LETTERS + POSTS
Re: California Energy Ripoff Was Terrorism
And it's not just California (3+
/ 0-)
This whole oil politics
thing is global. Kenny Boy was involved in trying to get the Taliban to play
nice, showering them with millions (not to mention Bush's 40 Million to them in
May 2001). Enron needed the pipeline in Afghanistan so he could take the
natural gas part and divert it to Enron's new energy plant in India. When the
deal fell through, the plant had to be sold and Enron lost its shirt.
And Lay was part of the energy task force. Dems should have been like pit bulls
about the Energy Task force documents. They asked, Cheney said no and they said
ok. I remember when California was going through it's crisis in March and April
of 2001), that Sen Feinstein tried repeatedly to get a meeting with Cheney and
was rebuffed. They were too busy in Dick's office going over maps of Iraq. It
is unconscionable that an elected official can't get a meeting about a real
problem but a corporate crony is going in and out of the WH like there's a
revolving door.
I believe the whole oil thing is not just about Iraq, but Afghanistan too. 9/11
wasn't just Osama being mad, it goes deeper. I pray every day that we will be
able to (and be allowed to) vote them out and get Dems back in. Of course, one
always wonders what they have up their sleeves! I wouldn't put martial law and
canceling elections past them (these same jokers have been working on the idea
since the Nixon Administration). These guys don't play by the rules.
by MA Liberal on Sat May 27,
2006
They sure do act like sociopaths.
With all of the TV that
people in this country watch, that portrays criminals; the movies about the
Mafia, etc, you'd think more people would wake up. Oh, I forgot, they don't
KNOW what's going on, thanks to the mouthpiece media.
Patriot Daily News
Clearinghouse had a good one yesterday, Deconstructing The
Bush Incompetence Myth, in which he says
In the case of Iraq war,
Katrina and 9/11, the logical harmful consequences were deaths, injuries and
maiming. Our socialization cues say no reasonable person would have
intentionally or consciously ignored warnings about these events, which is why
our society considers criminals to be social deviants. Our socialization norms
are so strong that regardless of political affiliation, many people stated
prior to war that while they disagreed with Bush, a US President would not lie
about the grounds for war and assumed that Bush must simply be privy to
information that could not be disclosed publicly. That presumption sounds like
Civics 101, minus the Nixon and Johnson years.
This is why they succeed
with their extreme secrecy, their Madison Avenue 'production values' and the
collusion of the media providing the smokescreen of normality. Why should
anyone suspect foul play when they have no clue as to what the shadow
government is doing out of view, without Congressional oversight?
Enjoy the time we have
left in the blogosphere. Then what? There will be no check against faux news. oil=Lebensraum
by Halcyon on Sat May 27,
2006
God Bless you mkham6 (3+
/ 0-)
for being there, writing
so early on. I wish I had known then as much as I do now about interacting with
the computer. I was trying to write about so many early signals of what we were
doing and heading for back then and I felt so alone. Anyway,
This chart should be
spread everywhere. Raising prices:
1-3 fold is business
4-9 fold is price gouging
10-19 times is organized crime
20-40 times is massive institutional political corruption
90 times is terrorism and treason
Bushco are scum and we
have Enron employees on tape threatening the elderly. Why couldn't more people
see this in real time?\
by nhwriter on Sat May 27,
2006 at 05:30:26 AM PDT
Re:
NSA Director Dissects Iraq Blunders
Odom where were you in 2003.
Once
the GOP was home to the clear-eyed realists. 19 guys with box-cutters must have
rattled their brains. Arrogance
They used the simpleton
prince's father fantasy to unleash their own meglo-mania. Now they have
to ride their mis-begotten beast. I think the American voters were cruel
not to put them out of their misery in 2004.
by odenthal on Mon Apr 24,
2006 at 09:49:00 PM PDT
Re: Unpatriotic Spying
Anyway LOVE YER STUFF! Damn you're good! Fortunately, my book advance will permit me to quit this job sometime this year, allowing me to go drink and dope myself to death in warmer and less despotic climes. (see joebageant.com) Now I wish you had not shown me your site because I am going to have to resist stealing your chops. You really are good. Solidarity, joe
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by micman on Thursday, January 05 @ 13:48:07 EST |
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I do not fault the rich for being rich as long as they
have not hurt others in attaining their wealth. If a person is financially
injured through vindictive politics, as is the case here, the dollar amounts
are inconsequential. It is still wrong. |
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-----This is an unpatriotic government.
This is a government that deals openly in illegalities, whether it is attacking
a country which has done us no harm, two countries -- Iraq and Afghanistan --
because we now believe, not in declaring war through Congress as the
Constitution requires, but through the President.- Scoop
Re: An Ounce of Prevention- Looted
Hopes
A COMBAT VETERAN WEIGHS IN........
Posted by: kc10ken
on Nov 9, 2005 5:17 AM [Report
this comment]
I served honorably for over 13 years in the military
including 3 combat tours in the middle east. I firmly believe that Donald
Rumsfeld should be fired and prosecuted for incompetence.
EVERY American death caused by an
IED can be directly attributed to Donald Rumsfeld. Even US Army basic trainees
can tell you the FIRST thing an Army does when it invades another country is it
secures the enemy's military installations including all ammo dumps. This is
done to deny your enemy the ability to continue killing you. Our forces, with
Donald Rumsfeld in command, were ordered NOT to do this.
Instead, we secured the oil
fields. The oil fields were the top priority right from the beginning, which
shows what this war is really all about. Such GROSS INCOMPETENCE on Rumsfeld's
part is UNACCEPTABLE and our soldiers continue coming home in body bags every
day as a direct result of this incompetence.
I agree 100% with
kc10ken...
Posted by: NamVeT
on Nov 9, 2005 8:05 AM [Report
this comment]
being a Namvet, when we found a weapons
cache we took what we wanted and then blew the fucking thing up! This adventure
in Iraq is beyond the definition of incompetence. halibush, cheney, rummy, rove
etc. (caps left off intentionally because they don't deserve the respect)
should be hung in the public square. And georgie himself has got to be the most
idiotic moron ever EVER in politics. The constant look on his face is that of a
deer in headlights. How could we ever have elected such a bunch of criminals?
IMPEACH NOW...before we have no rights at all.
Peter
<pedromar@swbell.net> wrote: Have you
considered that the lack of concern goes along with the NRA/2nd amendment
rights in the US? How many law enforcement officers advocate some restrain on
weapons, how wingnutty is the professional Army we have created? It reminds me
of the Praetorian Guard of the caesars.
The Brazilians just voted down gun
control. It was not proposed as a safety measure but peddled as a referendum on
government's ability to keep society safe. Did the NRA do some foreign aid
there? In the 60s Rio de Janeiro, and the rest of the country was very safe. I
know, I lived there.- Peter
MH: Good point. Yeah, there is a parallel with rightwingers hating gun control. Maybe top soldiers thought it was Iraqis right to loot these weapons and sporting to allow them to fight back. Of course in a guerilla war, they never fight fair, whatever that is. Brazillians maybe were swayed by the not unreasonable argument (in such a criminalized society) that then only criminals would have guns.
Shalmaneser
said @ 11:45am GMT on 28th Oct
Hmmm...seems simple--
spur the insurgents to increase their attacks to a thousand a day and they'll
run out in less than three years.
US Field Manual FM 4-30.13 Chapter 12: Captured Enemy Ammunition by Rockriver. Submitted on 2005-10-30 17:10:23
Thomas Rockriver says: As a Veteran, I was appalled when I saw, on mainstream news, reports that during the race to Baghdad to secure the Ministry of Oil, Oilfields, Banks, Palaces and any other immediate booty, that many, many caches, stockpiles and dumps of explosives, ordnance, weapons etc. were found but not secured, removed or destroyed. US Field Manual FM 4-30.13, Chapter 12: Captured Enemy Ammunition, Basic Standard Operating Procedures, Common Sense, and perhaps a little sense of self-preservation would tell one that...NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU LEAVE ANYTHING BEHIND THAT CAN BE OF USE TO THE ENEMY...if you don’t want it, can’t use it, or don’t have time to remove it, you blow it. You NEVER just walk away and leave it. On the news there was a report of Coalition forces that had stumbled across a huge dump of artillery shells. The report said that the Coalition Forces WATCHED as the stockpile was looted and loaded on civilian vehicles and carried away. In Vietnam, There was always a team of two E.O.D. (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) specialists assigned to each company. Their duties were to dispose of any unexploded bombs, explosives, ordnance etc. Never, under any circumstances do you leave anything (especially explosives) that can be used against you. The lowest private would know to ask...’Blow the munitions, Sir?’ If any ammo dump was found, it became the responsibility of those who found it to secure it until it could be disposed of. If you can’t wait, you do it yourself...you take the 10 minutes required to place charges on the top of the pile and blow it down into the ground. Failure to do so would make you directly responsible for any deaths caused by your negligence. There would be an investigation, leading to court martial for Gross Dereliction of Duty Resulting in the Deaths of GI’s.I could understand a few isolated incidents... but for this negligence to occur on such a grand scale would have required orders from Above...Each company commander would have to have been told to not follow FM 4-30.13 Chapter 12 SOP. They claim they didn’t have time...BULLSHIT...they could have secured the area and dropped napalm on it instead of the poor people of Falluja. This was deliberate action designed to prolong the war. This is GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY, resulting in the deaths of GI’s and innocent Iraqis as well as a WAR CRIME of the highest order. Heads should roll. Why aren’t they?
RE: A COMBAT VETERAN WEIGHS IN........
Posted by: Joyanna
on Nov 9, 2005 8:19 AM [Report
this comment]
Try
http://www.ivaw.net / (Iraq Veterans Against
the War).
hagbard celine said
@ 12:04pm GMT on 28th Oct
This is
all old news but it's always nice to be reminded how the war planners blithely
supplied the insurgency with manpower (by disbanding the Iraqi army) and
firepower (by failing to secure the vast stockpiles of ordinance lying around
the country). It would have been a lot easier if they had just lined 2000 of
our soldiers up and shot them themselves.
Da King said...
Nice
work. If you want to wrap it in a nice bow add the effects insufficient forces
had on the invasion itself (no Armored Cav to secure supply lines, leading to
the Jessica Lynch saga and the lead Brigades being low on ammo and water and in
real danger of being cut off) and the lack of detention MPs leading directly to
Abu Ghraib.
The sign on the White House wall should read "It's the Incompetence, Stupid"
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Re: Michael Hammerschlag: 'Looted hopes: An ounce of
prevent (Score: 1) |
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It seems fairly obvious that there was nothing
accidental about this mismanagement. It was done because a well armed,
organized, and supported insurgency gives the Whitehouse an excuse to keep
the troops in Iraq. If the whole debacle hadn't been so incompetently
managed, it would be over by now, and it is supposed to last until all the
Iraqis are dead, and the land is freed up for rich people to build winter
retreats. |
The
Military Industrial Complex R Us.
Posted by:
rabblerowzer on Nov 9, 2005 11:27 AM [Report
this comment]
>“How
could we ever have elected such a bunch of criminals?”<
A lot of posters have been decrying
the stupidity of a majority of Americans for supporting the War and the Rabid
Right. It’s true that many Americans are too stupid to know their own
self-interest , but don’t forget that many millions of Americans are employed
by the Military Industrial Complex. Thousands of government contractors supply
everything from boots to bombs and everyone from the CEO’s down to assembly
line workers profit form perpetual war.
Call me cynical, but
considering that making war is our number one industry in America, it’s likely
that many voters simply voted their pocketbooks in 2004. Preparing for and
waging war is the bedrock of our economy and society, and has been for a long
time.
The Military Industrial Complex R
Us.
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Re: Michael Hammerschlag: 'Looted hopes: An ounce of
prevent (Score: 1) |
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Bingo! For the United States of
Halliburton, there is no profit in peace. They don't give a purple flying fig
how many die - on either side. In fact, from their POV the more, the
better! (Mass death - a.k.a. "culling the herd" - equals less
competition for the planet's remaining wealth and resources.) They know that,
not only will none of their children ever be forced to pay the price,
they'll get to swim in marble pools purchased with the blood-money that their
parents' evil deeds have wrought. All play, while we pay. "...people in uniform are just
dumb animals to be used for our purposes..."–Henry Kissinger We The Peons are meant to live and die in service to The
Entitled Ones. |
Vigilis said...
An article like yours is overdue, Mike; nice work. The problem
most Americans have is that given the choice of Kerry vs. Bush, one suspects
Kerry would have acted like Clinton (pretending all was in control as terror
cells organized, proliferated and grew bolder). Anyone who acts boldly like
Bush's team commits at least the 2% error rate of all humans. There is no
escape from that. Anyone who covers up problems like Clinton did, merely leaves
larger problems to real problem-solvers. -An Independent.
Michael Hammerschlag said...
If you think Bush is making only 2% mistakes, Virg, you ain't an
independent. I don't believe that Clinton was a coward and a weakling re.
terrorism. just the opposite- he was far more aware and responsive towards the
threat that Bush ignored when he took power.
1. Clinton reacted to the Serbian depredations in Bosnia-Kosovo against
virulent Repub opposition, which delayed action for 2-3 years. He did abandon
the relief effort in Somalia when it went bad- that was a strategic decision to
leave a place that had no security importance to us, unfortunately it led to
the mass slaughters in Rwanda. (partially due to Repub attacks)
2. Clinton was far more aware of the threat of terrorism, but he was largely
paralyzed by the right-wing jihad against him ($130 million of investigation
and billionaire conspiracy),. They found nothing wrong, so ended up going after
his personal sex life, which you could nail 90% of Congress with.
3. I think Freeh is lying is his latest revelations- they don't square with all
other info, and Freeh was so hostile to Clinton that he sabotaged the war against
terrorism. See my warblog about how the FBI betrayed hero John O'Neil, who had
the number of Al Qaida, and was well on the way to wrapping them up. The
hidebound FBI screwed up so much in 9-11, ignoring report after report that
terrorists were learning to fly big planes.
4. When China fired missiles into the ocean 23 miles from Tapei, Clinton sent 2
task forces, when they held our pilots for ransom after their imbecile pilots
crashed them down, Bush groveled before them. You want to cause problems with
this resurgent superpower, convince them we can be backed down.
5. Berger tried to warn Bush about terrorism and the Hart-Rudman commision
dropped their report on Bush's desk in Jan 2001- he supposedly ignored it. (see
my audio page for STEPHEN FLYNN- director of HART-RUDMAN Report on America's
continued huge vulnerability to terrorism -4:52, Watson Institute, Brown U.
2/10/2003 Council on Foreign Relations Sn. Fellow - Oct 2002
http://tomhammers.tripod.com/audio.htm .
6. While Bush cut brush, he ignored the daily report "Bin Laden determined
to strike inside America" , and in the actual attack- read a childrens
book to schoolkids for 7 minutes while terrorist planes homed in on the
Pentagon and White House. No orders to evacvuate the White House or get fighter
cap up- nothing, nada. That was such a disgrace- that alone was impeachable.
7. The Iraq War was for Bush, an attempt to show up his father, and show he
wasn't the worthless drunk Bush 1 thought, as such, it was a war fought for
personal redemption, not national necessity. For Cheney and the neocons, it was
sweet revenge for not going all the way in 911. Of course, the damn fools had
no plans what to do once we won. If Saddam really put out a contract on Bush 1,
that was a valid reason, but that was supposedly Kuwaity bullshit .
8. We now need to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities tomorrow- with Bush's
multiple crimes and political problems, and the overextension of our military
on a win-less disaster, that is probably impossible. Which means these monsters
will have a nuclear bomb in 1-2 years.
9. Bottom line. Bush has involved us in a disastrous war that has created a
terrorist stronghold in Iraq, multiplied them ten fold, turned the world
against us, crippled our ability to respond to real threats, poisoned our
military with standard torture policies, and crippled our ability to deal with
the real terrorist state of Iran as they actually are about to get weapons of
mass destruction. Everything he said he would prevent by the invasion, he's
actually caused. That isn't defending America, it's abandoning and betraying
it. Saddam was a monster, but he was totally contained, and don't tell me the
war was fought to save the people of Iraq. Superpowers don't do that- we have
no idea how to rule a brutal Mideast country.
RE: Social Security Scam + Debt Bomb
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Re: Michael Hammerschlag: 'The Social Security scam and debt bomb' (Score: 1) by HHH on Friday, March 18 @ 11:50:47 EST |
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Good arguments like this work on smart people, but as my
brother always points out to me, 1/2 of all the people are, by definition,
below average intelligence; since SmirkyBush won about that many votes one
wonders if there is any long-term hope for the United States. |
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Re: Michael Hammerschlag: 'The Social Security scam and debt bomb' (Score: 1)by KuhWaver (kuhwaver@useyourmind.net) on Friday, March 18 @ 14:24:27 EST |
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Doomsday scenario #39B: Suppose Taiwan votes for independence
and China invades Taiwan as they promised. John Bolton gives a rafter-raising
polemic at the U.N. over the invasion. Then, China "calls in their
chips." |
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Re: Michael Hammerschlag: 'The Social Security scam and debt bomb' (Score: 1)by FoonTheElder on Friday, March 18 @ 14:30:10 EST |
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"Large deficits? it didn't make a difference for
Ronald Reagan." -both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. |
RE: Could America Go Bad?
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Date: |
Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:26:49 -0800 (PST) gray roberts" < @yahoo.com |