Dubya's Last Stand
Dearest Readers, Have you noticed the ones screaming the loudest, telling us "we must win" "failure in Iraq is not an option" STILL have no real plan? Good Heavens, they cannot even define the difference between winning and failing. The majority of these so-called men and women are full-fledged, wing flapping, barnyard cackling Chickhawks!
We hear very few, if any combat Veterans screaming for more war. The ones who do seem to come in two flavors- dangerous and very dangerous. These are the very few Vietnam vets who still think if we had used more force - we could have won that war.
Pray tell, what would we have won that would have honored the 58,000 dead Americans and more dead Vietnamese?
Spare Prissy the "domino theory" as that argument imploded a long time ago...this time it was "dominoes for Democracy".
How about we make a new rule for warfare; that we must base war on facts- not theories...
Hot Links
WEEKEND UPDATE:
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists By Roger Speed and Michael May
March/April 2005 www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma05speed
Dangerous doctrine-A U.S. policy of preemption and a push for new nuclear weapon designs could be a recipe for disaster that makes proliferation more likely, not less.
Actual use of nuclear weapons in combat in theaters where the United States is attempting to intervene is likely to produce dire consequences in the region where they are used, particularly if the other side retaliates with nuclear weapons. Ports, air bases, and aircraft carriers in or near the area targeted could be gone, and the country to be occupied by the United States is likely to be contaminated--as may be neighboring countries. Beyond the area subjected to a nuclear attack, the reaction to U.S. nuclear use will almost surely be to strengthen the hand of those, in Russia, China, India, and elsewhere, who argue that a modern, integrated, tested nuclear force is necessary for their security. Both in the United States and abroad, U.S. nuclear use could be attended by considerable revulsion and controversy, and a deeper political split than has occurred to date.
The community of democratic states committed to increased effectiveness of international law and diplomacy, a community that includes the most effective and powerful U.S. allies, would surely split from the United States on any unwarranted use of nuclear weapons, whether first use or not.
From NYT Frank Rich-Via RAW Story
Each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a PR operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.
What these revelations also tell us is that Bush was wrong when he said in his Veterans Day speech that more than 100 congressional Democrats who voted for the Iraqi war resolution "had access to the same intelligence" he did. They didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief that Waas uncovered. They didn't have access to the information that German intelligence officials spoke about to The Los Angeles Times. Nor did they have access to material from a Defense Intelligence Agency report, released by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan this month, which as early as February 2002 demolished the reliability of another major source that the administration had persistently used for its false claims about Iraqi-Qaida collaboration.
The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the."'
By George Frank, Prissy thinks you've got it!
NY Daily News nydailynews.com/front/story/369436p-314247c.html All disquiet on West Wing front-Aides: W must right ship
The problem for Bush, advisers admit, is that the ongoing leak probe reinforces allegations that the White House allegedly hyped prewar intelligence to justify a war most Americans no longer support.
And...A card-carrying member of the Washington GOP establishment with close ties to the White House recently encountered several senior presidential aides at a dinner and came away shaking his head at their "no problems here" mentality.
"There is just no introspection there at all," he said in exasperation. "It is everybody else's fault - the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They're still in denial."
Science Daily www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051125-15433400-bc-us-ustroops.xml
Iraq straining U.S. military. WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The continuing war in Iraq is taking a toll on both the equipment and the troops of the U.S. military.
Gen. Paul Kern, who recently retired as head of Army Materiel Command, estimated the cost of replacing or repairing equipment used in Iraq would come to $60 billion to $100 billion.
The physical and emotional stress on the military has fueled recent calls to get troops out.
"We are grinding down our force structure to the point where we have no force structure," said Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, one of the few Republicans in Congress to oppose the war.
Good for you on opposition to the war, Chuck. Please start yelling louder, Prissy knows you can do it. It's OK-it won't be political suicide, as the public will back you.
Stop making Cindy call you out on this-shame on these so called "tough guys." Someone's mother shouldn't have to point this out-you should be protecting her view and asking questions on her behalf-on OUR behalf.
What is so difficult to understand where Cindy and other military families are coming from? We know the truth-which was not the party line any major news service was feeding or continues to feed the public. That is finally changing.
www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112605X.shtml How Do We Honor Our Fallen Troops in a Wrongful War? By Paul Rockwell t r u t h o u t | Book Review
Friday 25 November 2005-A review of Cindy Sheehan's uplifting and soulful book.
Kipling wrote two "Epitaphs for War." In the first, dead soldiers speak:
If any question why we died,
Tell them because our fathers lied.
In the second, "The Dead Statesman," a statesman speaks:
And now all my lies are proved untrue.
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young. Would our fallen troops want their own comrades to meet untimely deaths? Would they invite us to take more revenge on Iraqis who possess no weapons of mass destruction? If they could speak to us from beyond, would they not cry out, as did the dead soldiers in Kipling's epitaph: "If any question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied"?
Military invocations of death often resemble those ancient rituals in which tribal leaders required human sacrifice to appease the gods of war. Bush, however, is a sophisticated barbarian. He knows that, without identification with our troops, his morally indefensible war would be repudiated by the American people. It is America's emotional attachment to their troops, who are prepared to risk their lives when their country is under a real attack, that has - so far - saved Bush from self-destruction. And that is why, of course, he delivers so many speeches against the backdrop of the troops.
Such questions answer themselves. But Cindy addresses another kind of question, a spiritual enigma that is not easy to solve. Did our soldiers die in vain? Was it all for nothing? How do grieving families find peace if they face the truth about war?
It is the message of Cindy's book, I believe, so simple and so profound, that only the truth can heal. Only the truth can liberate the memory of the fallen. Our soldiers deserve a reckoning. And we must honor them in a way that affirms the sacredness of life.
We cannot bring back the dead. But we can end the war and hold our leaders accountable for their crimes. We can turn Casey's sacrifice into a message for peace. Then even the dead, through Cindy's inspiration, can save future generations from the scourge of war. Then - perhaps only then - our fallen comrades can rest in peace.
Way to go, Toledo Blade! European fund tied to Noe falters
Firm backed by rare-coin money supplied international stamp deal-Sunday, November 27, 2005www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051127/NEWS24/511270357
Mr. Noe, who was indicted last month on three felony counts of laundering money into President Bush's re-election campaign, has been accused by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro of stealing more than $4 million from the two rare-coin funds he set up and managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
The former coin dealer's relationship with Greg Manning Auctions is absent from the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and hidden from a public without access to the 500,000 pages of coin funds records. It involved loans, direct payments to a Greg Manning subsidiary, and the off-market purchase by Mr. Noe of company stock from a former lieutenant of Michael Milken, the junk bond king convicted for securities violations in 1990, according to those records.
More than Ohio's money is at stake.
The investigation's findings could damage the fortunes of 140,000 Spanish and Portuguese investors who have invested more than $1 billion in rare postage stamps kept in distant vaults
Watch this fun cartoon of Dubya in a free-fall yee.slide.com/c/Bush+Freefallers+Unite_21/2962162
For Prissy's Candian friends: How'd they vote? Have you ever wondered how your member of parliament has been voting? In French and Englishwww.howdtheyvote.ca/
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051126/ap_on_re_us/crawford_war_protest;_ylt=AqrNUayRHnqEeoum5mSEzEes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
Bush Supporters, Opponents Gather in Texas
"Nobody knew what was going to happen, and we made up Camp Casey as we went along, and it grew and grew and grew," said Sheehan. "But we're here to say that the killing has to stop, that we're not going to justify any more killing on our losses. And we're not going away."
Meanwhile, father Gary Qualls, who lost his Marine son Louis in Iraq last year, was among hundreds of Bush supporters who wanted to counter anti-war demonstrators with their own demonstration. Qualls, who also led a pro-Bush rally in August, said the anti-war demonstration is disrespectful to soldiers and hurtful to troop morale.
"Our sons and daughters have given the ultimate sacrifice, and they deserve nothing less than pure honor and pure respect," Qualls said.
Mr. Qualls, while Prissy is sorry for your loss-killing more of your son's friends for this lie, will in no way show honor or respect to the fallen. It only causes more sorrow-especially since the world knows why America is REALLY in Iraq. And tell the media to stop lying about your "hundreds of Bush supporters."
Gather up your three friends there with you and go apologize to Cindy and the other families who refused to willingly give their child's life to make rich men richer...Bush and the neocons must answer to the nation and to the world for the horrors they have unleashed.
www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051121-08125600-bc-us-torture.xml
Report: Cheney advocated U.S. torture-WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, made the allegation to CNN, and said it was possible the practice was still going on.
"There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated -- in the vice president of the United States' office," he said. "His implementer in this case was (Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department."
Via Bellacaio- i33.photobucket.com/albums/d70/GDoole01/ea04ffaa.jpg More than you ever wanted to know about "rendition"- the CIA's shell companies they are said to have used to fly people around and torture them. How can these phonies call themselves AMERICANS? Prissy doesn't claim them...
bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9313
SOME DARE CALL IT ... TORTURE These treatments are administered directly by CIA officers. To optain harsher treatments, the CIA "renditions" (snatches and transports) the victims to Jordan, Syria (our supposed arch enemy), and Egypt. The CIA’s own methods have been approved by one or more American "physicians" (reminiscent of the Nazi Dr. Mengele), which supposedly has limited deaths from torture to two or three.
More actual rendition details in the article. Thank you Cindy!crawfordupdate.blogspot.com/
Renewing the Camp Casey protest vigil in central Texas on Wednesday, a dozen anti-war activists challenged the county's recent laws against camping or parking on the side of any public road. Those arrested included Daniel Ellsberg, former diplomat Ann Wright, and DeDe Miller, Cindy Sheehan's sister. They are charged with trespassing and obstructing the road. They were sitting in the ditch along a county road, and no obstruction occurred. Each of these Orwellian criminal misdemeanors carries a possible 180 days in jail, and a $2,000 fine. Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, held the tent's undivided attention with endless tales of civil disobedience against unjust laws and policy. He turned serious when he expressed his doubts that "American justice" and civil rights as we know them would not survive the next 9/11. To Daniel Ellsberg, one important question is how many of us will speak out when the government targets immigrant communities and political opponents are rounded up and placed in detention camps. We should not wait until then, now is the time to resist, he concluded.
villagevoice.com/news/0543,lombardiqa,69280,2.html Village Voice-Mother of All Protesters-Talking with Cindy Sheehan, center of a rallying movement against war in Iraq
You're going to the White House this week. What's the message you want to bring? We have to invest everything we have right now to ensure our children and their children have a future. I believe what the Bush administration is doing is harmful to our present but it will be more harmful to our future. It's contaminating a region with depleted uranium. It's depleting our treasury. And if it has its way, it'll wage an eternal war in the Middle East. We have to change this. I'm going to Washington with my sister, Dede, who was my partner in crime in Crawford. I'm going to relay this message, and get arrested. And when I get out of jail, I'm going to go back and do the same. news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1064382.php/Anti-war_protest_continues_near_Bush_ranch
Anti-war protest continues near Bush ranch
CRAWFORD, TX, United States (UPI) -- Antiwar protesters remain camped near President Bush`s Texas ranch on land belonging to one of his neighbors.
The encampment features a large white tent and a banner that reads 'No Pardon for Crawford`s Turkey.' The group plans to mark Thanksgiving by serving an Iraqi meal, the Washington Post reported.
On Wednesday, a group challenged a new Crawford ordinance that bans roadside camping within 7 miles of the Bush ranch. Those arrested included Daniel Ellsberg, the former government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg has said he sees these actions as necessary to end the war. Prissy predicts Bush will never regain his support for the war. It's over.
Perhaps the next civil disobedience will take place in the halls of Congress. Military families could refuse to leave until a pull out plan is approved. It's coming, folks. Prissy thinks that would be the ultimate civil disobedience...one she would be willing to participate in-which would certainly be a first. Five years ago, Prissy would have scoffed that such an event would be needed.
Readers, Prissy doesn't say this lightly-for we are nearing this phase toward a massive and Democratic defiance of our so-called representatives.
Note to politicians: Lead, Follow or Get Out of Our Way! We have said your war has gone on long enough- and we mean it.
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-faithpris24nov24,0,7203610.story?coll=sfla-news-florida
Sun-Sentinel- Gov. Bush opens largest faith-based prison
Bush, a devout Catholic who has defiantly rejected civil libertarians' criticism of the state's faith-based programs, told the inmates how daily prayer has improved his life. He said he shares their belief in the power of faith. "My expectation is that you'll be better behaved here, but also better prepared when you get out of here to live a productive life," Bush said. Most of the volunteers who minister to and teach the inmates come from nearby Christian and evangelical churches, but efforts are made to bring in spiritual leaders of many faiths. "It's just so difficult to get volunteers of faiths other than Christianity to come here," said Marilyn Nase, a volunteer from a nearby Baptist church in Tallahassee One more reason he should never consider running for president-Prissy knows plenty of FL folks who are tired of being "Bush-whacked". Jeb Bush is a religious fanatic who wanted the police to remove Terri Shivo from the nursing home. The police refused-they weren't breaking the law at the Governors request.
Those Bush boys may have grown up wealthy, but family dysfunction knows no income limits. They really believe our world is their oyster. www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts132.html Lew Rockwell- We Must Hold the Scoundrels Accountable-by Paul Craig Roberts Consequently, the US and UK governments invaded a country for reasons that were different from the fabricated reasons used to make the case to the public. Thus did the highest officials in the two governments commit a plethora of crimes.
Under the Nuremberg standard, it is a war crime to initiate military aggression.
It is a criminal act both in the US and the UK to commit military forces to action under false pretenses. Bush/Blair had no intention of getting caught- they truly underestimated the power of the internet.
hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BROWN_DISASTERS?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Ex-FEMA head starts disaster planning firm
"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses - because that goes straight to the bottom line - then I hope I can help the country in some way," Brown told the Rocky Mountain News for its Thursday editions.
Brown said officials need to "take inventory" of what's going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is. Prissy likes this title better: "Former FEMA Director Now Consulting to Help Officials Appear Competent"
Uh,Oh... www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10356895
EU opens US 'terror gulag' probe
BRUSSELS - A probe into claims the CIA held al Qaeda terrorists in secret prisons in Europe has been stepped up after 45 countries were sent a formal demand to provide information.
The move coincided with news that Austria's Air Force is probing claims that a US plane containing suspected terrorist captives passed through the neutral country's airspace in 2003.
www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32861&dcn=todaysnews
Governement Executive-November 23, 2005 -CIA veterans speak out against torture
Some perennially high-profile retired CIA officers like Bob Baer, Frank Anderson, and Vincent Cannistraro recently spoke out to Knight Ridder about their opposition to torture on practical grounds (Cannistraro said that detainees will "say virtually anything to end their torment"). But over the past 18 months, several lesser-known former officers have been trying, publicly and privately, to convince both the agency and the public that torture and other unduly coercive questioning tactics are morally wrong as well.
Speaking at a College of William and Mary forum last year, for example, Burton L. Gerber, a decorated Moscow station chief who retired in 1995 after 39 years with the CIA, surprised some in the audience when he said he opposes torture "because it corrupts the society that tolerates it."
This is a view, he confirmed in an interview with National Journal last week, that is rooted in Albert Camus's assertion in Preface to Algerian Reports that torture, "even when accepted in the interest of realism and efficacy," represents "a flouting of honor that serves no purpose but to degrade" a nation in its own eyes and the world's.
"The reason I believe that torture corrupts the torturers and society," Gerber says, "is that a standard is changed, and that new standard that's acceptable is less than what our nation should stand for. I think the standards in something like this are crucial to the identity of America as a free and just society." Indeed!
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nosnipers24nov24,0,2395328.story?coll=la-home-headlines
LA Times-Doubts Now Surround Account of Snipers Amid New Orleans Chaos-11/24/05
But nearly three months later — and after repeated revisions of the official account of the incident and a lowering of the death toll to two — authorities said they were still trying to reconstruct what happened Sept. 4 on the Danziger Bridge. And on the city's east side, where the shootings occurred, two families that suffered casualties are preparing to come forward with stories radically different from those told by police.
A teenager critically wounded that day, speaking about the incident for the first time, said in an interview that police shot him for no reason, delivering a final bullet at point-blank range with what he thought was an assault rifle. Members of another family said one of those killed was mentally disabled, a childlike innocent who made a rare foray from home in a desperate effort to find relief from the flood. Dubya was looking for a reason to suspend the Posse Comitatus Act and was hoping Hurricane Katrina would give him an "in." Why does he hate Americans freedom? Because they have too much power over the government for Duyba's liking...
Quotes of the Day and a Funny Clip Too "Vice President Dick Cheney said he is particularly upset when critics say they lied us into the war. I say fine. Just lie us back out and we'll call it even. How about that?" ~Jay Leno
"President Bush had an embarrassing moment after holding a press conference in China, did you see this on the news? He tried to leave the room, but the doors were locked. Once again, no exit strategy." "President Bush is in South America. When he landed, he said 'Oh my god, John Edwards was right, there ARE two Americas!'" "For the first time ever, Republicans in Congress -- Republicans! -- are demanding to know the president's exit strategy from Iraq. Yeah, in response the president said I have an exit strategy, I'm leaving office in 2008." toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/chickenhawks.htm
The No Fly Zone- Quick cartoon-quite funny- featuring Dick, Rush,Delay and the rest of the gang. The facts given are for real... The Prissy Patriot will return on Monday...but will be adding updates over the weekend.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for his help because he might not be there." --Rev. Pat Robertson, after the city of Dover,
Pennsylvania voted to boot the current school board, which instituted an intelligent design policy that led to a federal trial.
