If You Build It ...
As the vote to ratify or reject the Iraqi constitution draws closer, different sides are taking their positions. From the Guardian: Iraq Sunnis Want Constitution Rejected
The local leaders from Iraq's insurgency-torn Anbar province, the country's Sunni heartland, gathered for a three-day conference ... held in the Jordanian capital for security reasons. ... "We urge all the Iraqi people to go to the polls and say no to the constitution," Sheik Abdul-Latif Himayem, a prominent cleric from the Anbar capital, Ramadi, who organized the conference, told The Associated Press. ... He accused the Shiite-led government of worsening the sectarian divide in Iraq by carrying out "unjustified" arrests in Anbar, where the insurgency has been centered.
And from the New York Times, a train going in the opposite direction. Senior Shiite Cleric Plans to Endorse Iraqi Constitution
Sept. 22 - Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, will issue a religious order for Shiites to vote in favor of the newly drafted constitution in a referendum planned for Oct. 15, one of his aides said today. ... Mr. Sistani's commands are followed by millions of Iraq's Shiites, and his order, if given, would increase the chances that the constitution will be approved.
The collision, according to the Saudis, may lead to an Iraqi civil war. Al Jazeera reports:
The (Saudi Foreign) minister said he did not believe the country was engulfed in full-scale civil war but the trend was moving in that direction. ... Asked what Saudi Arabia feared most about the trend, Saud said, "It will draw the countries of the region into conflict and that is the main worry of all the neighbours of Iraq". He referred specifically to Iran, which is backing and supplying Shia in Iraq, and to Turkey, which would not permit a separate Iraqi Kurdish state on its border.
After Operation Enduring Freedom drove the Taliban from Afghanistan some analysts asked why America chose Iraq, and not Saudi Arabia or Syria, for a regime takedown. For example, Jeffrey Sachs wrote in August, 2003:
Within hours of the attack, the White House apparently understood that senior Saudi intelligence officials were probably involved and that 15 out of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. They were no doubt stunned to realise that parts of the vast Saudi royal family were not only corrupt, but also deeply intertwined with anti-American terror and extremist fundamentalism. ... a substitute had to be found for the US military bases in Saudi Arabia. Like Saudi oil, the bases too were now under threat, especially because the US presence in the Saudi kingdom was known to be the principal irritant for al-Qaeda. ... the Bush White House needed to issue a powerful threat to the Saudi leadership: one more false step and you're finished. Attacking the next-door neighbour was no doubt judged to be quite persuasive.
But perhaps the strategic rationale for choosing Iraq versus Saudi Arabia consisted in that Iraq lay along a major fault line in the Muslim world, not simply with respect to religion, but in the case of the Kurds, ethnicity as well. It was the one place where America was guaranteed to find local allies whichever way it turned; it was the last place where the population could easily put aside their differences to oppose the United States. And if the objective were to set the region on its ears, here was the pillar in temple of Dagon around which everything could be sent crashing down. Or maybe President Bush just stuck a pin on the map and said, 'I think we'll find weapons of mass destruction here'.
However it began, OIF has unlocked forces that are rocking the foundations of the entire region. Saudi Arabia, for example, cannot but remember how the forces of an Iraqi state stopped just a few hours' drive away from its gleaming cities in 1990, with nothing but the 82nd Airborne Division between the Republican Guard and the Royal Palaces. Now they are torn, truly torn, between their sympathies for the Sunni insurgency and the cold knowledge of its probable consequences. The one thing Arab capitals may fear more than a continuing American presence in Iraq is the possibility of an American withdrawal. Ironically it is the Sunnis, their Syrian sponsors and their sympathizers in Saudi Arabia who have the most to gain from the establishment of a stable, constitutional and unitary Iraq, could they but nerve themselves to stand against the jihadi currents within their societies. Will they? Barbara Tuchman observed that history is often the field of folly, which she defines as the "pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest". And so it is.
215 Comments:
The Sunnis - for that matter all the players in this drama know full well that the history of Islam proves that those in the minority - those out of power - loose!
My first reaction to OIF was a question. Can Islam embrace democracy and republicanism? Are the two compatible?
I agree with Wretch - the best odds for that are in Iraq.
The Shiites and the Kurds are pushing on towards democracy, the Sunnis are worried and rightly so.
You can hardly fault the Kurds and Shiites, 30 years of subservience to a minority that continues to spill their blood or at best helps external terrorists.
Suprisingly Saddam's Baath Party may have been the best (of the worst) precurser to an Iraqi democratic/pluralistic mindset. They are, idealogically at least, secular.
Wretchard, the more you study history, the more you wonder how the idea that humans are largely rational beings emerged in the first place.
The one thing Arab capitals may fear more than a continuing American presence in Iraq is the possibility of an American withdrawal.
Option #3 would be an American invasion. I see this especially pertaining to Saudi Arabia.
And Option #4 would be just nuking 'em back to the stone age. And this, of course, pertains especially to Iran.
some analysts asked why America chose Iraq, and not Saudi Arabia . . .15 out of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.
I was always under the impression that OBL stacked the deck with the Saudis on purpose hoping we would bite and do his dirty work for him and take down Saudi Arabia. Something he's always wanted. He hates the royal family.
Am I wrong in thinking this?
U.S. to remain in Iraq until job is finished, Bush repeats:
"If we fail that test, the consequences for the safety and security of the American people would be enormous," the president said. "Our withdrawal from Iraq would allow the terrorists to claim an historic victory over the United States."
On Afghanistan, Bush said that 18,000 U.S. troops serving there have not yet finished their mission. His comment appeared to be at odds with President Hamid Karzai, who on Tuesday challenged the need for major foreign military operations in Afghanistan.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031785224423&path=!nationworld!article&s=1037645509161
"Iraq, in failure or success, will change the region...and that could hardly be a bad thing all things considered."
I agree, Trish, even if Iraq fails (and i don't think it will), atleast America (Bush in particular) can say she tried to bring freedom and democracy. Which is a lot better than the hand wringers in Europe and the UN who prefer to sit on their backsides and criticise.
Still no answers:
Instead of reading books on the history of salt, the president should be studying recent presidential history. Richard Nixon, who said he had a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam, left office with war still raging; it finally ended in a U.S. defeat. Dwight Eisenhower won office in part by promising to end the war with North Korea. It ended in stalemate with an armistice and tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers stationed at its border for half a century.
Four years after 9/11, terrorist attacks are rapidly increasing in every part of the globe. Iraq has not become a synonym for a new democracy; it is synonymous with unending spasms of sudden, violent death.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/24hour/opinions/story/2745295p-11329465c.html
The forces released by the Glory of God, Baha'u'llah, are less than 120 years into their renewing and recreating process!
Based on the oneness of humankind; the oneness of God; the equality of men and women; the necessity for rationally structured investigation and areas of reality to be investigated; and the fundamental creation of humans as KNOWING and LOVING entities, these forces are sweeping away the detritus and outmoded shibboleths of 7,000 years and leaving intact the accumulated wisdom and learning from those same '7 days' of human history.
All humankind is headed toward an encounter with the Glory of God. We have two choices: learn what its all about, or hide from it as long as we can.
Neither choice will forestall the encounter. Its up to us to realize that when we're out of touch with purpose, we're out of touch with function:
the PURPOSE for which humans was created is to KNOW and LOVE God.
Ed,
I remember that OBL denied involvement for months. How does his denial for months equate to him not padding the hijack teams with Saudis?
Trish,
I like to think that I've been following this stuff fairly closely but I don't recall OBL reasoning that we'd take down Iraq. I could have missed it 'though.
CIA chief calls for new unilateral agency effort:
The CIA, seeking to repair a reputation damaged by Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks, will do more of its own spying in countries where it has tended to rely on foreign intelligence services up to now, CIA Director Porter Goss said on Thursday.
"Unilateral operations will return to be part of the governing paradigm for the CIA," Goss told employees.
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-09-23T111620Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-217092-1.xml
Bush hasn't mentioned any secret plan to end the war, his plan it pretty plain and open. Why is Iraq still being compared with Vietnam, they are so very different, i understand the left dream on that Iraq would turn into a vietnam, their prayers for thousands of american soldiers killed in Iraq and therefore lead to a weakening of American resolve are still unanswered.
There is a democratically elected government in Iraq that was brought about by the US, not the occupation and enslavement as the left would have us believe and contrary to what the leftists tell us, not every square metre of Iraq is being bombed and burned 24/7.
Iraqi Forces Show Signs Of Progress In Offensive:
U.S. and Iraqi commanders acknowledge that it will be many months before the Iraqi units are able to function on their own, a belief echoed by dozens of Tall Afar residents interviewed during the operation. One year ago this month, U.S. and Iraqi forces swept through Tall Afar, but when the Americans largely withdrew from the region, the insurgency returned, stronger than ever.
"If the Americans leave, the chaos will come back. The bad people will come back again, just like before," said Abdullah Wahab Muhammed Younis, one of the city's most prominent Shiite sheiks, who said insurgents have killed 14 members of his family and wounded 33 in the past year.
"The Iraqi army is stronger than it was, but they are not ready. Not yet."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/21/AR2005092102175_2.html
NATO members help U.S. in its Iraq effort .
UNITED NATIONS, New York European countries have overcome their past differences with the United States over Iraq and all 26 NATO members are now providing training and equipment to Baghdad, according to the alliance's secretary general.
The official, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a former Dutch foreign minister who backed the Bush administration's war while many Europeans opposed it, said Tuesday that he was about to raise the NATO flag over a huge complex in Baghdad that had prepared 1,000 Iraqi officers inside the country and 500 more outside.
He said that NATO had also arranged for Iraqi troops to be trained in Germany, Italy and Norway.
He complained that most European countries still invested too little in defense and said that he was devoting himself to "pubic diplomacy" to try to persuade allies of the importance to European security of actions taken by NATO far afield from Europe.
"If I had to defend defense spending - be it in a national government or as NATO secretary general - people must realize that they are living in a different world where the challenges we are facing are ones we have to go far away to confront them at the source," he said.
"An operation which costs a lot of money in Afghanistan plays its role in the fight against terrorism," he added, "because if that country were to slide back into the black hole again that it was under the Taliban, the problems arising from not engaging it would end up on our doorstep."
NATO has 12,400 troops in Afghanistan, and it is about to take over an American command in the south next spring to be operated by British, Canadians and Dutch forces.
ot: Withdraw Meyers! .
Julie L. Myers has been nominated by the White House to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a vast bureau with more than 20,000 employees and a budget of $4 billion.
...
Her nomination highlights the administration’s desire to keep immigration enforcement on a short leash, lest some rogue official embarrass the White House by actually enforcing the immigration law. It exposes the administration to yet another Michael Brown fiasco if, as is eventually likely, a terrorist eludes the demoralized immigration agents at ICE on his way to killing Americans.
“The response of House Republicans
to any talk of new immigration
programs has been
‘Enforcement First.’”
Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin has suggested a much better pick for the ICE job:
Peter Nuñez — Navy veteran, Reagan-era U.S. Attorney in San Diego, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement during the first Bush administration.
His views on immigration are more in line with those of NR than the White House, but this should actually be an additional selling point:
By selecting Nuñez as the nation’s top immigration-enforcement officer, the president would have much more credibility with Congress and the public in trying to sell his immigration proposals.
It continues to baffle me except as utter contrariness that so many in the media define a continued presence ("occupation") in Iraq as a negative. Has our sixty-year presence in Germany, England, Japan, et cetera, caused untold suffering and misery for those people?
Bush Braces As Cindy Sheehan's Other Son Drowns In New Orleans .
WASHINGTON, DC—According to White House sources, President Bush is bracing for intensified criticism following Monday's report that the body of Tyler Sheehan, son of outspoken anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, was recovered from the receding floodwaters in New Orleans.
Sheehan was last seen Sept. 4, hours after he and his levee crew sustained injuries while attempting to shore up storm-weakened levee pilings. According to sources, contaminated water laced with slicks of petroleum from a recently deregulated, poorly fortified refinery ignited, causing third-degree burns among the workers. Survivors recall seeing Tyler, badly injured and without the life jacket and medical kit denied him by recent budget cuts, digging survivors out of the wreckage.
"I don't know how we would have gotten out of there without Tyler," said Dom Ghivarello, Sheehan's crew chief. "Once we got clear of the break, we had no way of getting to high ground without our utility truck, which was requisitioned by the Defense Department last month for use in Iraq. But Tyler threw me his truck keys and went back to help others. That's the last I saw of him."
History has never yielded a simple solution to any problem, yet we persist in wanting one.
trish - how exactly does your constant refrain that our being in Iraq is a disaster and our leaving Iraq will prompt a collapse contribute to the discussion? other than just allowing you to vent your frustration with a very difficult challenge, that is?
What is your prescription for peace and securtiy both there and here?
“Deuce Four,” is on its way home.
I attended their departure ceremony, presided over by the much respected Brigade Commander, Colonel Robert Brown. Purple Hearts were awarded to soldiers wounded in action.
The commander of the Deuce Four, LTC Erik Kurilla, was not there to pin the medals on his soldiers; Kurilla was the last Deuce Four solider wounded in Iraq, and was recovering from three gunshot wounds.
All told, the 1-24th infantry regiment earned over 157 Purple Hearts during their mission in Mosul.
Sadly, due to a snag in paperwork with US Immigration, a very sick child is stuck in Jordan.
Her well being, possibly her life, is on hold over some trivial forms.
It was as if she had been found and lifted by angels, only to be stopped and left to sit outside the gates while nameless guards check her ID card against the roster.
The only thing certain is that without treatment Rhma will die.
posted by Michael Yon @ 1:10 AM
. Permanent LINK
ex dem,
If you would just keep up w/Juan Cole, you would not need to ask such pedestrian questions.
...but what would you know?
Well, I for one am glad that two years of fighting in Iraq have cost America 1,907 to date...
LESS THAN ONE DAY's casualties, D-Day!
Estimated at 2,500 Allied dead, D-Day was costly, I understand, but compared to the 7,058 Americans killed at Gettysburg, Iraq is DRY, thank God, nearly bloodless!
Nearly...
"Or, a nation of bloodthirsty, mostly incompetent shitheads from another point of view."
---
uh, WHO'S pov would THAT be?
Scroll down, just a bit, for some pics of those Purple Fingered Shitheads
"Lastly, the confident assertion that "Turkey... would not permit a separate Iraqi Kurdish state on its border" seems more humorous than threatening. We shall see, I guess. "
---
sirius, sir:
Yes, I've always wondered if that was decreed by Gaawd, or what?
The Turks seem increasingly to be becoming
Turkeys.
Is that Kurdistan's problem?
To the left and right of the wise old dude are future Purple Fingered Shitheads, tm
Gonna be a helluva weekend. Enough worries to highlight Cedarford's "...do changes need to be made?" I say, hell yes. Give us the list, please.
wretchard,
a minor note:
"After Operation Enduring Freedom drove the Taliban from Afghanistan some analysts asked why America chose Iraq, and not Saudi Arabia or Syria, for a regime takedown. "
Does anyone remember that in 2001 we were already at war with Iraq? There was a ceasefire, but the state of war persisted. Before jumping into new military adventures, it is always wise to finish off the ones in progress.
Wow, I just read the words of wisdom posted by Mr Trish.
He's right, we are well-advised to surrender immediately! Spread and enjoy. Think of... something beautiful, like... freedom.
We won't have it anymore, but as Mr Trish implies in his every post, freedom is SUCH a burdensome responsibility.
All over, Lickspittles. Trish advocates appeasement, surrender and ignominy!
Oh, no, C4, I would NEVER support a war based on falsehoods knowingly fed to the American people.
That's why the Iraqi war stands out so clearly, we Americans knew pretty much what it was all about AND how it would have to be presented in America's collective decision-making process.
Thank God, our government wasnt LYING to us.
And lest you think there are never any valid reasons for a government to withold various details (none of which SEEM to have been witheld on Iraq) please understand that I spent years working with a Top Secret clearance on Top Secret efforts, and I DO KNOW of valid reasons for witholding all sorts of information from the general public!
A more mature perceptual set would serve you well, Cedarford.
Asked what Saudi Arabia feared most about the trend, Saud said, "It will draw the countries of the region into conflict and that is the main worry of all the neighbours of Iraq".
............
I just think that this means the Saudis believe that the Sunnis in Iraq have lost and that the Iranians are gearing up for war. It also means that the saudis are looking past or through the presence of US soldiers in Iraq. Shia dominance of Iraq would be a major league upset of the status quo of the middle east. The sunnis are being shamed big time. But they were not shias who flew the planes into the world trade center. I think that part of US planning has been to make sure that the next time any Wahhabi cleric talks politics on any level he'll receive the sort of hawk eyed anger and contempt that saudis are famous for. Everyone will think "Last time this fellow spoke--the result was the shia took over iraq.
/////////////////
OT
The World Bank Headed by Wolfowitz is considering cancelling the debts of many nations--but there are considerable doubts as to whether this will do any good.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202102.html
One helpful suggestion would be that someone refer the ild to Wolfowitz with the suggestion that countries would need to pass property standards created by the ild in order to qualify for debt relief.
The ild's url is:
http://www.ild.org.pe/eng/contenido.htm
The following is a blurb from the ild web site:
WHO WE ARE
Four billion people in developing and post-Soviet nations —two thirds of the world's population— have been locked out of the global economy: forced to operate outside the rule of law, they have no legal identity, no credit, no capital, and thus no way to prosper. The Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), based in Lima, Peru, has created a key that can open the system to everyone — a time-tested strategy for legal reform that offers the majority of the world's people a stake in the market economy.
The ILD does not only design strategies and projects. It implements them: over the past 18 years, we have created and managed legal property systems that have moved hundreds of thousands of businesses and real estate holdings from the underground economy into the economic mainstream. (See Achievements.)
RECOGNITION
The Economist listed the ILD as one of the two most important think tanks in the world; according to the Telegraph of London, the ILD has created one of the four big ideas in modern times for improving the lot of the world's poor. Time magazine named the ILD as one of the five most important innovators of the twentieth century in Latin America. Ronald Coase, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, has called the ILD's work "powerful and completely convincing." Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man, has said that the ILD's methodology "constitutes one of the few new and genuinely promising approaches to overcoming poverty to come along in a very long time." Praise has come from across the political spectrum —from Bill Clinton and Bill Bradley to Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Recently, former President Clinton stated that he thought "the most promising anti-poverty initiative in the world was the one being advanced by the ILD". (For additional responses to our work by academics and the international media, see Press and Academic Reviews.)
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
In 1996, the ILD expanded its activities to the international arena, and political leaders around the world began seeking our help. We are now working with the governments of Egypt, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, and Tanzania. (See Recognition by World Leaders and International Organizations.)
The ILD has received requests from the political leadership of some 30 countries around the world. (See Annex 10 for a detailed list.) We expect the current rate of demand for our services to continue for the foreseeable future.
WHY DO GOVERNMENTS OF DEVELOPING AND FORMER SOVIET NATIONS CALL ON THE ILD?
The ILD addresses the most pressing economic and social problem they face: the failure of current market-oriented reforms to benefit the majority of the population.
The ILD provides heads of state with a straightforward and non-ideological explanation for why even the most well-intentioned market reforms will fail: their nations lack a property law that is accessible to the poor and that allows both physical and intellectual assets to be converted into capital.
The ILD provides a manageable program for building an inclusive property system that focuses on the needs of the poor and middle classes and provides nations with strategies to build widespread support for the reforms and to overcome the resistance of vested interests.
Sam,
You might want to do some reading of your own. The reason the Vietnam War ended as it did was because COngress cut off support for the South Vietnamese. Not because of Nixon's plan.
Reports out of New Orleans--now catching the edge of Rita's 'wet corner'--are that the levee repairs are already "over-topping" and the ninth ward is already waist-deep in floodwater again.
Just before that New Orleans report, a commercial from "Families for Peace" aired on CNBC--a half dozen women one at a time, in extreme close-up, several carrying infants, looking into the camera, addressing President Bush, telling him of their husband or son, KIA in Iraq, and asking him why he did this to them, "...since Iraq had no WMD, and had nothing to do with 911".
Rain is pouring, wind is blowing and emotions are in full flood.
Bud - you mean Bush STILL doesn't like black people??!
Ex, he likes 'em okay but not enough to stop the weather. Some president, huh? Really disappointing.
I have been wondering for some time why the New York Times can't get a military expert to post a running analysis of operations in Iraq. A daily that flatters itself as the newspaper of record, all the news that's fit to print and all that jazz, should have a military expert during a time of war, someone who can walk the lay reader through the data streaming in from a confusing and messy place. Instead, they approach the military operations as political events, highlighting their effects on Washington but ignoring their effects on the ground.
A military analysis inculcates sobriety, so perhaps that is why. Any expert worth his salt would know that this is a winnable war--a blacklisted opinion at the Gray Lady. Anything blatantly pro-American is bias, regardless of its truth.
If any subject offers pro-Americanism, it is the subject of war. Hence, no military experts.
cjr - "You are completely wrong" is implicit in the anthropological term "Cedarford."
Well, Cedarford, I know you love Hoovernomics--let's just get those Hoover Villages going again. By God, tight money is the only way to go! (sez the plutocrat you love to pretend to hate).
Well, of COURSE death and maiming are tragedies--the choice, however, is apparently--by the evidence--not between death and maiming versus no death or maiming, but rather--thanks to the actions of the enemy--between whether the dead and maimed are heroic volunteers willing to sacrifice for some motivating idea or principle in the furtherance of their country's foreign policy, or ordinary civilians of all ages and genders, at work, or trying to get there, or go home. GWoT KIAsd currently equal two-thirds of 911 KAW ("killed-at-work"), and that's just the one terror incident. had those two thousand KIA soldiers not been fighting them, how many KAWs would we have by now? 20,000? 200,000? Bin Laden says 4 million is his goal (and that's just Americans).
So, isn't it correct to say that the death and maiming are by our choice, anyway? That it's gonna happen on this planet, as of the current era, anyway? That our choice is only to either influence the activity, or not?
Gentiles could at least surrender their country to a Hitler, and not have to worry about their loved ones getting decapped with a goat-skinning knife at the whim of a neighborhood holy man.
that penultimate para 'correct' was 'spose to be an 'incorrect'. jeez...trying to correct 'correct'. Must be constipated or somethin'.
C4, the national debt-to-equity ratio is low-normal, and will stay that way even under present trends. Your fright numbers are shaved off an eleven-plus trillion-dollar economy that is growing at 3 to 4%/yr. Sure, trend lines are saw-toothed as hell, but only an ignoramus or a propagandist tries to sell the saw-teeth while staying mute about the angle of the blade itself.
And as far as the hurricane pork--I wish you'd criticize something besides the macro-idea itself, which is to put enough money into out-of-work pockets to bring the businesses back on line to offer the goods for sale that will allow a repopulation of an area that could otherwise--in a short period of time--lose its most productive people to other areas which now offer better prospects. Most of the Katrina rural-area damage has been mired in just that sort of no-velocity, no-output, no-tax-recpt small-holder subsistance economy, ever since Cabeza de Vaca or whoever waded ashore, and right up until only the last couple decades. It's easy to fall back, far and hard, once the 20% (of the 80/20 rule) decide to take their insurance nut and capitalize it elsewhere.
Once the shit sandwich shows up on your plate, you either eat or it stays there. No more steaks or pate de foi gras until you clean your plate.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
C4 - my last post required no research beyond reading yours.
Cedarfard said: Was it worth it? Lives being important, but not so important they couldn't be shed for geostrategic chess? Many say no.
And many say yes. Many understand that those lives and the lives of many others will be lost regardless. So better to play "geostrategic chess", and play to win. September 11th, and other examples show this assessment to be correct. You say victims are not heroes. But you would have us be willing victims of Jihadist propaganda. Your copy & pasting of Pallywood and other Jihadist propaganda here and at other sites that haven't yet had you banned, doesn't take THAT MUCH intelligence. It takes even less intelligence to believe this Jihadist dissimulation as sincere.
"The ILD has received requests from the political leadership of some 30 countries around the world ."
---
Charles,
- I hereby request that the ILD buy Justice Souter's house, and grant it, along with permission to develop a Native Hawaiian Casino Project on said property,
to me.
Thanx,
Duke
How many Brazillion Troops did Cabeza de Vaca wade ashore WITH?
It's all about accountability - really.
Good accountants get paid handsome salaries for setting up proceedures that make in difficult for each person involved a set of transactions to "get away" with activity not part of the intended purpose. We in the US have placed an enourmous amount of trust in our institutions (that is the folks who manage, operate, function within) to behave as intended.
But when the proceedures for oversite become absent, many times things go awry. People who function without being held accountable sometimes violate that trust.
We are creatures who have a fallen nature. The human condition hasn't changed since Genesis 3.
Those who tend to have the hardest time with accountablity are ones at the top. They either have no one to hold them accountble or those that are placed in that role are either intimidated or overcome with adoration for their leader.
The proceedures must be maintained, both here and in the new Iraqi experiment, to hold those in places of power to accountability. Our democracry does so innately when properly functioning. Until we get the Iraqis up to speed with such things,and I'm not saying that will be quick nor easy, we will continue to hear stories about corruption and graft - costing US & them.
We should expect our leaders - and those we fund - to set up and maintain an environment of control and accountabilty amidst the attacks.
"The veteran disability rate in Vietnam was 24.7% of the 303,704 wounded."
Damn that high tech medicine,
Damn it all to Hell!
---
C4:
"Better Dead than Partially Bled"
I say:
Better Partially Bled than Dead .
(some, like LTC Kurilla, make great spokesmen for the PFS [purple fingered .........])
The ARVN and the US military held International Communism in-situ for a crucial decades during which time the area economies--the so-called Asian Tigers-- became strong enough to resist, and indeed, even strong enough to contribute powerfully to the collapse of morale that ended the global communist militarist expansion.
Andrew, I think what Cedarfard is trying to say is, when you capture a country the size of Iraq with as little casualties and time as did the US army, someone is incompetent. And it's not the Arabs.
Jeez, talk about unbelieveable:
Oxygen Bottles Explode in Bus.
---
CNN Video:
Evacuee bus explodes (3:38)
CNN's Daryn Kagan talks to Sgt. Don Peritz about a bus that caught fire and exploded, killing as many as 24 people. (September 23)
• Evacuee bus explodes as Rita closes in
Only in the Ignited States of America.
"No, the actual history of the nation shows that sometimes soldiers die for a noble cause that safeguards American freedom and security, sometimes for stupidity, sometimes so democratically elected foreign rabble do not cut the profits of oil companies "
---
C4 writes,
..on his
Solar Powered Apple SmackinToss,
from the comfort of his air-conditioned study.
well,we could bring back Jimmy carter's Windfall profits tax, and soon have no petroleum to overpay for.
Mika,
Do you think Pallywood will institute a "Crawl of Vermin" on Pallywood Blvd? Maybe starting at the entrance to Wen Ho Lee's famed "Yellow Peril" Restaurant?
If they do, I have a nomination for "Leaves the Slimiest Slug Trail".
Ah, yes, that's the restaurant that developed the Sandy Burger.
C4 Testifies to the Carnage and Human Misery he witnessed on his last of many visits to hospital .
. C4 entertains the walking wounded .
Great pictures, Doug. After reading so many posts, you DO wonder what the writer looks like. Fortunately, I have a lookin' glass hangin' over there by the mesquite tree, and can check.
- I hereby request that the ILD buy Justice Souter's house, and grant it, along with permission to develop a Native Hawaiian Casino Project on said property,
to me.
Thanx,
Duke
1:08 PM
//////////////
Doug,
You're not part of the plan. The plan is to make native hawaiians--ie anyone with 1/8th or octoroon native hawaiian blood the master race in Hawaii thereby deserving of tribute by whites,japanese etc on account of Native Hawaiian special nativity. Now nobody can hurt the new uber hawaiians because they will be protected, paid for, and given their sovereignty by all the other races. And this is just and right because when they dance, the native hawaiian women knead the ground with their feet. And their men's songs wail with great desire. Who can say no? The native hawaiians do have beautiful songs and dances. They are holy in their sanctuaries. Mystic mysteries are there you know.
Rick, will there be a Shopping Mall with a Starbucks and a Cinema? Can Pallywood deliver? Cause gawd knows those incompetent US officers and planers sure can't.
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Anybody figure out what "coprophagic" means?
(cjb post above)
...sure hope it's not scatological in any way, since W said steer clear, please.
"Which is why they asked for and got the southern & relatively safe Shiite area."
---
Are you saying the Brits
are Chickens....?
coprophagia
n : eating feces; in human a symptom of some kinds of insanity
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C4 said,
"Or, a nation of bloodthirsty, mostly incompetent ....heads from another point of view."
"- the US seems to be having to eat one s... sandwich after another".
"Please sir, Mr Bush, might I have another s... sandwich???"
"S... sandwich enough?"
"Oh yes, that will do fine!"
"Since last summer, it seems that from Iraq to the weather, the USA has been fed one s... sandwich after another."
"Eventually the s... sandwich run of luck will end,"
"...primarily to prevent squabbling Iraqi s...heads from going at each other's throats instead of ours."
"Even the Brits thought there would be a world of sh.. facing..."
(he mumbled, drunkenly)
hmmm,
The study of words leads to the study of s...
And the troubling trend does not seem to be the cumulative total, but but that it's frequency of use as the thread progresses seems disasymptotically inclined toward infinity.
Cedarford said, "If 3 Sunni Provinces in Iraq vote to reject the Constitution, it's rejected as a National Constitution."
That's not quite right. The constitution can be rejected if 3 or more provinces reject the constitution with a no vote of 2/3rds or greater in each province. While Anbar will certainly vote no by more the 2/3rds, I'm not so sure you'll get another two provinces.
What will be interesting to watch is how the terrorist react to Sunnis being encouraged to vote. If the idiots threaten to blow up polling places again, it's likely to dampen turnout in Sunni areas than anywhere else.
Doug, one can't help but wonder if there isn't some envious regard for those who have ended up, thanks to their own top dogs, perhaps the world's biggest mangeurs de la merde, i.e. the Palis (though by certain measures they are better off than many other Arabs who must enjoy a religiously and ethnically purer shit). For some, life just isn't meaningful if you're not in the thick of it. Have we ever heard from him a word of love for the finer things of this world? I can't recall; it seems it is always someone forcing us to eat crap or catch wind. Well, sometimes one can barely deny the mimetic forces at play in our lives.
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Jihadis will lose this war because they're only good at barking and passing wind. America will win this war because it is good at basic economic and military operations and wars that give them context.
C4, I commend your visits to the recuperant vets (tho I can picture entire floors, after auditing your commentary, hiding under beds, leaping out of windows, beeping for morphine, etcetera).
But I answer in order to point out how your "Harmless Binnie" comment resembles the joke
"What are you doing?"
"I'm keeping the elephants away."
"But there's no elephants around here!"
"Right! Doing a good job, ain't I?"
IOW, IMHO, you're now able to joke, dimunize the name, trivialize the game, and generally crack wise on the war effort precisely because of the war effort; because of the efforts of those soldiers whose work you find so misapplied and Bush-contrived.
And whether or not your politically-nuanced foreign-fighter, typical profile commentary is true (with lots of noise on this subject, I go with the troops' observations, which are "first-hand"), what would be our alternative to taking a chance on creating more jihadists by fighting the jihadists? There can be but one: to NOT fight the jihadists.
Say, you weren't at Cambridge in the late 30s, were you?
Doug, Truepeers, at least we're not all licking them jew-boots anymore!
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paypal admin:
Thanks for bring the thread back on topic to the Iraqi constitution.
I find the notion that a constitution rejected principally by Sunni 'no' votes will cause Sunnis to take to the gun somewhat counter-intuitive.
On the contrary, a constitution rejected and sent back to the drawing board primarily by Sunni 'no' votes would be tremendously empowering for them -- as forceful a demonstration as any of the benefits of participation in their nation's political process. They already know they missed an oppostunity by sitting out the last elections.
Conversely, I believe a constitution approved over Sunni objections (no votes) will leave them feeling disenfranchised (wrongly, of course -- this is democracy) and, hence, more likely to take to the gun.
Or maybe I just have this backwards.
Facts didn't keep us from being likspittles, there, for awhile, tho. But we've now lurched into coprophagia, or whatever. Vot's next, vill ve be wampires?
And something else, C4, you just said that "fight there so we don't have to fight 'em here" is Bush-baloney, yet in rearlier posts you've waxed wroth over the dangers of jihadis coming accross our Bush's-fault open southern border. So, which is it, what's it gonna be? Do you have beliefs, or do you merely deploy tactical rebuttals that need not cohere, that need only win the current blog-post tilt?
C4 and john kerry, two who especially depend on the kindness of strangers' amnesia (apologies to tennesse williams).
I wanted to post a link to some CNN Video of Honore when he arrived in Houston, but can't find.
He was dressed and coifed to the nines and had that smug smile that said he was aware that he has indeed arrived.
To a nation starved of straight talk.
. STUCK ON STUPID .
And we understand that there's a problem in getting communications out.
That's where we need your help.
But let's not confuse the questions with the answers.
Buses at the convention center will move our citizens, for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend...
and we'll move them on.
Let's not get stuck on the last storm.
You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm.
Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters.
We are moving forward.
And don't confuse the people please.
You are part of the public message.
So help us get the message straight.
And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people.
That's why we like follow-up questions.
But right now,
it's the convention center,
and move on.
Tarzana Joe will be posting a great poem about Stuck on Stupid.
One of Hugh's callers is selling T-Shirts.
Radio Blogger contest features Mr.Atos and another blogger on topic.
. Stuck on Stupid
"C4 and john kerry, two who especially depend on the kindness of strangers' amnesia (apologies to tennesse williams)."
---
Headline (On the Radio):
"JPL Scientist says Gulf may be headed for heavy hurricanes."
Well duh, says I, but turns out he was talking about cycles, and fact that gulf has not had a big one in over 20 years.
...then I realized how HARD it is not to forget that it is only a matter of some *more* time when it has been a LONG time.
...and so EASY to "believe" its all in the past now. (Over 10 years here.)
But time marches on, as does reality, generational, or any other kind of pleasant amnesia notwithstanding.
---
So nice to pretend Bush and the neocons are responding to NOTHING but the madness in their minds.
Buddy, 6.16, to my mind, he's all tactics, no strategy. This is because the would-be strategy is equivalent to tactics: never stop (complaining about) the coprophagia. If your whole life is defined around the resentment that you have to eat (jewish) shit, well then getting rid of all the defecators won't make you happy; rather it will leave you lost, identityless. Anticipating this lost future in sober moments leaves one yet more resentful and in need of ever greater and hotter dung heaps to forestall that cold reality. This time the Zionists have really done it!!! And the Chinese are fertilizing their fields with it!!! And Walmart is selling it!!!
Well, Trish, the problem of three Iraqs has only been preoccupying senior analysts at every foreign ministry on the planet, for about 80 years now. But, news is news, hey?
Wars don't happen when one side or the other has a guaranteed win.
Read your von Clauswitz--bacwards maybe. The fact that everything is up for grabs until it isn't, is precisely why for a year or two now I've argued with C4's cynicism, condescension, assignment of all possible vile motives to the war leadership, and continual stream of cherry-picked semi-statistics. Because I can't see any reason to even bother to have a foreign policy if we're going to commit suicide anyway.
So, you two may well be right--we may well lose this thing. I don't know why you guys always approach the notion so delighted with your own insight, it ain't exactly an arcane concept, everybody from GWB and the Joint Chiefs on down to every school kid on the planet knows that in a fight somebody's got to lose.
If the other side is supermen then surely it'll be us that quits. And then you and C4 can pop the champagne and get back to work on your plans to expand the Democratic Party, a la the 70s, amid the demoralization of a defeated west.
We may be a rouged corpse, but we'll be your rouged corpse, right? And that's better than all this, this nerve-wracking war that is all our fault.
The Saudi Foreign Minister.
Juan Cole.
"Mr." and Ms Plame.
Whata group of ....heads.
" And the Chinese are
fertilizing their fields
with it!!!"
---
Thanks 'peers, just what I need for this anxiety attack:
A reminder of the coming
World Flu Holocaust.
Beautiful post, Trangbang.
You don't win a battle by running away from the battle field.
Trangbang, man, you said it. Remember Janis Joplin--"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"? Believing that makes it true. But if you refuse that enticing come-hither, and as you say, lay it all on the line for belief in something, then maybe you're only 19 and it's nothing more than belief in belief itself, but live or die you've joined up with the finest, the shield, the selfless protectors who give their people the chance to build meaning into their culture, and their individual lives. AKA "freedom". As Condi says about democracy, it's less a thing than it is a process, a way of thinking and living.
And, thank you for your service, Trangbang. It may not be clear to those who think that things are how they are just by accident, but others know different.
Truepeers, 6:55:
Refrain:
"Don't Stop
Complaining About Coprophagia "
Buddy, 7:55 PM,
But you gotta admit that voice and sincerity still IS mighty enticing, right?
...just the wrong massage.
Siren Song of Suicide.
---
Like mixing valor up with coprophagia.
She sure is pure Greek Tragedy, alright. Make yourself an icon, then when you find that your iconic meaning is death, you die.
The lyrics were written by Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes Scholar whose artistic drive and Hollywood success exactly belies the bittersweet surrender of his writing.
Bringing to mind yet another object lesson in living a lie, the legions of working and middle class boomers kids who listened to their gurus and tuned in, turned on, dropped out, and sobered up two decades later as 40 yr old unemployable street people, when they realized that all that advice was coming from show-biz acts which had big royalty checks rolling in on the first of every month.
My Sandmen .
Mountains of rock become grains of sand to be once again welded as rock.
The cycle is both perpetual and necessary.
Likewise ideas must be broken down periodically into their fundamental elements to be reassembled as sound pillars of guidance and virtue.
The cycle of men is like that of sand.
-Mr. Atos
trangbang - what you said about C4 was cruel and unfair: he certainly is'nt the smartest guy in the room.
Just don't take it too personal,
ex-dem!
I think iotm comes a close second.
"As I attempt to keep track of the progress of Hurricane Rita (from vacation) a clear and disturbing trend is being revealed in the American psyche... the obsession with failure.
The coverage of Hurricane Katrina was nothing if not a constant lecture on failure by everyone in the media... EVERYONE.
While the MSM focused attention on every myth about the Federal response to the extent of ignoring a total collapse in some of the regional response, the 'New Media' was obliged to concentrate its attention on the failure of that local response.
And the nation was treated to a pathetic exercise in self-flagellation from both."
Atos' Sandman
---
Compare THAT with my SOS Honore post above!
About the Picts. The warriors with the blue tatoos. Not celts, nor the Romans, nor the saxons, nor the norse beat them. They dissapeared as a people after 845 A.D. said reason being "MacAlpin's Treason".
Now only their runestones remained until lately.
Archaeologists have been digging up the bones of a Pictish monk they call the 'Tarbat Man'for he was found on the grounds of the Tarbat Old Church one of the most important Pictish sites in Scotland.
And here we bat valor and coprophagia back and forth.
hmmm
Maybe back to ignoring the trolls?
Bring back that Pledge, Rick!
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Rita:
Looks about as good as possible for Galveston and N.O. given it had to come ashore somewhere in between?
Only in the midst of excitement like this would I fail to roast NRO editor Rich Lowry for an eyebrow-raiser like this one today:
"I didn't realize Houston is the fourth largest city in the country. Yes, I need to get off the East Coast more."
There's got to be a great zinger waiting to be flung back at him for that, but I'm too distracted to think of it today.
If this becomes the most boring post I ever write, that'll be okay.
Beldar
trangbang 7:00:
Excellent post. BC hall of fame material. As the younger folks say (I think), "word up."
Massive loss of trust in the Muslim World.
hmmm
"7. But surely even you Buddy see it would make sense for them to insert limited resources to back the native Iraqis in their struggle, knowing that you are achieving a divide in the resolve of the American public"
---
C4, I agree w/you about borders and Mosques, but...
Can you see no logic in Iraq wrt
Syria, S.A., Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, and etc?
...and if you have a plan to wrap up Pakistan, Iran, and/or S.A.
please do tell.
Maybe we need to keep exposing the DIVIDERS here on the home front?
If every action Bush takes were logically perfect, would the DIVIDERS Shut Up?
---
More Honore, less B.S.
heh heh...very good C4. The bad ones are not in Iraq at all, they are here--or can be, at will, due to our open society.
Yet they have not struck since 911.
Reckon that an expeditionary force which has already knocked over two regimes and sits one violable border away from several others, might have encouraged those others to check their AQ secret services? With a "For Allah's SAKE don't you DARE rile those people again!"
Your own didactic exersize in bringing my pore dum ass up to snuff dictates exactly this particular success of the primary war goal: No More 911s.
The president will appreciate your dawning comprehension of a subtlety that has heretofore eluded you.
Cream
By eric clapton and martin sharp
You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.
And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.
The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.
Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.
The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.
///////////////
Archeologists make historic discovery: Tomb of Odysseus
The Madera Tribune ^ | 8/27/05 | Thomas Elias
And here’s the great grand daddy
Of things that aren’t so
Words your teachers told you
Ah, so long ago
These words are as familiar
As an oft repeated song.
“There are no stupid questions”
Friends, that is just plain wrong.
So don’t get stuck on stupid
Like our reporter friends
'Cause when you’re stuck on stupid
That’s when my patience ends.
Yes, don’t get stuck on stupid
As people often do
'Cause when you’re stuck on stupid
Stupid’s stuck on you.
Any questions?
.More at Tarzana Joe.com
Then where are the real Al Qaeda hanging out? Afghanistan? Pakistan? KSA? Iran? The UK? Yemen? Sudan & 15 other African nations? Indonesia? Brazil? Canada? USA? Yes Yes and Yes. But we are putting out the myth that they all decided to journey to Iraq.
No. The real myth is that all Jihadists are Al Qaeda. Jihad is the umbrella ideology of al Qaeda. ME oil is the factor that keeps that ideology alive. Iraq is a central pivot in wrestling that oil from Jihadist control. Then comes Iran. And then comes Saudia.
Rescue from Charles' Post
As you've been advises several times in this thread alone, C4, you need to try to achieve a little perspective: 911s are what we cannot tolerate.
Loss-of-life aside, Katrina and GWoT together will cost (realized+projected) somewhere between 10 and 20% of the direct 911 dollar-loss.
And the direct losses wouldn't even be the primary effect of serial 911s. The primary effect would be the effect on the national psyche, on an economic and social system which rests upon optimism and confidence.
This effect, if somehow dollarized, would shrink even that small fraction far down (theoretically, in time, to near zero--in the case of several back-to-back 911s, and the promise of more of them endlessly, actually causing some sort of capitulation, and bringing down our system of government).
Try to keep your eye on the ball, C4 (unless, comrade, that's exactly what you're already doing).
To clarify, C4, if spending 200 billion saves losing two trillion (even once) you've made an enterprise-saving investment. That's what you never ever allow into your turgid prolixity, that the enemy has a vote, and has cast that vote thousands of times over thirty years, including once that forced recognition of the existential stakes that he (not we) has put in play.
Ezra Pound Canto LXXXI
What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.
"Master thyself, then others shall thee beare"
Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst'ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
I say pull down.
But to have done instead of not doing
This is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
this is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
Making a Sabine Pass.
Sabine (Sabinium in Latin and Sabina in Italian) is a sub-region of Latium, Italy, on the North-East of Rome toward Rieti.
It is named after the Sabini (or Sabines), an ancient people that were in Latium before Rome was founded.
The legend says that Romans abducted Sabine women to populate the newbuilt town.
---
RITA WAS ABOUT 40 MILES
SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF SABINE PASS ALONG THE GULF COAST AT THE
TEXAS/LOUISIANA BORDER.
Matthew 6:23-25 (New International Version) (NIV)
23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Do Not Worry
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
/////////////////////////////
Luke 16:12-14 (New International Version) (NIV)
12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
13"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
14The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.
Those volksturm and Hitler Youth units that were armed and sent to the front in 1945 killed a lot of allied soldiers. If only the allies had not invaded Germany, those geezers and children would've stayed put, working their civilian jobs, farming, milking the cows, bringing in the sheaves, singing songs, obeying momma, going to church, attending school, and babysitting the younger siblings in the sweet bucolic sunlight.
God, how shitty of us, to make them come fight. Why wouild we do such a thing? There MUST be some reason.
Blunt was a Blogger:
"When your published you first work, it was at the very height of the Victorian period.
The abstract poet was in a state of glory.
One no longer wrote as a human being, with an address, living in a London street, having a definite income, and a definite tradition, but one wrote as an abstract personality."
"Why wouild we do such a thing? There MUST be some reason. 10:46 PM "
Yeah, so the Japs would attack us poor slobs here, and FDR could take away all my Japanese friends.
Whoa is US.
Bush has yet to make any claims to perfection, far as I know Trish.
---
Is that the imagined playing field here?
Noted, Trish. Ever heard that old expression, "cutting off your nose to spite your face" ?
Kato more like it.
Luke on Souter:
12
And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
What if the Turing Pedals turn Porno, Carridine?
I HAD to type:
ygsexg
What comes next?
A hospital in Beaumont, Tex
Regardless of how effective a leader one may or may not be, nothing of any consequence will be done if the people refuse to be led.
GWB's by-far biggest problem is that so many of the citizens of the country that elected him, refuse to perform the basic civic duty of keeping a mental balance sheet on the turning points of policy, and noting the realm of possible outcomes against the actual, and thereby creating a trailing average with which to judge the administration.
Nothing anywhere, tangible or abstract or in-between, can be judged without a reference, a background, a context.
The left knows this, and from Code Pink to Ted Kennedy pulls out the stops without surcease to create a context of division and chaos. To gray-out the performance of policy initiatives. To make the country seem--or in fact to be--save for the old-school patriots--Cindy Sheehan's "country not worth fighting for" (I know, she said 'dying for', but it's the same thing).
That this tactic denies GWB any credit at all for governing from the center, at the same time that governing so has begun to mutiny the classic conservatives (such as Cato), is a head-scratching irony for sure. Makes me think of that "prophet without honor in his own country".
By what criterion can you make that "flypaper" judgement, Trish, that can possibly evade the pudding-proof all-encompassing fact of no-more-911s (yes i know, "so far"--but what else can be discussed except what has happened so far) ?
Great N.O. LINK first posted by Trish.
Johnny White's bar in the French Quarter never closed in the past 16 years. To be clear it has been open 24/7 the entire time rain or shine. A few days after Katrina hit I drove by and took a couple pictures of the bar. Last night four of us from directNIC (Sigmund, Brandy, Jonathan and Daniel) were at the bar, only in the interest of performing research on the relief effort and to stimulate the local economy. Pictures, including, Johnny White's .
Johnny White's remained open (running on a small generator) despite the fact that it is located in a section of the French Quarter that lost power due to Katrina and still does not have power, despite the fact that it had to hire new employees to man the bar and despite the fact that the city is under mandatory evacuation. Although there are other bars now open in the French Quarter it was the only one to remain open the entire time.
One final warning, the bathroom is on the second floor accessible only by stairs and has no lights so you have to use a flashlight and reportedly the bathroom has not been cleaned in 26 days.
At Johnny White's :
- Beer $3
- Shots $5
- Taking a leak on the street instead of a bathroom that has not been cleaned in 26 days: priceless!
You might be asking yourself. Who would go to a bar in an evacuated city after massive destruction caused by Katrina with impending doom from Hurricane Rita as a realistic possibility? So I will describe the crowd to you.
The crowd ranged from 16 people at one point to only four people remaining by 1:45 am. At no point did the crowd consist of more than 3 women. From my perspective, the crowd did not look any different than any other time in the French Quarter except for the absence of tourists and over abundance of men.
Of course the regulars there referred to Brandy and I as tourists so from their perspective the crowd seemed just like the crowd from any other night.
The bar tender last night took his first job as a bar tender one week ago when he found out that Johnny White's bar needed help to cover shifts.
Another patron of the bar was resident originally from Greece who came to New Orleans at age 6. He stayed in New Orleans for the past 26 days. He survived Katrina while drinking beer at Johnny White's. Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit he was nearly beaten to death with a 2 by 4 by thugs on Canal Street and he has the fresh scars to prove it. After having his head stitched up at the hospital he refused to evacuate. He even insisted on walking us to our car to make sure that we were safe at 1:45 am when we were leaving.
"yes i know, "so far"--but what else can be discussed except what has happened so far"
---
A Jar So Far:
Who needs flypaper?
Them Jihadis cannot resist the smell of rotting burned flesh, and so wherever they go their noses are attracted.
uh, oh:
Back to Crapophagia.
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The C4 question for you too, Trish:
What would YOU do?
What Plan? This has been a work-in-progress from the get-go, undertaken on the grounds that as-is was intolerable, had become no longer tolerable. When something is intolerable, that means you can't tolerate it. So you bust it up, knowing that the worst that can happen is that the result will be likewise intolerable--but maybe won't, but maybe will come up tolerable.
And, of course, this is still in play, a change-the-intolerable work-in-progress.
Perhaps you expect too much, Trish.
Myself, nothing that's happened has surprised me in the least. Except for the degree of shameless exploitation of casualties by the antiwar crowd, which knows more about the nature of the stakes than anyone in the government or the military or who has ever read a book or sumthin.
Only thing live at link I posted above (Bar Scene)is a web cam which might be interesting after dawn.
Started raining pretty heavy just now.
.Here is the New Orleans Paper
Trish,
None of those words answer my question, tho.
To the actual casualties, opinion--as reflected in the press--runs high that they themselves are the authority on whether or not their sacrifice was justified. This fact, like the no-additional-911 fact, should be difficult to get around, in honest (rather than position-taking) argument.
Weird,
Now something is Blowing Smoke in the air in the middle of the street.
prob'ly Trish.
Deja Vu All Over Again:
"St. Bernard officials blasts Corps' repair job.
St. Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior'' Rodriguez wasn't surprised that the surge from Hurricane Rita poured through an area of the Industrial Canal levee that the Corps of Engineers had tried to repair after Hurricane Katrina.
Breaches in the levee were largely responsible for massive flooding in the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish last month during Katrina.
And as Rita's waters began filling the 9th Ward and threatened St. Bernard Parish with another round of flooding Friday, Rodriguez let the corps have it.
Rodriguez said the repair job on the Industrial Canal levee was shoddy and accused the corps of exerting more of an effort to repair a breach on the 17th Street Canal at the Orleans-Jefferson parish line because it protects more wealthy neighborhoods than those in the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish.
"It's rich and poor,'' Rodriguez told a WWL-TV reporter, adding that St. Bernard Parish and 9th Ward residents are treated like "second-class citizens.''
"Rita's having a hell of an impact,'' Rodriguez said. "But I can't really blame Rita.''
"
When will the surprises stop?
.Palestinian rally ends in death.
Detroit Free Press - 39 minutes agoBY SARAH EL DEEB. JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip -- A truck filled with masked Palestinian militants and homemade weapons exploded at a Hamas rally Friday, killing at least 15 Palestinians and bringing a grisly end to ... Blast kills ten Palestinian at Gaza rally Aljazeera.comExplosions rock Hamas rally in Gaza; 19 dead, 80 wounded Malayala Manorama
I'll say it again, Trish:
What would you have us do?
Love is Lovelier,
The Second Time Around.
"Blanco requests federal disaster declaration.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco has asked President Bush to
declare "an expedited major disaster" for coastal
parishes being slammed by Hurricane Rita.
In a letter sent to the House on Thursday, Blanco
wrote that she had already declared a state of
emergency and expected because of the intensity of the
hurricane that the state would not be able to cope
with the recovery.
If the president complies with her request, the
affected parishes would become eligible for the wide-
range of federal money and and programs that are being
used for the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina."
Just got off the phone with baby sis in Lafayette, Louisiana. A big oak tree just snapped about 6' off the ground and fell in her pool. Wind is high intensity, and keeps ratcheting up. She adjoins a coulee that is trying to run into a bayou that is pushed about 10' higher than normal. I told her if it comes in the house, give me a call. I'm only 500 miles away, I guess i can sing her a song or tap-dance or somethin. B-in-L sez he's got the doors sandbagged but he "might as well be wearing those sandbags on his head" because he's "never seen wind like this before, that never lets up at all". He thinks it's 70 or so and gaining.
"The low-lying but well-populated cities just west of the Texas-Louisiana line were at greatest risk. Port Arthur, population 58,000, is an oil and shrimping town next to Gulf-fed Sabine Lake."
---
The Vietnamese Shrimpers got clobbered by Katrina.
"might as well be wearing those sandbags on his head"
---
Definitely sounds related.
Beaumont, population 114,000 and just to the north, is where the modern oil industry was born in the 100-foot gush of the Spindletop well in 1901 — an event that gave rise to giants like Gulf, Humble and Texaco.
"That's where people are going to die," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. "All these areas are just going to get absolutely clobbered by the storm surge."
Then you can criticise MY plan, huh?
Seems an odd way to contribute.
Jeez, if it ain't Ho chi Minh, it's a friggin' hurricane.
Oh,
My
Gaaawd!
"Nearly 1,300 patients were airlifted out of an airport near Beaumont in a rush Thursday night and Friday morning, but only after the county's top official made a panicked call to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson for help.
"We had patients throwing up. It was very ugly," said Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith. He blamed the delay on the Transportation Safety Administration, which insisted every wheelchair-bound passenger be checked by metal-detector."
"Beaumont", french for 'pretty mountain', refers to a landscape feature on the flats, a little hill about five inches high.
"Steve Rinard, a meteorologist in Lake Charles, said he could not keep count of the tornado warnings across southern Louisiana. "They were just popping up like firecrackers," he said."
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Where do your folks go for those, Buddy?
...if they had a cellar, they'd drown, I guess.
Quick, where's that damn Kyoto Treaty--somebody gimme a pen !
interior bathroom, Doug--about all you can do. Just heard a little overpass near Iowa (La) collapsed--that sucker was a concrete arch. Lights just went out in Lake charles, about an hour west of Lafayette and nearer the eyewall. Airport just blew away. appropriate, somehow, that the airport terminal should finally get a chance to fly.
RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH. THIS MOTION SHOULD
BRING THE CENTER OF RITA ONTO THE COAST NEAR SABINE PASS IN THE
NEXT HOUR OR TWO. AFTER LANDFALL...A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED LATER TODAY.
REPORTS FROM AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS REMAIN NEAR 120 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS.
LOL,
Unless you made your flight.
Jeez, all those refineries twenty miles of 'em in Lake charles. Won't be too damaged, but won't be anyone around to run 'em, either. Home heating oil, aviation fuel, plastics. Glad I loaded up on Valero a few months ago. They'll use it wisely, as will I.
What's Kato's Position on Kyoto?
I'm for the conservation of energy.
...just caint keep that inner physicist down.
Well, Louisiana is carpooling, I hear.
CNN had a video of a guy staying back at a giant refinery in Houston.
One of only 20 left at the plant.
Said his wife was crying.
Looks like Houston will do OK?
...except for the usual flooding, of course.
Just learned they designed the streets to function as canals!
Yeah, so poor fool took that literally when he thought he'd take a drive.
Turned out to be a dive.
Poor LA.
Hope your family does OK.
Yeh, most of Houston has great highway drainage. Yep, the storm passed east, Houston is fine--except for a few thousand out-of-gas abandoned vehicles on the freeways. Thank goodness--Big H does 2 or 3% of the GNP.
they'll be fine. thanks, Doug. Lotsa clean-up is all, and spot damage. the little town of Cameron will be flattened--like it was by audrey many years ago. Hundreds drowned there then--but they were evaced this time.
Rita will prove to've done only a few percent of Katrina's level of damage, is my gut feeling at this stage. The inland flooding was key, but Rita proved so far--at least where my peeps are, drier than usual. Still mighty wet, but not like it coulda been. look for a good rally in the mkts monday at opening.
Looks like it's moving right along, contrary to predictions:
In the time I took a shower, it made good progress.
...course it WAS my monthly clean-up.
1:23 AM and 1:26 AM,
Guess it woulda been more accurate to say:
"Unless you *missed* your flight, and were waiting for the next one."
Unchartered Airlines, indeed.
Wasn't Max concerned about Port Arthur Surge, though?
Doug LINKS good satellite free of cost.
Yeah, shure you do, Rainwater:
"We see these storms a little differently after Katrina," said
city administratorPaul Rainwater.
"We all realize that no matter how safe you feel ... you have to take it seriously, you have to plan."
The office tower in the background is at the intersection of U.S. 59-South and Fondren, a few blocks away, which will give you some idea of how light the rain is and how good, considering, overall visibility is. It's still windy, but not too bad; it's still sprinkling, occasionally turning to light rain for a few minutes. But there's essentially no standing water, nor run-off in the street gutters. (The pavement on the far side of the street isn't under water; it's just damp, but the slight angle sloping away from the center crown makes it look slightly darker.) There's not much lightning, and no thunder to speak of. No sirens; not much noise except the wind in the trees. Obviously we still have power, phone, etc. in my neighborhood.
Posted by Beldar at 04:09 PM PermaLINK
"The facilities represent a quarter of the nation's oil refining capacity and business analysts said damage from Rita could send gas prices as high as $4 an hour.
Environmentalists warned of the risk of a toxic spill."
---
Time is on your side only if you are Big Oil, I guess.
Gotta be Rove.
.NOLA
It's pourin in norleans.
New Orleans Live:
Live Cam Feed: Cam mirror #1, Cam mirror #2, and Cam mirror #3
"Officials breathed a sigh of relief that Rita spared the flood-prone cities of Houston and Galveston a direct hit. "It looks like the Houston and Galveston area has really lucked out," said Max Mayfield, director of the hurricane center."
---
Back to N.O. Honore!
Sir!
Buddy,
Check out this Beldar Comment!
---
Your first post at 4:05 mentioned "amusing", and I was amused today, about the same time (although I didn't have time to think about it then). My 83-year-old father and my half-sister evacuated from Clear Lake on Wednesday and they are staying with me and my husband. My Dad needs nursing care, so I called a home health agency (national, with many franchises) yesterday morning to see if we could get some help for him. Today we had a delightful and skilled person sent to us by this agency. Guess what: She had worked for this same agency in Houston area, but had evacuated to Austin on the day before my Dad and half-sister did! Not only that, but she is from the SAME community as my Dad, and knows his doctor, etc. We are very blessed to have her, because she is great, and she is happy to have work-- and she's working with someone she "might" have worked with, but didn't, in her hometown.
Posted by: Keaukina Sep 24, 2005 1:21:05 AM Permalink to this comment
Ya speak Hawaiian in Austin, or WHAT ?
---
Ho'okahi Hoku
from deep in the Heart of Texas... saluting "Kumu Keola" Donaghy, our "Person of the Year" for both 2003 and 2004
---
E New Orleans, Aloha Wau ia 'Oe
New Orleans, I love you.
I'm from Austin, Texas, not a New Orlean native, but I have posted a number of photos I took at Mardi Gras this year (below). They didn't seem "important" enough, or "different" enough, to post when we were there this year. Little did we know this would be the last year Mardi Gras would be taken for granted, and that we would assume that the same old crowds would assemble on the "Neutral Ground" to watch all the parades, or that the parades would even happen.
My husband has been a member of the Krewe of Bacchus for about 14 years, but I think we've been going to Mardi Gras for 17 years (but it may have only been 16)...
Wow, N.O. is having a PINK Sunrise!
Wish you were here!
Paper Version of N.O. Paper, pretty sad.
(right clik: Save As)
MAYBE THE CAMERA IS SCREWED UP?
Oh! the indignity!
Pretty in Pink Doug.
My advice is to ignore Trish from now on. She has nothing to contribute and it seems is just trolling for attention. You're pathetic Trish. I even prefer Cedarfard's attacks to your empty complaints. If we were driving through a desert I'd throw you out of the car. Cedarfard would have received a good knocking to the face, but I would have kept him in the car. At least he can point out the ditches in the road.
Ha! Funny. Pretty in Pink...Molly...Molly Bloom...Leopold Bloom, who if posting here would be "Doug".
Mika, how're things on the Red sea these days? All quiet on the western front?
Good morn' Buddy. I'm in TO, Canada, right now. Will be making my way towards Scottsdale, Sedona area. Then take a cruise down lake power after taking the views from the grand canyon.
Evacuating Gaza was very hard on the boys. My cousin wants to have Sharon lynched for what he put everybody through. Nobody believes this crap about supply lines and defensible border. Sorry W. Not with distances involved. Waiting to see exactly when will Israel receive the political cover it needs so as to bring to bare the equivalent of an American B52 squadron on these fsckers.
Sorry. That should read Lake Powell.
Hmm...wish the folks at ground zero were more sanguine. Not that there's any benefit to pretending. Anyhoo--welcome to the USA, hope you have a fine time. Be careful around Grand Canyon--a lot of dentists take one look at the size of the cavity and go into shock.
LOL.
I'll get the epinephrine ready. And hopefully I wont have a matching cavity in my wallet after visiting Vegas.
I slept like a baby for weeks after my last trip to Vegas. Woke up every two hours crying, needing a diaper change and a fresh bottle.
Buddy if you're not going to start a blog then write a book, dangnabbit! I like yr posts, Jeesh...Das
Them bunny ranches can do that to a guy.
Hey, thanks for making my weekend, Das! You sure know how to help the pathetically needy!
careful, Mika--yo momma may be reading this!
Damn hope so. She thinks I'm gay. Me not having been married yet.
Show up back home with one o' them Vegas bunnies and she'll get off your back. Hmm, I oughtta be a family counselor.
Anybody figure out what "coprophagic" means
A coprophage is something that lives in excrement.
Dung beetles come to mind.
Bad things?
The Scarab Beetle is still the symbol of the Pharoahs.
Trangbang Wrote:
"big tobacco chewing machinegunners from the hills of Tennessee"
Indeed. Size has nothing to do with the 60.
We Vols love the 60. I only weigh 165 and am 5'9" but carried it all day every day as did my brother who is 6'4" and 220.
There is nothing like sneaking up on an ambush and lighting it up with the 60. They run like ants from a kicked over nest.
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