the defeatists!

I remember a sleazy little fan book I bought in 1966...

In it, he wasn't quoted so much about wanting to be Woody as about becoming more like the blues players, Mance Lipscomb, Lightning Hopkins and the various itinerant minstrels like Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Bill Broozey. Download BeyondHereLiesNothin_.mp3. Go Figure.

First of all, does anybody think we're not doing this...secondly, sheeeeiiiitttt!

Ok, I can understand the Chinese paranoia about the Dali Lama. The whole Tibet thing hasn't really worked all that well for them. As a an acquisition --thinking as a businessman and simple business principles -- the whole excursion has been a loss. It's a great place to use as a gulag, but that's about all. Tibetan Buddhists are not really pacifists...they feel bad about killing someone, but obviously not so bad about slapping the shit out of someone. And, if someone gets popped, well, when your concept of personal time includes infinity and infinite conscious, it was  programmed to happen. You burn down the barracks, ten thousand Han Chinese die, and you come back as a cockroach -- the universe wanted it this way. I'd spin it off -- setup a stooge government, have Jimmy Carter and Spiderman and the Grand Mufti of Mecca and some Indian guy in a loincloth and two foot long mustaches come in to monitor the elections, and when the Dali Lama's party wins, have Jimmy and Vladamir Putin and the Pope and, I don't know, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens along with Achmajinabad and George H.W. Bush arbitrate a treaty. Make the cost of building that railway the cost of reparations and don't demand reimbursement. And then fucking leave...

However, the original invasion of Tibet and the People's Republic's action since then have nothing to do with logic, except in so far as Maoism is logical. To paraphrase the Sheriff from the new Robin Hood on BBC, "A clue: it's totally illogical." It has to do with an insane ideology that takes the worst of Stalinism and is joined with a Han Chinese triumphalism. In China, all the ethnic groups are equal in the eyes of the law, but "some are more equal than others." In a way, the PRC is kind of Animal Farm and 1984 combined, with some marketing principles tossed in the stew. 

So, the news that the Chinese have hacked the Dali Lama's computer system shouldn't surprise anyone who visits the campus of MIT, or Stanford, or UCLA or any other major American, British and Canadian university and wanders around the Math, Engineering and Computer Science schools. The Chinese have a vast resovoir of very, very bright people. The rote, Confucian style learning necessary to produce a fully literate Chinese individual working with their written language combined with the subtlties of sound so that the word "Mao" can mean "cat" or "spear" depending on the pitch produces a really sophisticated style of thinking that combines very logical processing, an appreciation of subtleties and an acceptance of dictates from above. Their scientists, their mathematicians, their computer people are every bit as good as those of the west. They have limitations, but largely due to crappy technology and incredibly backword infrastructure.

When I taught at the University of Shanghai, I got very frustrated with the Business College's computer network. Their printers were useless, dot matrix pieces of crap. I almost went out and bought them a laser printer. The reason I did not was that the way the building was wired, I honestly didn't know if adding a good printer might not be seen as an attempt to sabotage the fucking place when the building burned down. If you are bright, talented and capable, the good technology you need to do what you can do given the right tools is available to you only if you are a member of the Communist Party and are employed by the government or by a business that is partnered with the PRC. The simple task of plugging something into a socket could be an adventure because you're not sure what voltage you're going to getting into and your plug might need a set of freaking adapters. Not an adapter, but several. Seriously, if you visit Shanghai, take along a surge protector and a set of every conceivable plug for you electric toothbrush.

So, I'm pretty sure that this explosion of malware is neither isolated nor particularly surprising. It's a great propaganda victory for the Dali Lama, except that it's not. We've undoubtedly got better stuff, and are capable of doing the same thing, and are undoubtedly doing it. Much of the NSA's activities are undoubtedly directed in this way toward anybody and everybody that we regard as an enemy. Or, for that matter, a friend.

The truly cautionary note for us is that if the technology can be directed outwards by us, to monitor what porno is being played in Pyongyang, it's availble to point at us. And, if it's available to the government, it's available to business. Which means that under less than benign circumstances it can be pointed at, well, at you.  If you want off the grid, it doesn't matter...today, if you have electricity, you are on the grid.

And on that note, we all love big brother!

Cool...actually hot, but pretty cool. I just don't understand about the passengers...

I suppose the dinosaurs still living in the various lakes, swamps and jungles of the earth, populating our monster movies, felt a moment's fear when this happened... But, it's definitely interesting...

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, of Queen’s University, Belfast, one of the researchers who monitored the asteroid, said: “It's absolutely fucking goddamn incredibly fucking important." . This was the first near-Earth object we’ve tracked on a collision course and we’ve been able to watch it come in. We’ve been able not only to predict where it was going to hit, but, because of the warning, we’ve been able to act fast enough to get information on the object before it reaches us.”

However, I think it may have been an invasion, and we need to seriously consider the likelihood of seriously weird invaders. I can think of no reason for this except aliens...

Chirpy?

Well, not everyone.

The good news from our historical study of eight centuries of international financial crises is that, so far, they have all ended. And we confidently predict this one will end, too. We are just not quite so sure it will be nearly as soon as the chirpy forecasts coming from policymakers around the globe. The U.S. administration, for example, is now predicting that growth will renew in the latter part of this year and continue at a brisk pace of 4 percent for several years thereafter. Is this a fact-based forecast or wishful thinking?

My guess, wishful forecasting.

How do you say Muhajadeen in Hebrew? Heil Hister?

 

לוחם הקודש You know, sometimes irony gets too ironic...

Those who oppose the religious right have been especially concerned about the influence of the military’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, who is himself a West Bank settler and who was very active during the war, spending most of it in the company of the troops in the field.He took a quotation from a classical Hebrew text and turned it into a slogan during the war: “He who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful.”

A controversy then arose when a booklet handed out to soldiers was found to contain a rabbinical edict against showing the enemy mercy. The Defense Ministry reprimanded the rabbi.At the time, in January, Avshalom Vilan, then a leftist member of Parliament, accused the rabbi of having “turned the Israeli military’s activity from fighting out of necessity into a holy war.”

Now, I am pretty sure nobody in power believes that they need to listen to this crazed, old Irish guy from New York State. But, if Israel adapts this nonsense as its policy, tacit or expressed, then we need to re-visit the whole Middle East-Israel-Special Relationship crap. Next time the bastards want money, send them DVDs. Religious DVDs...Ben Hur, The 10 Commandments, Solomon and Sheba, Sampson, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Barabas, Life of Brian...and, a copy of The Great Dictator .

Seriously, if they want American military aid and guarantees, let them get it the same way the Saudis do, pay for it. We had a reasonable obligation after the Holocaust to provide assistance to the Isrealis and did a fairly lousy job of it initially, but have been staunch stooges ever since. There is no difference between Avachai (isn't that a type of tea?) Ronzki and Achmajenabad, except that his name is easier to spell. Seriously, if "Never Again" is only for Jews, it's meaningless.

Now, I suspect that this is another example of the " the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intent." However, Holy Wars aren't holy; Aquinas had a pretty good explanation of the just war -- the attacks on Gaza are interesting because the Isrealis are the aggressor. Arguments that they are not because of rocket attacks that kill a few yearly kind of fail the proportionality test.

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

I am not advocating that we direct Isreal's policies, politics, or actions. But, at least we shouldn't support policies, politics, or actions that violate common sense and the rule of law. If we advocate international law, and international law defines war crimes, and the Israelis engage in behavior that violates international law and commits crimes and aggressive war against a relatively defenseless group of people, then we need to do something besides tsk/tsk/tsk but continue our historic support. Else, we become at best lacking conviction if not accomplices in passionate but irrational and evil intent.

Nor am I a big fan of reparations and trying to undo history. A helluva lot of pain has been inflicted on the world by those two little ideas. I do have a personal bias toward not doing evil things based on the precedent of other evil; and, I am opposed to the influence of relgion on war and vice versa. Tiffany dislikes war because it wakes her up and makes her cranky and then her face breaks out. If you accompany slaughter by religious justification and complaint, then she really gets angry. I prefer to let her sleep her dreaming, unfulfilled dreams than piss her off.

The American record on religious extermination isn't great. Sand Creek was in many ways paralell to the most recent invasion of Gaza. Most of the Isreali Defense Forces are reservists; the US forces at Sand Creek were reservists. The impact of a fundamentalist and triumphalist Jewish faith on the forces attacking Gaza are linked to war crimes and atrocities; Chivington, the commander of the forces at Sand Creek was a minister and the presiding elder of the Methodist Church in the Rocky Mountain District. In both cases, the cause of the attack was, shall we say, disproportional to the response...and the results, not exactly what was anticipated. There is a direct line between Sand Creek and Little Big Horn and beyond all as a result of this...

The beginning of the American Civil War in 1861 led to the organization of military forces in Colorado Territory. In March 1862, the Coloradans defeated the Texas Confederate Army in the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico. Following the battle, the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers returned to Colorado Territory and were mounted as a home guard under the command of Colonel John Chivington. Chivington and Colorado territorial governor John Evans adopted a hard line against Indians, accused by white settlers of stealing stock. Conflicts between settlers and Indians in the spring of 1864 included the capture and destruction of a number of small Cheyenne camps.^[11] On May 16, 1864, a force under Lieutenant George S. Eayre crossed into Kansas and encountered Cheyennes in their summer buffalo-hunting camp at Big Bushes near the Smoky Hill River. Cheyenne chiefs Lean Bear and Star approached the soldiers to signal their peaceful intent, but were shot down by Eayre's troops.^[12] This incident touched off a war of retaliation by the Cheyennes in Kansas.^[11]As conflict between Indians and white settlers and soldiers in Colorado continued, many of the Cheyennes and Arapahos (including those bands under Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope who had sought to maintain the peace in spite of pressures from whites) were resigned to negotiate peace. (AXE comment and Snark: Not a bad paralell. The size of the reservation that the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho were "given" was 1/13th the size of their original grazing and hunting grounds.) They were told to camp near Fort Lyon on the eastern plains and they would be regarded as friendly.

It appears that the investigation into what happened in Gaza may have some paralells to the aftermath of Sand Creek...except, in Isreal, every fanatic gets a second and third and fourth and fifth act. Until they die...

Soldier Blue - 1970 - The Massacre - More free videos are here

As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the verist [sic] savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. ( AXE comment and concern: Chivington was a purely local yokel. The chief chaplain of the IDF is something more than that. One is forced to wonder if this was in fact a strategic decision, to kill and destroy without restraint. If so, the Hague should have some questions. )Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension and defenceless [sic] condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man. Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deed he and the men under his command had performed. In conclusion, your committee are of the opinion that for the purpose of vindicating the cause of justice and upholding the honor of the nation, prompt and energetic measures should be at once taken to remove from office those who have thus disgraced the government by whom they are employed, and to punish, as their crimes deserve, those who have been guilty of these brutal and cowardly acts. ( AXE Comment and Snark: Ironically, Chivington escaped prosecution as a result of amnesty declared following the Civil War, an amnesty declared in the spirit of "With malice toward none, with charity toward all..." and primarily intended for the forces of the Confederate States.")

So, if we do it, it's ok...but if you do it, because your religious mubojumbo is outside the Greco-Roman-Jewish tradition

Well, then you're fucked and you're going to hell! Ratzinger's hits just keep on coming.  His priest says a prayer, and God gives you a baby, or transubstantiates some  stale wonderbread and left over Chablis into cannibalism, or cures your sore throat by slapping some candles against your neck or...or...there's just such a wealth of magikal nonsense in Christianity, and particularly Catholicism that I'm overwhelmed. But, if your priest-figure makes an image of you and blows on it to help you breathe, well, that's just not going to work and is a sin. Got it...

Hail to thee, blithe spirit...

Well, that's silly. But, I'm in the mood for silly. I just finished screwing around with the Tax Gang Part II, and I see one of the disadvantages of keeping accounting firms out of the software business. Their own shit can really suck. In this case, my preparer of choice electronically, HR Block, has the world's worst website --why have a FAQs link that doesn't work? why have what should be links based on characters that aren't? how does losing someone in the queue inspire confidence? Anyway, I called their helpline -- mistake!! Can't do what they tell me to do. However, I finally talked to an actual tax preparer who is trying to get this unfucked so she can do my taxes.

Next, I'm having problems with the whole Geitner plan. Given a choice between a political appointee and Paul Krugman, I'll take Krugman. If he says it's a bad idea, well, his track record over the last 30 years is pretty good. He thinks it's shortsighted and basically stupid --stable, well-capitalized banks will be OK and even do well; one's that are in trouble are in trouble and will be in worse trouble...we will be infested with Texas Savings and Loans which damn near killed the Great State in the 80s. And, as stuff surfaces, more people who are not supply-side, Milton-Rand-Greenspan devotees are agreeing with Krugman...in other words, economists who actually have ideas and can understand an incredibly bad idea when they see it slouching toward Bethlehem...

Yves here, If this isn't Newspeak, I don't know what is. Since when is someone who puts 3% of total funds and gets 20% of the equity a "partner"?  And notice the hint of skepticism from the Times regarding the Administration's supposition that the bidding will result in fair prices. Huh? First, the banks, as in normal auctions, will presumably set a reserve price equal to the value of the assets on their books. If the price does not meet the reserve (and the level of the reserve is not disclosed to the bidders), there is no sale; in this case, the bank would keep the toxic instruments. Having the banks realize a price at least equal to the value they hold it at on their books is a boundary condition. If the banks sell the assets as a lower level, it will result in a loss, which is a direct hit to equity. The whole point of this exercise is to get rid of the bad paper without further impairing the banks. So presumably, the point of a competitive process (assuming enough parties show up to produce that result at any particular auction) is to elicit a high enough price that it might reach the bank's reserve, which would be the value on the bank's books now. And notice the utter dishonesty: a competitive bidding process will protect taxpayers. Huh? A competitive bidding process will elicit a higher price which is BAD for taxpayers!  Dear God, the Administration really thinks the public is full of idiots. But there are so many components to the program, and a lot of moving parts in each, they no doubt expect everyone's eyes to glaze over.

Now, after 8 years of Bush and almost 30 years of "Morning in America," everybody should be convinced that the public is full of idiots. Selfish, moronical idiots. If Rush Limbaugh and Barrack Obama were to compete in fucking death match referred by Vince McMahon and Barry Bonds, people would get it. Think about and ask questions about it to people who know something about it...nahh. That's hard.

Now, this this actually might combine thought with broad physical comedy and some blasphemy...

 

And then, from Steven Van Zandt, we get the Cocktail Slippers from Oslo who are a helluva lot better than a lot of other folks... why did Lordi win Eurovision and not these gals...be the last lover standing come St Valentines day! Little Steven calls them a role model for the new generation because they "actually have talent and understand that rock and roll is a craft"... I think they sound like a cross between a 60's girl group, the Bangles, possibly with a little Wanda Jackson thrown in...Wicked Cool Records is a pretty neat label. This reminds me of the stuff that really did come out of garages in the 60s and 70s, and the various little clubs around the world. The Chesterfield Kings remind me of something out of Manchester, or maybe Muncie Indiana...reasonably smart working class kids who knew that even if they could swing the money for junior college, they were probably headed to Vietnam or construction...

The Times giveth, the Times takes away...

Nude alpine hiking ? In winter? In Switzerland?  Nude winter sports? Really?"Last summer, the number of nude hikers increased to such an extent that the hills often seemed alive with the sound of everything but the swish of trousers."

And then, after the "We're the real absolutely honest to goodness Real IRA, not those other guys, honest, watch us kill this guy getting a pizza!" return from the grave of history, these absolute dickheads return. While the IRA and the Orange groups in their various guises and ideologies made some historical sense and was happening in the context of Irish history, Shining Path's attempt to bring the absolute worst of communism -- Maoist cultural revolution -- to what is basically a pre-industrial culture getting serious about the time China's party was starting to do something different entirely from what the smelly, black-toothed, incontinent butcher had done, really was a debacle. However, they've come back in a big way, thanks to contraband and cocaine. The war on drugs, one that keeps on giving and giving...

Of course, then the LA Times tops the NY Times with some popular culture..."“It's a scandal! -- 'Mr. Civil Rights’ is killing our civil rights,” said David Emminger, whose home is directly behind the porta-potty -- apparently intended for use by employees of the entertainer best known for his 1960s-era protest songs." Only to those who haven't paid attention...for 45 years now. Amazing... I didn't know that motorcycle accidents, heart problems and all that meth would do in the sense of smell.

And then, then there's this WTF moment...except, didn't we see this guy once before? Now it all makes sense...sort of. I just don't know if he's Shining Path, a security guard from Malibu, or getting ready to defend Switzerland against the anti-nude hiking invaders, and needs some place to stash a few magazines...

Actually, the war on drugs goes a long way to explain of all of this...

A terrible beauty is born in a lovely thought

Fuck them all...

I have  met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Ultimately, we all are guilty bastards...but some far more than others. And from them much is owed, and much expected, and little received...

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The Ceremony of Innocence is drowned ;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Happy Fucking St Padraig's Day...

Win Hold Win? Really? In pre-emptive war?

The Pentagon is re-thinking what it's doing. Not a bad idea...anytime, but at the moment, priceless.

Among the refinements to the two-wars strategy the Pentagon has incorporated in recent years is one known as “win-hold-win” — an assumption that if two wars broke out simultaneously, the more threatening conflict would get the bulk of American forces while the military would have to defend along a second front until reinforcements could arrive to finish the job.

The AXE remembers watching a press conference from 1991, when Colin Powell and Dick Cheney made the case for keeping the Defense Department at strength for a Win-Win approach, equivalent to being able to fight and win two wars. For example, something drags us into, oh, I don't know, Afghanistan and then something drags us into, oh, say Iraq and we're cool. This replaced Flexible Response , or the ability to handle Afghanistan, and Iraq and  then say, oh, something awful drags us into Mexico. Or Korea. Or Somalia. Or the Balkans. Fight the main one first, fight and win the less dangerous but still critical one next, and then crush the third opponent. The advantage of Flexible Response over Two Wars is that, well, it's flexible. The advantage of Two Wars is that it's cheap. At the time that this was being pushed, everyone was excited about the Peace Dividend. It was formulated at about the same time and as a factor in the Powell Doctrine doctrine, but seems forgotten. I can't find it on-line, the link is to an abstract from Foreign Affairs.

In fairness to Powell and the pre-cyborg-Cheney, they were advocating something startlingly different than the cluster fuck we got as shown in this link from PBS and Frontline. The whole intent was to have a force that was flexible and able to respond to just about anything.

When a "fire" starts that might require committing armed forces, we need to evaluate the circumstances. Relevant questions include: Is the political objective we seek to achieve important, clearly defined and understood? Have all other nonviolent policy means failed? Will military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Have the gains and risks been analyzed? How might the situation that we seek to alter, once it is altered by force, develop further and what might be the consequences?

As an example of this logical process, we can examine the assertions of those who have asked why President Bush did not order our forces on to Baghdad after we had driven the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. We must assume that the political objective of such an order would have been capturing Saddam Hussein. Even if Hussein had waited for us to enter Baghdad, and even if we had been able to capture him, what purpose would it have served? And would serving that purpose have been worth the many more casualties that would have occurred? Would it have been worth the inevitable follow-up: major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come and a very expensive and complex American proconsulship in Baghdad? Fortunately for America, reasonable people at the time thought not. They still do. (AXE comment and snark...Yet, here we are, largely thanks to reasonable men.)

Instead, because we're the meanest motherfuckers around, over the next 11 years, we opted under the Contract on America for being able to fight 1.5 wars. Part of this was Clinton, of course;  a larger part of it was the Contract on America, and the desire to keep taxes low while balancing the budget. If you do that, great, but you can't adequately arm, train, prepare and fight for two major conflicts. Ships, planes, tanks, Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen are expensive propositions. So, the theory evolved into one small war and maybe on big war. Win-hold-then, win.

Then, of course, came 9/11. OK, accepting that the lead on the Global War on Terror should be the military -- which I do not necessarily do, by the way -- the US and our allies could probably have done something amazing in Afghanistan. Hell, we did do something amazing. I watched footage of the night drop of the Rangers into Afghanistan...we had targets, we knew where they were. The SF guys on Horseback riding down the Taliban and al Queida was incredible. However, we won the initial campaign and then went all "hold" on the battle and turned our attention to...Iraq. Which had damn all to do with anything and badly broke the services.

There was probably no alternative to invading Afghanistan and bitch slapping the Taliban and al Queida. However, we then invaded another country...that had nothing to do with the reason we were at war. The Twitshit de la Dweeb administration stumbled around making the case, but...the case was stupid from the beginning. Seriously stupid, and got us where we are. Fighting two wars that exhaust resources faster than we can replenish them, and with lots of other places we ought to be doing something other than what we are...piracy on the high seas, Somalian style law and order on the border with Mexico, and so on.

Despite his endorsement of Bush in 2004, I think Stormin' Norman's discussion of Saddam Hussein's military prowess really sums up Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Franks-Meyers-Tenet better than anyone else on this topic. Asked about Saddam in 1990, Schwartzkopf said "As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he's a great military man I want you to know that." Before he said it, he laughed and snorted. Maybe someday we'll be able to have that reaction to Twitshit and Cheney et al as opposed to another Sunday Tourette's moment...