of it will go to Halliburton and Bechtel, you can bet on it – how do we get Congress to extract our troops from this insidious civil war in Iraq? They won’t step up.

I’ll tell you what we do. It was mentioned off-handedly on my blog yesterday. Today I woke up and said “Hey . . . ”

We have to get someone in Congress, one of the 140, to file a resolution for a National Referendum on the War in Iraq. A National Referendum to be voted on November 6th 2007. The resolution should be funded because it’s going to take some money to put this on every ballot in the country. The resolution should specifically state that the referendum before the voters is binding. My suggested wording:

“Resolved, the President of the United States is hereby ordered by the Citizens of the United States of America to implement a plan to withdraw all US troops from Iraq by March 31st 2008.”

It’s an up or down vote and if it receives a simple majority, the President must acquiesce.

But if the ruling elites and the big corporations have their way, the train will just keep on rolling, and it'll just get uglier. More of the Hersh/Ritter conversation:

SEYMOUR HERSH: But anyway, so the question then is -- we go to war -- tell us what happens next, in your view.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, it’s, you know -- it’s almost impossible to be 100% correct, but I’ll give you my best analysis. The Iranians will use the weapon that is the most effective weapon, because the key for Iran -- you know, Iran can’t afford, if this -- remember, the regime wants to stay in power, so they can’t afford a strategy that gets the American people to recognize three years in that, oops, we made a mistake. I mean, if that was Saddam’s strategy, it failed for him, because he’s out of power. Yeah, we realize we made a mistake now in Iraq, but the regime is gone. So the Iranians realize that they have to inflict pain upfront. The pain is not going to be inflicted militarily, because we're not going to commit numbers of ground forces on the ground that can cause that pain. The pain will come economically.

And it’s not just Iranian oil that will go off the market. Why do you think we sent minesweepers up there? We’ve got to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. The Iranians will shut it down that quick. They’ll also shut down oil production in the western oil fields of Saudi Arabia. They’ll shut down Kuwaiti oil production. They’ll shut down oil production in the United Arab Emirates. They’ll shut down whatever remaining oil production there is in Iraq. They’ll launch a massive attack using their Shia proxies in Iraq against American forces. That will cause bloodshed.

The bottom line is, within two days of our decision to initiate an attack on Iran, every single one of you is going to be feeling the consequences of that in your pocketbook. And it’s only going to get worse. This is not something that only I recognize. Ask Dick Lugar what information he’s getting from big business, who are saying, “We can’t afford to go to war with Iran.”

SEYMOUR HERSH: Final question: given all this, are we going to do it?

SCOTT RITTER: Yes, we're going to do it.

They're irrevocably disconnected from reality. The only thing that is to be done (if it's not too late), is to somehow disconnect them from their perches of power.

Never mind the river of blood, there's Black Gold under them thar sandy dunes!

Dennis Kucinich's statement concerning the Supplimental Military Spending Bill that was passed yesterday can be read here. It is a blistering indictment of the administration's reason for remaining in Iraq as an (unwelcome) occupying force and it's motives behind the 'incentives' being offered up before the current government in Iraq. The main crux of Kucinich's criticism is the Iraq Hydrocarbon Legislation, which will effectively cede exploration, development and production rights to the majority of Iraqi oil fields to US and other multinational energy companies.

“The benchmarks in today’s war supplemental force the Iraqis to privatize their oil industry by demanding passage of the Iraqi “Hydrocarbon Act.” The war supplemental blocks over a billion dollars in reconstruction funds if the Iraqis refuse to comply.

This administration has misled Congress into thinking that pending Iraqi legislation before their Parliament is about fair distribution of oil revenues. In fact, except for three scant lines, the entire 33-page hydrocarbon law creates a structure to facilitate the privatization of Iraq’s oil.

The truth is that the “Hydrocarbon Act” will open Iraq’s oil reserves to foreign investors, giving them, and not the Iraqi people, the ability to develop the majority of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields. The Iraq National Oil Company would maintain control of only approximately 17 of these oil fields.

If this happens, Iraq will be the only country in the Middle East that does not maintain government control of its own oil industry.

The wealth of Iraq, their rich oil resources, should remain in the hands of Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

As Greg would say, "Gotta love those Petrodollars!"

Kucinich had even stronger words on the subject this morning on Democracy Now!:

Well, first of all, this is a question that is for the people of Iraq to decide when they’re not under occupation. You have to keep in mind that this process that the Bush administration has been pushing began even before the invasion of Iraq. They were meeting with oil companies, looking at how they could create a beachhead, essentially, in the Middle East, and they have been looking at the prize of Iraq oil for many years now.

And so, you have to remember that even though it looks like this legislation isn’t going anywhere, there is enormous pressure being put on the Iraqi government, and you can bet that before too long they’ll put the kind of pressure on them that the Iraqi government will break, will relent, and go ahead and pass this law that will permit about 80% of its oil to be controlled by multinational oil companies. Now, keep in mind that Iraq has as many as 300 billion barrels of oil. At a market price that looks like it’s going toward $70-a-barrel, you can be talking about $21 trillion worth of oil, 80% of which will be under the control of multinational oil companies, if it’s up to the Bush administration.

This is a crime, literally. And so, I’m challenging it. I’m letting the Congress know about it, and I’m going to keep an eye on this, because I think it’s the basis for a war crime charge.

When Amy quoted an article from the Plain Dealer of Cleveland citing the criticism of Kucinich's concern about the bill by the in step Republican Party spokesman:

I wanted to read from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, your hometown paper. It says, “Republicans dismiss him altogether, with Republican Party spokesman Dan Ronayne saying, ‘It sounds like congressman Kucinich is trying to get noticed with a nutty conspiracy theory.’”

he responds thusly:

Well, if you look at the facts, the facts speak for themselves. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Vice President Cheney was meeting with oil company executives. They were planning this takeover of Iraqi oil. You know, everyone knows that it has one of the largest oil supplies in the world. This war has been about oil from the beginning. And I’ve been one of the few people who’s been willing to challenge it and say that. And I think the American people need to know that our government has been instrumental in trying to push the privatization of Iraq oil for the profit of multinational oil companies. Our soldiers shouldn’t be there in Iraq. We need to bring our troops home. And when someone looks at the long test of truth over the last five years, I’m the one who’s been telling the truth. This administration has not told the truth. And some of my colleagues in Congress have kept their head in the sand, while there’s been enormous catastrophe in Iraq, loss of life there, loss of lives of our troops, up to over $500 billion wasted already in American taxpayers’ funds. I mean, someone has to stand for the truth here. Someone has to stand for the Constitution.

One unfortunate omission from Kucinich's statements are an acknowledgement to the immense damage and loss of life that has been incurred on the side of the Iraqi nation and people. Arthur has plenty to say about that here:

Notice anything missing? Oh, it's nothing much. Nothing very important. Only a few small details.

Over 650,000 dead Iraqis, the overwhelming majority of whom never threatened or harmed the U.S., or even wished to. The number is probably much closer to one million now.

A completely devastated and destroyed country, which huge numbers of people have been forced to flee, and to which they may never be able to return.

The Iraqis -- the dead, mutilated, maimed, and displaced Iraqis -- did not have a choice.

I know it's not pleasant to think about, but we as a nation are being looked at as the architects of this mess and when we are called to account for it it will likely not be easy to explain away as "unwise policy".

Getting ready to bite of more than they can chew (again)

Arthur:

Almost three months ago, I described in detail a series of actions that might help deter the current administration from launching an attack on Iran. You can probably think of a number of others, if you seriously put your mind to it. Some of those actions require the Democratic Congress to do something, or at least try to do something. Thus far, the Congress has not seriously tried to do even one of them: it has not moved to rescind either AUMF, nor has it passed a resolution condemning a possible attack on Iran, let alone proposed that such a non-defensive attack would be an impeachable offense. It has done nothing. Periodically, a few Democrats will make noises about doing something -- at some time in some indeterminate future.

So let me tell you something. If this paralysis and inaction continues, and if the Bush administration does order an attack on Iran, I don't want to hear one goddamned word from a single goddamned Democrat about how terrible and calamitous it is. They've been able to take action for months, and they can take action now. They do nothing.

Alain Gresh:

Since the 1960s, i.e., well before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran sought to develop a nuclear infrastructure to prepare the post-oil period. With the development of technologies, complete mastery of the civilian nuclear cycle makes the shift to military usage much easier. Have the leaders in Tehran made that decision? Nothing allows us to assert that. Does the risk exist? Yes, and for reasons that are easy to understand.

During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), Saddam Hussein's regime used chemical weapons against Iran - in violation of all international treaties: neither the United States nor France became indignant over this usage of weapons of mass destruction, which traumatized the Iranian people. Meanwhile, American troops are encamped in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is surrounded in a dense network of foreign military bases. Finally, two neighboring countries, Pakistan and Israel, have nuclear weapons. What Iranian political leader could be insensitive to such a context?

and Me...

Iran is not an immediate threat to the United States or its allies in the region. IF Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment technology for the purpose of developing a weapons program in addition to an energy program, it is not an offensive act. It is an act of defense motivated by the fact that Iran is now surrounded by declared and undeclared nuclear powers: Russia to the North, Pakistan, India and China to the East, Israel to the West, and the United States to the South in the Persian Gulf with an disproportionately sized naval armada.

If there were a situation where the United States was surrounded in such a manner (Canada and Mexico possessing proven nuclear weapons and another major power such as China or Russia having placed a similarly sized force in the Gulf of Mexico) I'm sure that the United States would be rattling its nuclear sabers, and if the U.S. didn't have nuclear weapons, it certainly would be pursuing that technology as vehemently as Iran and most likely more so, all the while defending its inherent right to that technology and the right to possess it for use as a DETTERENT. This is the reason the U.S. gives for possessing nuclear weapons (despite the fact that it is the only nation to have actually used them on another country) and yet it tries to deny other countries with a legitimate case for possessing nuclear weapons as a DETTERENT the opportunity to do so.

The only course of action in terms of Iran is to recognize its status as a country and normalize relations with no prerequisite conditions. Force will only be met with force (which, according to International Law, Iran has all the right in the world to use if attacked) and Iran has many more options open to it to inflict severe damage on the interests of the U.S. and its allies in the target rich environment of the Middle East -- even with conventional weapons.

As the animation on the end of the world that has been going around for the past few years goes, "WTF, Mate?!?" We've got plenty to take care of here at home with the insane amounts of money that we don't have and must borrow from anyone and everyone gullible enough to lend it to us that we're spending on Iraq and would potentially spend on another foolish excursion in the Middle East:

Hill Country Gal

and

Michael Moore (covered by an unlikely source)

Road Trip, anyone?

I love 'em. After my family moved up to the Philadelphia area my Father and Brother and I would take a road trip in a Volkswagen Beetle back to Kansas City to see his parents and visit our childhood friends, as well as to give my Mother a much needed break from the overload of Testosterone in the house for the remaining 50 or so weeks of the year.

Those trips were some of the best times of my life for a myriad of reasons. It gave my Brother and I a great opportunity to see a great deal of the country (we didn't always take the same or most direct route from Philly to KC), taught me the value of patience in the face of adversity (dead starter motor on the Beetle in the middle of Ohio on I-70, broken timing belt on a Ford Escort Station Wagon resulting in all eight valves bending beyond use in the middle of Missouri on the same I-70). It also was an open furoum for my Father to extol Brian and I in all kinds of stories and useless (at least we thought so at the time) concerning the history of the origins of many of the American Oil companies, how General motors orchestrated the demise of the Trolley and Horsecar as the main source of transport in urban areas and even small towns.

One of the most memorable trips was one that he and I took in the Fall of 1992 following a miserable failure of an employment attempt here in Houston. He flew down, we rented a car and I drove us back to Philly with all my crap in about two and a half days. his eyesight had gotten so bad that he couldn't drive, so I relied on his conversation to focus on in the wee hours. He told me about his time in the Army in the early fifties and also about the jobs he had at University libraries before he met my Mother. It also stand out because it was the last real quality time I spent with him before he died in a car accident about a month after we got back to Philly.

I've continued the tradition on my own, from using the excuse of having to go back to KC to close out a safe deposit box to travel back to PA from Houston to see family and friends (a redux of the trips with Brian and my Father, just in the opposite direction) to forays into Wet Texas for no other reason than to answer the caall of wanderlust. Watching the miles melt away, chattering on the CB with whoever there is to talk to and stopping wherever and whenever the notion strikes me (something that was not really an option on trips with Dad, who loved to push it and make as much time as possible).

The point of all this reminiscing about road trips is that the increasingly out of reach price of gasoline, which is a direct result of the ill-advised excursion that the Shrub and the Shooter have dragged this country into along with the manipulations of the market by the belmouths of big oil, is putting the opportunity for the average American family to enjoy the ability to embark on trips like this more and more out of reach. Whether they're camping trips, cross country tours of historical sites or state and national parks, or simply trips to see family and/or friends in other cities or the country, they are (or were) an integral part of family recreation and bonding time.

Just one more piece of collateral damage in this self serving and never ending War on Terror(Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL))

Life outdoing art

I just finished watch The Good Shepherd on DVD. Interesting piece, but it seems rather tame when placed next to the testimony of James B. Comey on the attempts by then White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to induce a very sick, bedridden, and medicated then Attorney General John Ashcroft to approve as legally sound a procedure that Comey had refused to do so on as acting AG. The procedure in question is widely accepted to be the Warrantless Domestic Wiretapping Program that has become so controversial. The attempt by Card and Gonzo was apparently at the direct behest of the Shrub (who may have ultimately been advised to do so by the Shooter, but that gets into some serious Black Helicopter hypothesizing...)



On the Shrub's press conference dodging today when queried about these events...

Digby:

Bush's answer (like most of Gonzales' ) is entirely unresponsive and should be greeted with howls of protest from the press and relentless pounding from the punditocrisy. This isn't some "investigation" about which Bush has "promised" not to comment, as he has claimed with previous scandals. This was a direct question about whether he ordered Card and Gonzales to go over to Ashcroft's room in the ICU to get him to sign off on a program that he had already said he would not sign off on.

That's key, you know, as to just how despicable this gambit was. Ashcroft had made it known that he would no longer sign off on this (or these) programs before he got sick. They were trying to get the man to sign something with which he disagreed while he was under heavy sedation in the ICU. And according to Comey, it was his impression that Bush had personally called Mrs Ashcroft to get her to let them in the room. How low is that? (And how important it was to them that they would even risk it for what would surely be a short period --- after all, Ashcroft would recover, and presumably would resent the fact that they had done this thing.)

In any case, Bush was deeply involved. He met with both Comey and Mueller on the issue after they all said they'd resign. The spinners are trying to say that their Dear Leader finally overruled others who had nefarious intentions , but his refusal to answer the question today should put that to rest. There's no reason for him to launch into such outdated 2003 gibberish about enemies lurking who "would like to strike" if he didn't order it. It's obvious that he did.

Greenwald:

Behold the royal hubris from the President's press conference today. Bush categorically refuses to answer questions about whether he sent Card and Gonzales to obtain Ashcroft's authorization for his illegal eavesdropping while Ashcroft was in intensive care. The reason, of course, is because the Terrorists are out there and are scary and want to kill us. Therefore, Bush does not have to answer questions about what he did.

These are the type of facially absurd and democracy-subverting shenanigans to which we have been subjected for the last six years. They will continue unless and until the press, the Democrats in Congress and/or Americans generally decide that they will no longer tolerate it.

As former OLC official Marty Lederman noted last night, John Ashcroft and James Comey are both Republican ideologues who proved that they were willing to endorse and defend even the most radical (and illegal) behavior (including the lawless detention of Jose Padilla and the administration's "refashioned" -- though still illegal -- warrantless eavesdropping program). If they were insisting that the conduct of the Bush administration was not only illegal, but so illegal that they were ready to resign en masse over it, then, as Lederman asks: "can you even imagine how bad it must have been?"

There is just no excuse left for allowing the administration to keep this behavior concealed from the country. What James Comey described on Tuesday is the behavior of a government completely unmoored from any constraints of law, operating only by the rules of thuggery, intimidation, and pure lawlessness. Even for the most establishment-defending organs, there are now indisputably clear facts suggesting that the scope and breadth and brazenness of the lawbreaking here is far beyond even what was known previously, and it occurred at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

James Comey's testimony amounts to a statement that -- even according to the administration's own loyal DOJ officials -- the President ordered still-unknown spying on Americans, and engaged in that spying for a full two-and-a-half-years, that was so blatantly and shockingly illegal that they were all ready to resign over it. And the President's Attorney General then lied to ensure that this episode remain concealed. Mere one-day calls for a Congressional investigation are woefully inadequate here.

There is clear and definitive evidence of deliberate lawbreaking. In addition to Congressional investigations, there is simply no excuse for anything other than the immediate commencement of a criminal investigation by a Special Prosecutor. And the administration ought to be pressured every day to account for what it did here. This is not a one-day or one-week fleeting scandal. These revelations amount to the most transparent and deliberate crimes -- felonies -- by our top government officials, not with regard to private and personal matters but with regard to how our government spies on us.

The only thing there is to add is that this is most likely tatamount to the camel's nose in the tent, i.e. there are many more of these revelations to follow...

Conviction

Democracy Now!:

Agustin Aguayo, Army medic who was released from military prison last month after serving more than seven months for refusing a second deployment to Iraq:

Yes, I could say that, unfortunately, the environment there creates a situation where conscience, your sense of right and wrong, gets clouded by what’s going on around you. You’re in survival mode. And this results in people acting in all sorts of unethical ways. I spoke to a master sergeant while I was in prison, and I shared with him my feelings. And he said, “I can understand you. I mean, the Army could potentially ask you to do some unethical things at this time, and, unfortunately, many of our young people are in this situation. They just want to survive.” And like I said, that sense of right and wrong gets clouded in that environment.

If this is truly the case with the majority of U.S. forces in Iraq, military and non military, then a state of endgame exists and the only sane course of action open is that of complete withdrawal as soon as possible. At this point, one can accurately surmise that the priorities of the forces in place no longer place the welfare of the Iraqi people and state in a high position. As has been stated before, the situation in Iraq is going to get worse before it gets better, perhaps over the next several years, whether the US is there or not. If the US stays, it is likely that it will get worse in greater orders of magnitude than if they leave.

Despite the fact that his post military prospects are severely limited now, Aguayo goes on:

I was found guilty of two charges, which is desertion and missing movement. And I have to carry that with me from now on. And I’m willing to do that, because I stood up for what I believed. So the implications are rather great, but it’s something I’m willing to live with, because I saved my integrity, and I was truly free when I stood up and I finally said, “I cannot participate anymore, and I’m willing to accept any consequences.”

Are these the same Freedoms that the Shrub and his administration are touting as those that the terrorists so despise it spurred them to attack us? The freedom to follow the stirrings of one's heart and soul? Not likely, since they (the terrorists and the administration, although it could be argued that they are both of animals of the same stripe) are enjoying the same freedoms in their actions throughout the world, albeit with completely different intentions and results than Aguayo...

When is a Debate not a Debate?

Georgia Representative Jack Kingston's questioning of Robert Greenwald on his film Iraq For Sale and Jeremy Scahill on his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army during a session of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense is a frightening case study in the core tactics and practices that are employed in debates by conservatives these days.

There are a few basic tenets that are to be employed as soon as the questioner/debater senses that the direction of the dialogue is turning against them or their cause.

1. Question the opponents' loyalties or beliefs:

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, no. I mean, I think, first of all, Blackwater is a company that has very deep connections in US intelligence, in the military. It does indeed have political connections to the White House. I do think it also has -- it’s viewed, I think, in some official circles as being a very forward-thinking company that provides very innovative services. I think it's a combination of the political connections of the company and the kinds of services that it provides. Mr. Prince likes to refer to Blackwater as the Federal Express of the national security apparatus.

What I find concerning is the fact that not only is Mr. Prince a significant contributor to several of the campaign causes of Republicans who are in influential positions, particularly in the years of the Republican-controlled congress, as well as to the White House, but he has deep connections to some of the religious right organizations that have come to a position of prominence in this country. I think this is a company that embodies a lot of what President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address in 1961.

REP. JACK KINGSTON: Let me ask you now, being a conservative Christian, there’s a problem with that?

Followed quickly on the heels of that by

2. Interrupt the opponent repeatedly:

JEREMY SCAHILL: No. There's no problem with being a conservative Christian. The problem --

REP. JACK KINGSTON: Well, you said now -- you said -- I mean, you're saying he gives money to the Republican causes, and then you say to the religious right, and I’m having trouble connecting that.

JEREMY SCAHILL: OK. Well, let's unpack that a little bit. I have an issue --

REP. JACK KINGSTON: I want to give you an opportunity to -- when you say a guy’s secretive, which is, you know, derogatory. “Multimillionaire who bankrolls the President” is derogatory. And then you put that he’s a conservative Christian. I want to just, you know, give you an opportunity to explain yourself.

and

3. Change the subject abruptly (ideally putting the opponent on the defensive):

Robert Greenwald: No, let me be very clear, these films are not about maximizing dollars, so I go out and I spend three quarters of my time trying to fundraise. Iraq for Sale- 3,220 people, patriotic Americans, gave $25 and $50 each because they wanted the story of war profiteering told- they wanted to get that out. Similarly, with Wal Mart, we raised money from all kinds of sources, people- and by the way, Republicans and Democrats-

Jack Kingston: But- if I could reclaim the time here. But are you saying, and I want to make sure here, that profit is evil?

Robert Greenwald: No--

Jack Kingston: But I mean you accept that-- for example, how much would you charge if I-- and you're obviously a bright guy-- if I said to you, "Bring me a gallon of gas in Baghdad." What would be the market value? Four Dollars a gallon? Fifteen Dollars a gallon? What is it?

These practices of misdirection and patronizing in the form of non compliments ("You're obviously a bright guy") are meant to throw the opponent off balance and give the appearance of confusion and unpreparedness on the opponent's part to observers. It's no lees a form of bullying than the finger pointing and shouted interruptions that occur several times every minute on shows like O'Reilly's and Hannity and Colmes, not to mention any program where Coulter makes an appearance to debate a point with another guest.

Admittedly, Colbert and Stewart engage in this practice but in the case of Stephen it is merely a parody of itself, and Stewart doesn't seem to be deliberately malicious even when he is at his most forceful (it seems to come from a constant state of incredulity that he finds himself in to some degree or another- I can definitely relate).

As much as I loathe Kingston for his stance in the hearing and his attempts to discredit and marginalize Greenwald and Scahill, I do admire him for his tenacity and dedication to the craft of predatory non debate debate. With so many like him eager to attack the people who want to talk about the issues because they want to talk about the issues (whatever the issues may be) instead of defending their side of the issues it's no wonder that the mainstream media loves to cover them. It's just another form of celebrity cat fight, except in this case the stars aren't as glamorous. Politics is, of course, show business for ugly people...

The New Wild West

Amny Goodman spoke with Brian Siebel of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, on the swift and virulent reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings by the Gun lobbyists:

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your findings today in this aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech.

BRIAN SIEBEL: Well, what we point out is, we didn't even know who had been shot at Virginia Tech, when several gun lobby organizations put out press releases calling for students and teachers on college campuses to be armed. You know, I think they would like it to give everybody a gun and start the crossfire. I think that's their solution to this kind of tragedy. Of course, we totally disagree with that. And the report is designed to draw attention to their campaign. It follows on the heels of another campaign that the gun lobby has been pushing, which is to force guns into workplaces. They have supported bills in a number of states to bar employers from keeping guns out of employees' cars. We think that's again just a kind of foot-in-the-door effort that ultimately they would like to see guns essentially everywhere in society.

One has to ask whether the aim of such a line of thinking is to reduce the overall potential for violence or to provide the means for instant and deadly vigilante justice to be administered in a situation such as the rampage at Virginia Tech or the Columbine shootings under the guise of "self defense".

Doc Holiday: "What the hell's that all about, Creek?"

'Turkey Creek' Jack Johnson: "He crawfished a bet and called me a liar."

Doc Holiday: "Sheriff, may I present a pair of fellow sophisticates: Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Texas Jack Vermillion. Watch your ear, Creek."

Tombstone Marshall Fred White: "Afraid I'll have to have those guns."

Johnson: "It was a fair fight."

Jack Vermillion: "We was legal."

White: "I'm sorry, boys. I gotta take 'em before Judge Spicer. Hand 'em over."

Vermillion: "Law and order every time, that's us."

-Tombstone, 1993