The Guerrilla Campaign

by Mary Pitt 7/30/07 The gingham dog and the calico cat Side by side on the table sat; 'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!) Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink! The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate Appeared to know as sure as fate There was going to be a terrible spat. (I wasn't there; I simply state What was told to me by the Chinese plate!) - Eugene Field, Yale Book of American Verse While watching the CNN/you tube debate, the first thing that came to mind was this children's poem from so long ago. The Democratic Presidential campaign has once again come down to this: the on-lookers, the reporters, and the media pundits have decided that the primary election is to be a two-horse race without regard for the opinion of the people. No matter how well any of the other candidates may appeal to any of the public, they insist that the only true contest is between the two candidates of their choice. It's as if the other candidates are all part of the a...

Monday, July 30, 2007 http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/07/iraqis-letting-occupiers-down-again.html What other country could so torture another country, so devastate it, so thoroughly plunder and destroy it for over a decade, and yet have thousands of people still saying "well, hell, maybe they'll do a better job with Darfur"? Take a look at this . I think there might have been a short time, maybe for the first twelve months of the occupation, where Bush's supporters would still have ironised about how happy-go-lucky life was under Saddam, but we should have heard the last of that. The statistics in the Oxfam-NIIC report describe a cruel and callous asset-stripping operation. We knew about the refugees, the attacks on women, the SPC death squads, the torture chambers (that, remember, were actually worse after Abu Ghraib ), the arbitrary imprisonment of tens of thousands, the shooting up at checkpoints, the bombing of housing estates, the deliberate destruction of w...

By Sheila Samples 7/29/07 Strange how something happens and you're unaware that it "registers" with you. Later, perhaps, something will trigger that buried memory and things begin to fall into place. Something happened on 9-11. The day began with CNN's Wolf Blitzer frantically reporting that planes had smashed into Buildings 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center. They stood there, so tall that the smoke billowing from their upper floors could be seen for 20 miles. The scene was shocking, grisly, and the horror was broken only by the further news that a plane had rammed into the Pentagon. Death and destruction everywhere. Happening now -- right before our eyes. In an amazing "Breaking News" alert, CNN Pentagon reporter Jamie McEntyre shot down Blitzer's "plane hit the Pentagon" report. McEntyre said flatly, "Although it may appear that way, from my close-up inspection, there is NO evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. ...

Roasting Marshmallows on the American Reichstag Fire to Come by Phil Rockstroh 7/26/07 In this summer of angst and grim foreboding about what further assaults against common sense and common decency the Bush Administration might inflict upon the people of the world, how many times during the day do those of us — still possessed of mind, heart and conscience — take pause, hoping we’ve seen the worst of it, then, fearing we haven’t yet, attempt to push down the dread rising within us, so that we might simply make it through the day and be able to rest at night? Accordingly, those who have been paying attention are aware that the outward mechanisms of martial law are in place. We shudder knowing that Bush has issued an executive decree that grants him dictatorial power in the event of some nebulously defined national emergency. In addition, the knowledge nettles us that a vast network of internment camps bristle across the length of the U.S., standing at wait for those who might raise obj...

sure doesn't seem to take much to cause disruptions. ABC News building evacuated in D.C. 7/26/07 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_re_us/abc_news_evacuation_1 WASHINGTON - A building housing the Washington bureau of ABC News was evacuated Thursday because of a suspicious envelope containing a white powdery substance, District of Columbia authorities said. D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter said there was no note or address on the small envelope. No one has reported any medical symptoms, he said. Firefighters and police were on the scene trying to determine whether the packet poses a threat, and the downtown building was evacuated as a precaution, Etter said. Game in bag prompts airport evacuation 7/26/07 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_re_us/airport_evacuated_6 LONG BEACH, Calif. - A suspicious item in checked luggage that prompted the evacuation of a terminal at Long Beach Airport on Thursday turned out to be an electronic game, authorities said. Several hund...

Once upon a time in Iraq... Money makes the world go around Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Dream July 23, 2007 http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2007/07/once-upon-time-in-iraq-money-makes.htm

- by Stephen Lendman 7/23/07 [...] On July 7, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum appeared on the Hugh Hewitt radio program. He was introduced by the host as "one of our favorite Americans," leaving no doubt where Hewitt stands. Santorum came to skewer his former colleagues' lack of resolve to stay the course in Iraq, no matter how hopeless things are on the ground. But he took the opportunity to go further by suggesting that "confronting Iran (is) an absolute lynchpin for our success in that region," that 9/11 taught us "Islamists" must be confronted, that they want to "conquer that region of the world (and) will soon end up on our doorstep (if not stopped, and that) between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen (to shape) "a very different" (public view) of this war....because....of some very unfortunate events (coming) like we're seeing unfold in the UK." Does Rick Santorum know something the public d...

Plame Case Thrown Out; National Security Imperilled by Juan Cole Friday, July 20, 2007 http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/plame-case-thrown-out-national-security.html A federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit of Valerie Plame Wilson against Bush administration figures Irv Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, Richard Bruce Cheney, and Richard Armitage. She sued them for conducting a campaign to out her in the press as an undercover operative and so ruining her career. The judge interpreted Cheney Inc.'s outing of Plame as just politics and something to be expected of political office-holders. That is, he believed their story that they were just defending themselves politically from what they saw as a Central Intelligence Agency attempt to smear them and their Iraq War. He admitted that their methods were "unsavory." It is a ruling about the jurisdiction of the court and so something technical in the law about which I don't feel qualified to comment. Just as a citizen, I cannot unde...

- by Stephen Lendman Besides the Bush administration's imperial aims and permanent war on the world, add the one at home below the radar. Its weapons include the WTO, NAFTA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, CIA, NSA, NORTHCOM, militarized state and local police, National Guard forces, paramilitary mercenaries like Blackwater USA, and all other repressive instruments of state power and control. They target the people of three nations slowly becoming one headquartered in Washington. That's the apparent aim of those in power here wanting one continent, "indivisible" minus old-fashioned ideas like "liberty and justice for all" we used to believe in when, as kids, we recited our "Pledge of Allegiance." They now have a whole new meaning. They're just words drummed into young minds hoping they'll still believe them when they're old enough to know better. There may be a greater scheme for the planet ahead, but this article only f...

by Ahmed Amr / July 18th, 2007 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/america-has-no-surplus-democracy-to-export/ George Bush just gave another vulgar performance in the remodeled James S. Brady Press Room. As usual, he stayed on message — like a vacuum cleaner salesman who touts his machines as the only weapons capable of winning the ‘eternal war on dust.’ With a straight face, Bush blamed General Tommy Franks for the disastrous post-invasion plan. Apparently, Franks was awarded the Medal of Freedom for giving us bum advice on troop requirements for stabilizing Iraq. Without missing a beat, Bush went on to declare that he would resist making decisions based on public opinion polls or even the advice of GOP senators. Rather, he would leave future decisions to his new general — David Petraeus. I can’t remember the last time the president bothered to visit Iraq. And yet he speaks with such authority about what our Mesopotamian oil colony looks like four years after his unilateral war of a...

by Richard L. Franklin 7/16/07 To construct my argument for this rather dismal possibility, I want to take us back to the late 30s and the rise of Nazism. As Hitler went about building his military machine and making his intentions patently clear, two potential obstacles to his plans were a possible military detente of England, France, and the Soviet Union plus Germany's almost total lack of the resources necessary to complete the building of his huge war machine. Germany was stunningly bereft of necessary natural resources. Unlike previous great wars when nations only needed 'blood and iron', war now required a plethora of materials that were nowhere to be found in Germany. These materials were available in abundance to the Soviet Union, the US, and the British Empire, either within their own boundaries or within states that were within the orbit of their imperial control. America alone was producing 70% of the world's oil. The Middle East had not yet arrived as a petr...

- by Stephen Lendman 7/16/07 Congress is back from its July 4 break and with it more bluster and political posturing on changing course to keep things the same, including everything not working in place. It's the same old scheme, back again, to fool enough of the people all the time and most all of them long enough to move on to the next change of course mission shift starting the whole cycle over again. Even the blind can see the hopelessness of staying the course in Iraq. Aside from its lawlessness and immorality, pushing on with a failed effort qualifies as a classic definition of insanity - continuing the same failed policies, expecting different results. The only sensible, honorable option is a full, speedy withdrawal along with providing multi-billions for Iraqis to rebuild what we destroyed and have no intention restoring now or ever beyond what's needed for permanent occupation. The only other honorable option is owning up to what no one in Washington or the major m...

by Mary Pitt 7/15/07 There are three words that strike fear into the hearts of modern-day politicians. They are not obscene or distasteful to any ethnic group but saying any one of them in the context of the day's news will cause an instant and infectious breathing spasm on the part of any of all the bought-and-paid-for pros of either party. Like the Lord's Prayer to a ghost, a cross to Dracula, or a silver bullet to a werewolf, any of them will empty a political caucus room in ten seconds flat. The first word is RATIONING. Speak it and watch the pols scatter like roaches! We may sweat and fear while they maneuver to find ways to keep us content while the oil companies pick our pockets, but you will never hear the word in our time. Oldsters among you may recall that the Iran conflict first arose not during the Carter administration but in that of Richard Millhouse Nixon. When the walls of Watergate started caving in around him, he had already ordered the government printing off...

Privileged Grotesques, Ordinary Monsters and the Iraqi Deathscape. by Phil Rockstroh July 12th, 2007 At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted due to the fact that he didn’t deliver the goods. Americans are fine with fueling our republic of road rage using the blood of Iraqis (or any other distant and darker people) as long as “the mission” doesn’t drag on too long or reveal too much about ourselves. How did we come to be a nation of vampires who live by sustaining ourselves on the blood of others? Is our mode of collective being so toxic in the United States that a writer must bandy about metaphors culled from Gothic horror fiction to describe it? I’m afraid it’s come to that: We are a people whose psyches have grown monstrously distorted from an addiction to imperial power and personal entitlement. (Imagery of Smurfs and Teletubbies won’t rise to the ...

The Senate's Blank Check for War on Iran Written by Chris Floyd Thursday, 12 July 2007 Empire Burlesque As you may know -- unless you rely on the corporate media for your news, of course -- yesterday the U.S. Senate unanimously declared that Iran was committing acts of war against the United States: a 97-0 vote to give George W. Bush a clear and unmistakable casus belli for attacking Iran whenever Dick Cheney tells him to. The bipartisan Senate resolution – the brainchild (or rather the bilechild) of Fightin' Joe Lieberman – affirmed as official fact all of the specious, unproven, ever-changing allegations of direct Iranian involvement in attacks on the American forces now occupying Iraq. The Senators appear to have relied heavily on the recent New York Times story by Michael Gordon that stovepiped unchallenged Pentagon spin directly onto the paper's front page. As Firedoglake points out , John McCain cited the heavily criticized story on the Senate floor as he cast hi...