Pakistan announces arrangement with Taliban in Waziristan.
So, let’s see. The Taliban was in Afghanistan. We went in (rightly) and destroyed their infrastructure, we then let Osama and the other bastards escape ( so it is thought ) to Waziristan, Pakistan.
Pakistan is a sovreign nation-state whom we will not invade ( not to mention, they’ve got a couple dozen atomic weapons ).
So….uhm, that’s it?
In his heralded new book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” Ron Suskind writes that Vice President Dick Cheney forcefully stated that the war on terror empowered the Bush administration to act without the need for evidence or extensive analysis.
Suskind describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: “Even if there’s just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It’s not about ‘our analysis,’ as Cheney said. It’s about ‘our response.’ … Justified or not, fact-based or not, ‘our response’ is what matters. As to ‘evidence,’ the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn’t apply.”
Dick Cheney (msnbc)
“Now you ask me if this was 11 July and there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war like the one that has taken place, would you go ahead with the kidnapping?
Sheikh Nasrallah of the Hezbollah (bbc)
What can we conclude from this adherence to the psychology of 1% (culpability, probability, what does it mean)?
Fear, fear, fear, and fear.
Read the details here.
I found a quote at Slate which I have chosen to abstract from the particular and which I invite readers to think upon. The words in red indicate where I have elided some text so as to make the message more generalized.
They were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the truth, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their knowledge, by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth.
Open source software and yoga came to mind. The great wealth of great teaching or great discovery is not what you hold inside once it’s been learnt. It’s a reminder that if your mode of thinking isn’t growing it’s dying.
This is why those who seek to fight fascism by behaving as fascists are poisoning the root of democratic progress. Children learn by example.
“Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past.” Richard Nixon, 1968
…the missile causing the most concern, the Taepodong-2,
With this phrase I thought of “Tae Bo’s” inventor Billy Blanks and uh, well.
Damn you Dear Leader, Damn you!
I hate torture. It so quickly mutilates us from human to barbarian.
What hath the Bush administration wrought?
If you’re not prone to accidentally bumping into the FoxNews Channel (what the hell was that i tripped over, oh it’s Alan Colmes’ sense of being a craven puppet!) you might have missed the news that kneecap-with-hair, Ann Coulter has a new rrriiight rrrrriot book out (Uh, why are you angry, Ann, your guys have all three branches of government in the bag, a compliant congress, and no one seems to mind too much when the Constitution gets used as toilet paper, what’s to bitch about?) claiming that liberalism is a church.
Uh, yeah. A church is where people worship a diety, liberalism is an attitude about human dignity. Whatever an -ism is, it is certainly not a religion.
In any case, Henry Rollins crafted a humorous retort to Ms. Coulter on her latest hysterics. Enjoy the video.
I totally stole the title from sobblog
Doug McIntyre, conservative radio personality is currently apologizing for voting for Bush.
In this essay McIntyre reflects the way I have largely felt under the leadership, stewardship, years with this guy as President. He was a plain folks guy who was going to do a lot of nothing until the world put him in a position of having to make real decisions. Since that time he’s been spun around by ideolologues, Neoconservatives, Dick, Karl, Mommy’s estrangement, and Daddy’s expectations like an A&W bottle at a 13 year old’s spin-the-bottle party.
Like a guy fresh out of a tilt a whirl trying to piss off of a balcony into a bottle (differerent one than used for kissing games) he’s made a damn poor mess of it.
But McIntyre is right, the second biggest crime is that there’s no real opposition party that’s coming up with new ideas, new approaches. They’re all just hollow, cynical bozos.
It was an interesting read.
But it’s under the leadership of this confused simpleton that things like this happen.
German citizen with Arab last name ( Khaled al-Masri ) is walking down the street and get “Renditioned” to Guantanamo.
Sources have said Masri was held by the CIA for five months in Afghanistan because of mistaken identity. Masri says he was beaten, sodomized and repeatedly questioned about alleged terrorist ties.
From the Washington Post
What? This guy was walking down the street, minding his own business and allegedly some jackboots come down, drag him off to destinations unknown where he is interrogated, humiliated, and has his anus invaded? Dear God almighty, what the hell has gone wrong with this country?
Remember Brazil? Due to a typographical error an ordinary Joe is picked up, hauled off to a torture cell and is ultimately killed? Well, thankfully for al-Masri he didn’t keel over after having his liberty stripped from him. And now, without so much as an apology, without any sunshine illuminating this dirty operation, al-Masri is bade farewell.
I’m sorry. If I were on vacation in the Baltic and the KGB swung by, put me in a torture box, and invaded my body while thinking I was someone else you can damn well bet I’d expect an apology and a Big Mac. This government is out of control. Fear and insanity have absolutely gripped the “leaders” in Washington. This is simply terrible.
Mr. al-Masri. I’m sorry my country has gone insane with fear.
At the moment, the judge has said that the Department of Justice needs offer absolutely no commentary.
That is absolutely vile. This man deserves an apology. One would expect that a man whose favorite philosopher was Christ would have the personal character to extend the apology himself.
If you’re not depressed enough, enjoy the top 10 signs of the impending police state.
Dear PrezTexNo1, Please unblock me from on your MySpace account! <3 <3 <3 ReFinahJihad02