*
. . . this was on the front page of the digital WaPo at 4:30 this morning. (I guarantee you that it won’t still be there once Teh Villagers are up.)
This is why we have to vote.
This is why we have to fight.
This is why we have to impeach, convict, indict, hang.
* Photo of war crime victim by Andrea Bruce, The Washington Post
They seem to be everywhere right now: in my life, in the country’s life, in that of the entire planet.
Apologies to all who’ve visited over the last two or three weeks. After my father’s death, of course, I had to do the things that attend a death in today’s society: beginning the task of sorting through his belongings; writing his obituary; picking up his ashes from the funeral home; fulfiling certain traditional obligations. In the middle of all of this (unsurprisingly, I suppose), my autoimmune disease decided that it was time for an exacerbation, which has turned out to be the worst one I’ve had in recent memory. Life ground to a halt.
I’m slowly (but surely, I think) on the mend - in part because I’m now at Home #2, and getting a little R-and-R. The shot above was taken from the deck here the day after Dad’s death, but we’ve gotten the same wave of storms every day since, including a spectacular lightning show last night. Unfortunately, it’s haying season, and this puts me in a position I don’t think I’ve ever occupied before: praying for no rain. In a desert climate like this, you learn not to argue with rain whenever or however it wants to make an appearance. But after a solid month of daily storms (and the loss of the last cut of hay about six weeks ago, again, to too much moisture), I’m literally praying for a three- or four-day window of bone-dry weather.
It seems like a metaphor for our times, with storm clouds amassed in every direction, and drenching us on a daily basis. We were talking this morning over coffee about the FISA fiasco - neither of us thinks that we’re going to get our country back absent a major societal upheaval. Once our "leaders" give away our most fundamental rights, it’s nearly impossible to get them back. I mean, does anyone really think that Hillary, if she wins, is going to give back the FISA expansion - or the gutting of habeas corpus, or any of the myriad other thefts of constitutional protections that this pack of criminals has wrought? (Or any of the other candidates, for that matter?)
I didn’t think so.
So while I’m happy to be feeling a little better personally, I increasingly despair for my country. Strike that - for the world. Because what our "leaders" do in our name affects the entire planet.
Which is another reason I continue to insist that impeachment, trial, and conviction are the moral imperatives of our time. Our obligations now go far beyond the U.S. - certainly beyond parochial worries about keeping certain Democrats in office. We now owe the world an enormous moral debt - one whose tally climbs every hour. And we can only begin to repay the smallest, most superficial part of that debt once we take these first necessary legal steps. It’s how we show the world that we recognize the tragedy and obscenity of what this nation has wrought - and it’s the precondition to regaining the tiniest, most fundamental bit of moral authority as a nation.
[Sigh . . . .] You’re right. I’m not holding out hope, either.
"Thanks, Al, for finishing off that pesky Constitution thingy for me - now here’s your bus ticket."
[No, that’s not confirmed. But if he’s not gone by Friday, I’ll . . . oh, hell. I don’t know. Vote in the comments for what you want me to do if I’m wrong.]
Last week, maladministration partisans kept nattering on about how Bush would never cut Gonzo loose - how Bush was too loyal (*cough* *choke*) to him, too enamored of his "American Dream" bio, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Bullshit.
As soon as it hit the fan, you had to know he’d be gone soon. But the final nail in the coffin came yesterday, when a reporter asked WH SpokesTool Tony Snow whether Gonzo’ll be leavng soon:
SNOW: . . . We hope he stays.
Q: He will remain in office for the rest of the administration?
SNOW: Well, we hope so.
"Well, we hope so"?! WTF kind of response is that?!
Actually, it’s the same kind of damning-with-faint-praise response this administration gives WRT every problem-child official once it’s made the decision to cut that person loose. The moment they trot out the press guy to make bland, pleasant statements about keeping an official on - well, it’s the Bush administration equivalent of waking up to find a horse’s head in your bed.
I never thought Gonzo would survive this. I didn’t think, though, that they’d already be talking about replacements who are objectively fucking incompetent. Olbermann’s reporting that four names are being bandied about by administration buddies: Larry Johnson (who might actually be qualified); Ted Olson (Who’d be fucking scary; having him as SG was bad enough); Frances Fragos Townsend (Bush’s personal anti-terror czar - yeah, I knowl; the jokes write themselves).
What’s that, you say? Only three? Oh. My bad. So who’s four?
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Stop laughing. No, stop. Really. Seriously. That Michael Chertoff.
Yep. The mike Chertoff who advised the CIA to torture detainees. The Mike Chertoff who oversaw the DOJ’s institutionalization of torture as a legitimate plea bargaining tactic. The Mike Chertoff who coauthored the criminally misnamed USA PATRIOT Act. The same Mike Chertoff who excused the administration’s criminal negligence during Hurricane Katrina on grounds that it "surprised" people. The same Mike Chertoff behind the sweetheart Dubai port "security" deal.
Oh, yes - and how could I forget? The same Mike Chertoff who was one of Ken "Javert" Starr’s most trusted minions in his panty-sniffing prosecution persecution of Bill and Hillary.
But that’s it, of course. Who else could possibly be more qualified (save, of course for the sex-crazed Starr himself)? After all, Mike Chertoff is someone who participated in the systematic effort to destroy that greatest of all threats to national security - TEH CLENIS!
And, you know, with Hillary running for the White House, Teh Clenis will be back . . . .
So then-Army Secretary Francis Harvey throws General George W. Weightman - the one official who was demonstrably not responsible for the Walter Reed scandal - under the bus. When the Bush maladministration realizes that the public will not be appeased by cutting loose a guy who’s been at Walter Reed a mere six months, it then throws Harvey under the bus.
And who comes out on top? Why, that’s absolutely right, children: Kevin Kiley, Army Surgeon General and one of the chief architects of the Walter Reed abomination.
No more.
The A.P. is reporting that "[t]he Army forced its surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, to retire." Of course, Kiley’s spinning this as voluntary:
"I submitted my retirement because I think it is in the best interest of the Army," Kiley was quoted as saying in Monday’s Army statement.
Kiley said he wanted to allow officials to "focus completely on the way ahead."
However, Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren apparently didn’t present it as an option: "Geren asked Kiley to retire, a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record."
About damn time.
This is the asshole who, according to Harvey himself, called Dana Priest’s reporting "yellow journalism":
"He called me and said, ‘I’m willing to defend myself. . . . I want to have an opportunity to defend myself, and it was wrong and it was yellow journalism at its worst, and I plan on doing it. Trust me.’ " Harvey said. "I said, ‘Okay, Kevin.’ "
[Ed. note: "’Okay, Kevin’"??!!! WTF kind of response is that??!!!]
This is the asshole who said, of the sqalid patient conditions at Walter Reed, that the problems "weren’t serious, and there weren’t a lot of them."
This is the asshole who had known directly of the problems for months - and had heard complaints from patients’ families for years - and did nothing.
This is undoubtedly the asshole - in conjunction with a number of other Pentagon and administration assholes - who punished wounded soldiers with dawn inspections and gag orders for being so disloyal, so treasonous as to tell a reporter that their hospital rooms were infested with rodent shit and cockroaches, that they were left to lie in their own waste, that they were being fucked over by the same government that put them there in the first place.
And this is the asshole who whitewashed the military’s official "report" on treatment of detainees, finding no evidence of torture or abuse. ‘Cause, you know, it’s kindof hard to find evidence that a detainee has been tortured when you refuse even to talk to a single detainee.
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving asshole.
Of course, what he really deserves is a few months in in Gitmo, complete with sensory deprivation and waterboarding, followed by R&R in the worst room in Walter Reed’s Building 18. Strapped to the bed, no access to the bathroom, and no one answering his call light as the rats and roaches skitter across his face. Of course, he’d have broken completely long before that; bullies are always the weakest psychologically. But it would still be gratifying.
Photo by Tony Sernack for The New York Times
Apparently unwillling to learn from the downfall of Cully Stimson, Col. Morris Davis, chief prosecutor in the U.S.’s "case" against Australian Gitmo detainee David Hicks has now begun publicly threatening Hicks’s defense attorney, Maj. Michael Mori, with prosecution himself.
Now, it’s abundantly clear from the available coverage of the Hicks case that this is nothing more than flop-sweat-soaked desperation on the part of Davis and the administration. But that’s cold comfort to Mori, who could face not only the loss of his commission, but jail time, and to Hicks, whose case would then be delayed for months while new defense counsel is appointed and gets up to speed on the case.
So why are Davis’s knickers in such a twist?
Maybe because the government has no case.
Davis whines that Mori shouldn’t be running around Australian in uniform, speaking to groups that want to know how to support Hicks’s legal effort. What Davis would undoubtedly like to forget is the fact that the five different charges the U.S. originally leveled at Hicks, have now been reduced to one: "material support for terrorism."
Yep. You read that right. This slob, this high-school dropout and ne’er-do-well schlump, this citizen of a foreign country that is allegedly our ally has been held for five freaking years without charge in the legal no-man’s-land that is Gitmo. All for what comes down to "material support for terrorism?"
Here’s what The NYT has to say:
Mr. Hicks was initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder and engage in acts of terrorism, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. That was later reduced to attempted murder and “providing material support for terrorism.”
Got that? 1) Conspiracy to commit murder. 2) Conspiracy to engage in acts of terrorism. 3) Attempted murder. 4) Aiding the enemy. [Ed. note: Umm, whose enemy? It’s not treason for an Australian citizen to aid an enemy of the U.S. It may be treason to aid an enemy of Australia (and those enemies may be one and the same), but that’s a prosecution for Australia, not us.]
So that’s four charges. When the U.S. Supreme court got involved, charges 1), 2), and 4), above, got whacked. Left with 3), our brilliant legal tacticians decided to add another, which, for consistency’s sake, we’ll label 5): "Providing material support for terrorism." Then, the presiding judge dismissed 3), too - so poor old Davis is left with the unsexy and unexciting 5).
Of course, it gets better (doesn’t it always?). As noted, Charge 5) was added much later. Trouble is, it relates explicitly to his membership in an Afghan group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, which, on September 11, 2001, was not classified as a terrorist organization, either by the U.S. or by Australia. (According to The NYT, that change in classification didn’t occur until the last week of 2001.) Worse, the U.S. didn’t even have a crime of "providing material support for terrorism" on the books until . . .wait for it . . . 2006!
Of course, as The NYT notes, our post-9/11 government has not given a rat’s ass about such constitutional niceties as the prohibition on ex post facto laws - certainly not for any damn foreigners. Nonetheless, there’s a good legal argument to be made that this final charge should be dismissed as well, and I’m sure that Mori’s making it.
What’s really funny is the sense of rising panic among both the U.S. and Australian administrations. After five years - and the hysterical fear-mongering a scant two weeks ago of U.S. ambassador to Australia Robert D. McCallum, Jr. that all the people left in Gitmo are “ruthless fanatics who would kill Australians and Americans without blinking an eye” - the whole case seems destined for the crapper. Australian media are reporting that the Aussie government is "desperate," and "would do anything to have the Guantanamo Bay detainee plead guilty." Now, this last quote is from The Australian, which is part of news.com.au - a FOX site. I had planned to snag the link to the article but, lo and behold, when I click on the link now, I get this:
The page you requested could not be found
We could not find the page you requested. This is either because:
There’s an error in the address or link you have entered in your browser;
There’s a technical issue and the page has not been properly published;
Yep - it ends with the semi-colon. According to Google News, which is still indexing its hed, it was posted within the last 24 hours. And I couldn’t find it via a serach on the news.com.au site. Which, of course, leads me to break out my tinfoil propeller beanie and wonder whether the site yanked it at the request of Howard (and/or the Bush administration). After all, they’ve shown time and again that nothing’s too petty for them to try to control it.
At any rate, the point of the piece was that Howard is facing a great deal of wrath at home because he has allowed the U.S. to imprison an Aussie citizen without charges and without trial for five years, and is now allowing that same citizen to be subjected to a true kangaroo court, no pun intended. And Howard is virtually begging Hicks and his attorney to agree to plead guilty to the final charge (you know, before it’s thrown out, too) in exchange for being allowed to come home immediately.
You know, if I’m Hicks, and they come to me with this kind of "deal" after I’ve survived five years of this bullshit, I’m gonna tell ‘em to get bent. I hope he does. And while Mori is apparently petitioning the court to assign new and "uncompromised" counsel for Hicks in order to protect his client, I hope he continues to tell and Davis and Co. to shove it.
Oh, and ABA? While you’re reviewing dear Cully’s fitness to practice law, you might take a look at Davis, too. They’ve both committed offenses worthy of disbarment. Start cleaning out the infestation now.
What, Iran’s Not Enough for You?
Meanwhile, during Uncle Dick’s Excellent Adventure Down Under (otherwise known as the get-the-hell-out-of-town-before-Scooter’s-verdict-comes-back):
China’s recent anti-satellite weapons test and its continued military buildup are ‘’not consistent'’ with its stated aim of a peaceful rise as a global power, Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday.
‘Cause, you know, The One True Path to World Peace is the one that provides that the U.S. be the only anti-satellite-weapons-testing, nuclear-arms-possessing, illegal-war-launching country on the planet.
I can’t do this anymore . . . .
While taking a break from work, I visited C&L. What I found there has left me beyond rage.
And I’m not going to apologize for the bloody image above. This is something that every goddamn American needs to confront in the comfort of their living rooms, every morning and every night, a constant barrage, until they understand exactly what this is that we have wrought - and until they get off their fat, safe, comfortable asses and FUCKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I no longer cry, except on the rarest of occasions. I’ve been through too much in recent years. Oh, sure, a hauntingly beautiful piece of music or writing can make the tears well a bit, but to cry from anger or frustration? No.
But now, the tears flow freely. It’s equal parts outrage and goddamn fucking impotence. Because I don’t know what to do anymore.
Behold, the world of Mohammed Ibn Laith:
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
And what will America talk about today? In the L.A. Times, it’s this:
NASA diapers become topic No. 1: "The recent arrest of diaper-clad astronaut has transformed a somewhat obscure NASA undergarment into a cultural phenomenon." So let’s all snicker behind our hands, like five-year-olds on a playground, because this is obviously so much more important than the latest Iraqi dead in a war crime of our making.
But in al-Sadriya, Baghdad:
Does “peace” mean that your aunt does not weep as she talks of how the young couples she serves ask her after the X-Ray
"Well is it a child or is it a monster?"
And how she curses the Americans who littered our land with Uranium munitions and then denied us the cancer drugs. Because we needed to be,
contained.
We sand niggers who had been abandoned to the tyrant you had supported for years needed to be,
contained.
And though it was hard for you, though compassion swelled in your noble and peaceful heart we sand niggers needed to be,
contained
For my own good. I needed to be,
contained.
Shall we talk about peace you and I? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
And back in America, ABC urges men to Line on up to assert paternity of Anna-Nicole Smith’s child. Incidentally, at the moment, Google News has two pf three separate "Entertainment" subheads devoted to the dead former stripper, for a grand total, apparently, of 4,425 "news articles." Because a dead blonde ex-stripper is, of course, so much more newsworthy than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
After the war you said, adding one monstrous lie to another, a new Iraq would be born. A peaceful child of the west aping your ways and repaying you with control of its oil, of its soil, and of its soul. The operation would be brief, the birth pangs almost painless.
"We think the price is worth it."
"The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it."
"Birthpangs of a new Middle East."
"Well is it a child or is it a monster?"
Shall we talk about monsters, you and I?
No. Like Time, let’s talk about evil liberal bloggers, naughty girls who say "fuck" and have the temerity to tell the Catholic church to keep its sticky fingers off their bodies. And let’s try to portray their accuser as someone whose worst offense may be to refer to said bloggers as "brats," rather than the defender of date rape and rabid anti-Semite that he actually is. Because the antifeminist rantings of a bigoted hypocrite are so much more weighty than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
Meanwhile, back in al-Sadriya:
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
Or shall we talk of the days of age? Shall we talk of the warmth of the weight of age on your shoulder as you guide your aged progenitor as you would a child without letting him know that he is being guided? Shall we talk of guidance across the ages you and I? Or shall we instead speak of the armed foreigner who signals “hello” when he should signal “stop” and of how a confused old man who did not stop quickly enough and who could not lie down died in a whirlwind of fire unleashed by the foreigner? Shall we talk of that you and I? Or shall we talk of a daughter’s screams when she saw her son covered with her father’s blood? Or would you prefer to talk about peace?
"The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it."
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No. Let’s speculate instead about whether an African-American Democratic presidential candidate tried to mislead the public by attributing his name both to Arabic and to Swahili - actually, it’s attributable to both, but God forbid that intrepid reporter rent boy Mike Allen should let the facts get in the way of a good hatchet job. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s get a good giggle out of the fact that his middle name is - (gasp!) Hussein! Because focusing on whether an African-American candidate is a "rock star" is so much more entertaining than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
While in al-Sadriya:
We let our eyes and our hands instruct our brain as our trainers taught us to do.
Even if means abandoning them to their fate you do not do go in alone. Wait for your watcher.
Many of the piles of rubble are too big. We move on. When the bulding has collapsed completely or when you see concrete floors hanging and ready to fall you must move on.
Do not risk triggering the collapse of the building until there are two teams with the proper equipment.
We move on to do as our trainers have taught us to do.
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because Howard Fineman, of "the Web’s best reporting," thinks Rudy Giuliani is the GOP Obama. Because everyone knows that strained attempts to draw false analogies in the interest of promoting Rudy idolatry is so much more significant than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
But back in al-Sadriya:
It must be that my brother’s team has arrived I see him standing surrounded by people and pointing and giving orders. I look my question and he shrugs despairingly. We move on to do as our trainers have taught us to do. Others of us arrive, we organise ourselves and the people who were there and who want to help, showing them, how to clear rubble, and pull the wounded and dead people out. I and the two other experienced ones move back to the stalls.
Where are the ambulances? Where are the police? Will the Americans stop the cars and buses and vans carrying the wounded and the dieing to the hospitals as they have done so often before?
. . .
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because . . . look! Shiny! We’re too busy chasing down "scoops" about Nicole and Paris and Britney and K-Fed and Justin and . . . fuck, I can’t even stand to type the names anymore. Because profiles of vapid celebrities are so much more consequential than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
Still, in al-Sadriya:
There are enough of us now to start to attend to the dead. An interpreter like a dog in a mask walking on its hind legs speaks to me as I pass him and his American masters. I recognise his accent and politely express the hope that his family is well and are enjoying life in [ the name of the village he is from ] .
I do not think that particular dog will sleep well in its kennel tonight.
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because now that the Super Bowl is over, we have to have another celebrity "contest" to distract us. Because, after all, who wins the Grammys is so much more culturally relevant than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.
While this is the lot of the residents of al-Sadriya:
Showing the helpers how to pick up the pieces of human flesh. Put your hand inside one plastic bag pick it up. Drop it into the plastic sack. Move on to the next piece. One of them has not done this before his hand is shaking so much that he drops a piece of dead human flesh to the ground. But before I can get to him another whose face I recognise from before moves to him and shows him how to do it properly. They stay together the experienced helping the new. The first time is hardest. The new one’s shoulders are moving up and done as he works. He stands up and runs to a stall his helper running after him. He stands his shoulders moving up and down. His helper’s hand upon his shoulder. My brother calls out:
"O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females."
They go back to work.
"O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females."
Lips moving with each piece that they pick up and put into their plastic sacks.
"O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females."
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because the American financial sector that could help provide funding for relief work in Iraq is too busy - after all,
it’s Fashion Week! And reading about the corporate sponsorships and the designer labels is so much more fiscally critical than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.But for the parents in al-Sadriya:
Climbing out of the van the morgue attendants tell us to put the dead bodies on the ground. I hear a woman scream. Stepping over body after body after body as we walk to the emergency room. The guards do not try to stop up us from entering. We are many and they are few. Bloodied moaning people on the floor, bloodied moaning people on the floors of the corridors. Two old men on the floor against a wall faces grey with pain trying not cry out. More and more people being carried in. Many will die on the floor here as they have before each time that the American predators and their Iraqi underlings open the gates for the jackals to flood through and do their work for them. The people on the floor over whom we step will die of bleeding, and of pain and of not enough doctors, not enough, not enough equipment to take the blood from those who arrive to donate, not enough space.
Going through to the wards.
No sign of our father. I look at my brother - phone?
Nothing.
He says. “Nothing.”
. . .
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
Of course not, because we’re too busy wondering which presidential candidate will become the "
lawyers’ candidate," so we can have yet another ecuse to rant about how "frivolous lawsuits" are destroying the country. Because reading about ensuring get-out-of-jail-free cards for corporations like Blackwater is so much more imperative than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.As will learn another parent in al-Sadriya:
A telephone rings on one of the dead bodys. The same tone as on the phone we gave our father. Running my hands through the pockets of the dead boy to find the phone. A woman’s voice screams when she hears mine. Khalil speaks Kurdish. Gesturing to Khalil, “come here, come here,” handing him the phone.
Khalil is to stay. We to go.
. . .
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because while Iraqi mothers mourn their dead children, Americans have to keep busy by envying idiots with too much time and money and too little sense, who will
drop $25K on a Bangkok meal on a whim. Because reading about such excess (and hoping you can be rich enough to indulge in it someday) is so much more essential than the latest Iraqis dead in a war crime of our making.While the death everywhere renders eating impossible for the rescuers of al-Sadriya:
The smell of death in no less strong in the car that drives us back. Or perhaps it is our presence that magnifies it. At Al-Sadriya the scale of the destruction is clear. The crater is five metres in diameter and almost two metres deep. Wherever you step there is blood blackening and thickened on the ground. Shops and homes alike are destroyed and work goes on to take out those buried in the rubble of their homes.
The police and their American masters do nothing.
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
No, because we need to read about the gentrification - nay, yuppification -
of surfing. Because reading about ways we can waste more of our income trying to keep up with the Joneses and recapture our lost youth is so much more urgentBut for the rescuers of al-Sadriya:
Abu Hussein tells us to separate our search. I to Al Kindi, my brother to Ibn Al Nafees. Getting into the back with the bodys and driving to Al Kindi hospital. The smell of death is a mix of the smell of the sort of excrement you pass when you have drunk bad water and the meat market on a hot day. It rises to surround me. It is in my hair and my clothes and my throat. I will smell of death when I go into the hospital.
I found my father that night outside the morgue. He had been lightly wounded, his clothes were soaked in dried blood, and he was praying over the body of our friend and colleague Abbas.
I, my brother, and Abu Hussein and his sons, have bought him a new telephone.
"We think the price is worth it."
"The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it."
"Birthpangs of a new Middle East."
"Well is it a child or is it a monster?"
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
The only thing a predator understands is force.
We have nothing to talk about you and I.
No. Because there’s nothing to say. Nothing can justify this atrocity that we have created, and nothing can justify our willingness to stand by as it continues. Iraq is now one massive, gaping, bloody wound of a war crime, one for which history
may very well determine us all to be "good Germans." Our complicity and complacency are obscene, and to say that we opposed the war does not excuse us.
What the fuck are we doing, people?
<crickets>
Well, opposition is not enough. Supporting the other party is not enough. Blogging about how pissed off we are is not enough. Standing around at a UFPJ rally clapping for the usual suspects speakers is not enough. In fact, nothing we’ve done so far is enough.
I don’t want to hear another word - NOT ONE MORE FUCKING WORD - about how "impeachment is off the table." And if you think Nancy Pelosi’s right about this, go troll someone else’s damn thread.
This is OUR monster. We created it, with our smug, satisfied, somnolent willingness to allow the judicial anointing of this fucker - the same willingness that allowed us to support opposition candidates too worried about their fucking dignity to fight for their country when it mattered. And we abet it withe very day that we allow to pass that we don’t actively push for impeachment and conviction, removal from office, and international war crimes prosecution - for the whole fucking lot of ‘em: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz, Feith, Addington, Gonzales, every last goddamn criminal among them.
Because I literally cannot do this anymore. Every day that I don’t fight to end this obscenity, to "bring justice" (as our war-criminal-in-chief is so fond of saying) to this pack via a 21st-Century Nuremberg, is a day that I’m giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Because they are the real traitors. And I’m no longer willing to be an enabling, appeasing Vichycrat.
Consider this an open thread to post information about actual efforts that folks can join: 1) extract our troops; 2) to rebuild Iraq the right way; 3) to impeach these fuckers; and 4) to bring it home to the current crop of candidates that talk is not enough - they need to make these things happen.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Mar | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
