QUOTE OF THE DAY: 
GLENN BECK AT CPAC 2010:
‘Hello, my name is the Republican Party, and I’ve got a problem. I’m addicted to spending and big government…I’m addicted to spending and I just don’t want to spend today.’
(CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO QUOTE)
"If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” ~ John F. Kennedy, 1960
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Image Tom Toles
But it weren’t the one bush or cheeneey (H/T Tweety) had in mind ………………..
About sums it all up doesn’t it?
Bin Laden had a plan and the dumb as dirt neo-cons, republiscum and now the bed wetting tea baggers are followin’ it too a Tee,
Too bad he seems much smarter then they are, but his CIA involvement during the Reagan debacle helped bin Laden immensely. (PS we weren’t the only ones)
Bin Laden wanted to draw the US into the same style of war he waged with the CIA help against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a long drawn out battle with mounting casulies till the super power copuldn’t take it any more. Buish did just that and more, the Idiot doubled down in Iraq!!!!!!!
Ole bin Laden couldn’t believe his incredible luck.
Bush the Idiot was too stupid to finish bin forgotten off before beginning a bigger fiasco in Iraq,
Now we have two un-winnable, unfinished wars, to help bin Laden and al qaeda recruit more terrorists while bush the Idiot blew over a trillion of borrowed Chinese dollars in his numb-skull idiotic adventures instead of doing the right thing, using the power and reach of the US to get bin Laden and the rest of the terrorist who actually were behind 9-11,
We all aren’t any safer as the Christmas bomber (re-run of Richard Reid) shows, but bush lost thousands of good troops, had tens of thousands more wounded, wasted over a trillion dollars … PS the grands kids will thanks us for that bill. Now the military is worn out, over extended, with little to show for it, but a grave near Tikrit Iraq, and a huge bill from the borrowed dollars and fresh graves of the fallen.
Heck of a job, you idiots.
Now the bed wetters and rest of the reich wing wants to pile on President Obama for Bush’s incompetency in doing his actual job,
You know, getting the real people behind the attacks, Yes, … actually getting them (dead or alive like Bush claimed he was gonna do) … remember?
He didn’t as soon as March 13, 2002 …
NOT wasting soldiers lives, bodies or the countries wealth on a pipe dream of the US controlled middle east,(the PNAC wet dream) settling personal scores or obtaining the Iraqi oil fields for US control.
Yep he accomplished his mission, … bin Laden that is, …. and bush/cheeneey couldn’t have been a better supporter for him to that mission if they had actually conspired with Bin laden. (which I don’t believe they did, just were too arrogant, stubborn, and foolish to listen to wiser council, and then have take a more prudent and productive course of action.)
8 1/2 years later and the 9-11 planners are still laughing at the incredible luck they had with the dumbest Supreme Court decision ever ….. who would have though 5 justices of the Supreme Court would have screwed us all over that way, … but they did, … and ole’ bin Laden thanks them for it.
He couldn’t have accomplished as much as he did with out their help either.
This stands on it’s own;
Dick Cheney’s lies about President Obama
by, Eugene Robinson
It’s pathetic to break a New Year’s resolution before we even get to New Year’s Day, but here I go. I had promised myself that I would do a better job of ignoring Dick Cheney’s corrosive and nonsensical outbursts — that I would treat them, more or less, like the pearls of wisdom one hears from homeless people sitting in bus shelters.
But he is a former vice president, which gives him a big stage for his histrionic Rottweiler-in-Winter act. It is never a good idea to let widely disseminated lies and distortions go unchallenged. And the shrill screed that Cheney unloosed Wednesday is so full of outright mendacity that, well, my resolution will have to wait.
In a statement to Politico, Cheney seemed to be trying to provide talking points for opponents of the Obama administration who — incredibly — would exploit the Christmas Day terrorist attack for political gain. Cheney’s broadside opens with a big lie, which he then repeats throughout. It is as if he believes that saying something over and over again, in a loud enough voice, magically makes it so.
“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war,” Cheney begins.
Flat-out untrue.
The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are at war against terrorists. He said it as a candidate. He said it in his inaugural address: “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” He has said it since.
As Cheney well knows, unless he has lost even the most tenuous grip on reality, Obama’s commitment to warfare as an instrument in the fight against terrorism has won the president nothing but grief from the liberal wing of his party, with more certainly to come. Hasn’t anyone told Cheney that Obama is sharply boosting troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to avoid losing a war that the Bush administration started but then practically abandoned?
Cheney knows this. But he goes on to use the big lie — that Obama is “trying to pretend we are not at war” — to bludgeon the administration on a host of specific issues. Here is the one that jumps out at me: The president, Cheney claims, “seems to think that if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war.”
Interesting that Cheney should bring that up, because it now seems clear that the man accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given training — and probably the bomb itself, which involved plastic explosives sewn into his underwear — by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. It happens that at least two men who were released from Guantanamo appear to have gone on to play major roles as al-Qaeda lieutenants in Yemen. Who let these dangerous people out of our custody? They were set free by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The former vice president expresses his anger that the Obama administration is bringing Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to trial in New York. Cheney is also angry that Obama does not use the phrase “war on terror” all the time, the way the Bush administration used to. But Obama just specifies that we’re at war against a network of terrorists, on the sensible theory that it’s impossible to wage war against a tactic.
Toward the end of his two-paragraph statement, Cheney goes completely off the rails and starts fulminating about how Obama is seeking “social transformation — the restructuring of American society.” Somehow, this is supposed to be related to the president’s alleged disavowal of war — which, of course, isn’t real anyway. It makes you wonder whether Cheney is just feeding the fantasies of the paranoid right or has actually joined the tea-party fringe.
I can find reasons to criticize the administration’s response to the Christmas Day attack. Obama and his team were slow off the mark. Their initial statements were weak. Obama shouldn’t have waited three days to speak publicly, and when he did he should have shown some emotion.
But using a terrorist attack to seek political gain? I have a New Year’s resolution to suggest for Cheney: Ahead of your quest for personal vindication, put country first.
Now when the wingnuts and conservo-tards get their bedwetting panties in a twist, and screech their talking points they have this post to rebut or fail in the talking point idiocy they play with.
But that won’t stop them any more the the facts ever have.
Calls from Angela Merkel told Tony Blair he would not get EU’s top job
and
Leaked documents reveal No 10 cover-up over Iraq invasion
• Inquiry to hear how Blair hid true intentions for war
• Military ‘ill-prepared’ for aftermath of invasion
coinky dink?
I think not, after all who wants a known liar;
Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public to throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.
and possible war criminal;
They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.
to head the European Union?
Hmm if Tony Blair was lying to the British people cause he made a pack with Bush to illegally attack Iraq in early 2002,
Blair had in effect promised George Bush that he would join the US-led invasion when, as late as July 2002, he was denying to MPs that preparations were being made for military action. The leaked documents reveal that “from March 2002 or May at the latest there was a significant possibility of a large-scale British operation”.
does that mean Bush-Cheney lied to us all through 2002?
YA THINK?
That means they are war criminals also.
Illegal invasion;
No preparation for civilians post combat phase, …
Documents leaked in 2005 show that, almost a year before the invasion, Blair was privately preparing to commit Britain to war and topple Saddam Hussein, despite warnings from his closest advisers that it was unjustified. They also show how Blair was planning to justify regime change as an objective, despite warnings from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, that the “desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.
Hmmmm …… regime change for the sake of regime change is a war crime,
Interesting;
Somebody better tell Gonzo, Condi, Dumsfeld, Powell, Feith, Wolfowitz, Franks, Hadley, Libby, Fleisher, Tenet, Perle, Cambone, Boykin, Ashcroft, Armitage, Bolton, Zoellick among others to call Henry Kissinger and ask how American War criminals can travel with out the inconvience of being sent to the Hague for a trial.
Oh yea Bush and Cheney too.
Nice to see the British actually investigating this, too bad we never will …. cause too many republicans (they were in charge of lying and committing war crimes remember) will go to prison then.
Wanna bet the corporate owned MSM entertainment-disinfo service here in America ignores this one also?
Matthew P. Hoh’s letter in full;
Dear Ambassador Powell,
It is with great regret and disappointment I submit my resignation from my appointment as a Political Officer in the Foreign Service and my post as the Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. Government in Zabul Province. I have served six of the previous ten years in service to our country overseas, to include deployment as a U.S. Marine officer and Department of Defense civilian in the Euphrates and Tigris River Valleys of Iraq in 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. I did not enter into this position lightly or with any undue expectations nor did I believe my assignment would be without sacrifice hardship or difficulty. However, in the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan, in both Regional Commands East and South, I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end. To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.
This fall will mark the eighth year of U.S. combat, governance and development operations within Afghanistan. Next fall, the United States’ occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union’s own physical involvement in Afghanistan. Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.
If the history or Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah’s reign, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modem of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.
The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government’s failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic:
• Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;
• A President whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts;
• A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and
• The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.
Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.
I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries. Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.
Eight years into war, no nation has ever known a more dedicated, well trained, experienced and disciplined military as the U.S. Armed Forces. I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan. The tactical proficiency and performance of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines is unmatched and unquestioned. However, this is not the European or Pacific theaters of World War II, but rather is a war for which our leaders, uniformed, civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our men and women. Our forces, devoted and faithful, have committed to conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure. Similarly, the United States has a dedicated and talented cadre of civilians, both U.S. government employees and contractors, who believe in and sacrifice for their mission, but have been ineffectually trained and led with guidance and intent shaped more by the political climate in Washington, D.C. than in Afghan cities, villages, mountains and valleys.
“We are spending ourselves into oblivion” a very talented and intelligent commander, one of America’s best, briefs every visitor, staff delegation and senior officer. We are mortgaging our Nation’s economy on a war, which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions more spent, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory.
I realize the emotion and tone of my letter and ask you excuse any ill temper. I trust you understand the nature of this war and the sacrifices made by so many thousands of families who have been separated from loved ones deployed in defense of our Nation and whose homes bear the fractures, upheavals and scars of multiple and compounded deployments. Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, l submit my resignation.
Sincerely,
Matthew P. Hoh
Senior Civilian Representative
Zabul Province, Afghanistan
cc:
Mr. Frank Ruggiero
Ms. Dawn Liberi
Ambassador Anthony Wayne
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
This letter was addressed to:
Ambassador Nancy J. Powell
Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
About sums up the failures of Bush and Cheney for the last eight years, and why Obama shouldn’t send in new cannon fodder to the failed war Bush already lost.
Well the batshit insane crowd is gonna possibly go berserk again;
You know the insane clown posse of knee jerks, faux noise, Glenn Beck, Rush the addict, Hannity, O’Rielly, WND, the Cheney Criminal Enterprise, reich wing bloviating radio, Coulter, Malkin, and of course the cowardly reich wing troll brigade …………
Why you ask?
Wel-l-l-l-l-l-l …..
Saudi, Facing Oil Consumption Spike, Mulls Nuclear (behind a paywall, Rupert owns it now)
IE build a nu-kle-ar plant in Saudi Arabia
What?
They have LOTS of oil, they say so.
Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves stood at 264.10
billion barrels of oil at the beginning 2009 according to the 2009
BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
Although this amount has remained essentially the same from 1989, even with them producing a cumulative total of 64 billion barrels over that time frame.
Which lead to this:
Matthew Simmons, a highly respected oil expert, predicts in his book,
“Twilight in the Desert,” that most of Saudi Arabia’s giant oil fields, including the Ghawar field (the world’s largest oil field which has been producing about five million barrels of oil per day for more than 50 years) is now or will soon experience the same fate as Mexico’s Cantarell Field — inexorable decline.
So they can’t need a nuke plant can they?
Actually …. yes.
They have lots of oil, …….. for now.
Remember that Cantarell oil field in Mexico,
It was placed on nitrogen injection in 2000, and production peaked at 2.1 million barrels per day (330,000 m3/d) in 2003. Production declined rapidly after that, and by 2009 had fallen to 772,000 barrels per day
Well Ghawar in the Saudi desert;
The Ghawar Oil Field is by far the largest conventional oil field in the world and accounts for more than half of the cumulative oil production of Saudi Arabia.
The field’s copious production has had help in the form of water injection, which was initiated in 1965.
As wells mature, engineers must manage the pressure by pumping natural gas or water into the wells. This forces oil upward and maintains flow. As more water is pumped into a well, more is found mixed with the extracted oil (the “water-cut.”) High water-cuts imply that a field is running out of natural pressure and becoming more depleted. Ghawar is a rare example of an oilfield with extraordinary natural pressure, although there are some signs that more water is now necessary to help maintain pressure levels.
Water injection volumes are included in a number of publicly available articles about Ghawar, with one of the more recent ones pegging the injection rate at seven million barrels of seawater per day. Water cut, according to other sources, has been reduced from approximately 35 percent to roughly 30 percent since vertical well drilling was shelved in favor of horizontal wellbores.
Saudis eye CO2 injection at Ghawar
Remember the Mexicans used nitrogen injection to hold up production in Cantrell for a few extra years, but the eventual decline in production could not be avoided.
Seems the Saudis are trying a similar trick here; trying to hold up production, to continue their claims they have enormous amounts of oil. But they don’t seem to want to tell us all exactly how much oil they have, which is why they pump and pump (using what ever it takes) but claim they aren’t decreasing their reserves.
They have a rising population and ever rising demand of oil internally. This conflicts with the fact, everybody else on the planet also wants that oil, which is why in a recession, during the fall (when it normally drops some), the price of oil is actually going up: $75.08 at the time I am writing this. Much higher then last spring, when oil was in the $30’s area.
They have supplied oil to the world since before WW2, the and been the swing producer of oil since the US peaked in production in the early 1970’s.
However they are producing at almost full capacity, and either have to cut exports due to the ELM, IE less oil to sell to the rest of the world, which would cause another rise in world oil prices. Or the Saudis find a new source of energy to produce electricity from.
Since, from the WSJ article above:
With electric power using around 75% of Saudi Arabia’s domestic oil, the need for another source of energy has become acute. And as the kingdom rolls out a $400 billion spending plan over the next five years to build the infrastructure needed to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons, it will need all the money it can get from oil exports.
Hmmmm ya thunk may-be, just, may-be the Iranians which have a larger population … read that … more people using more oil, and a lower total reserve of oil left, are trying to do exactly that?
Save the oil which they are currently burning to produce electricity for their population and use nuke reactors to create electricity, which would allow them to make more money off the exports which would lower the cost of oil to the rest of us if even just for a little while. That would mean Bush, Cheney, Bolton, Kristol, the Israeli’s and the rest of the neo-con cabal was lying to us for years about the Iranian nuke program. Like they lied about Iraqi nukes, chemical weapons, and the rest of the crap they sold the sheeple to get their illegal invasion of Iraq.
So can we expect a new drum beat for oil against the country which originated 15 of the 19, 9-11 high-jackers, and funded the in Laden network more then any other country?
Funds most of the madrasas network in Pakistan, which both Al Qaeda and the Taliban draw recruits from.
Has the most extreme fundamental sect of politically approved sect of Islam, Wahhabism. The sect of Islam which Bin Laden and the Taliban drew from in formulating their extreme violent sect.
Could we expect the reich wing to go batshit crazy over this,
We l-l-l-l-l, …… no not exactly.
Cause the oil+banking sect which was behind the original PNAC neo-con cabal has too many lucrative ties to the House of Saud.
Like, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owning a large stake in Citigroup, who is currently requesting the US Government sell the shares the government got for saving Citigroup from bankruptcy.
Or the Carlyle Group, which both George H W Bush and Bin Laden family’s, (until after9-11) among several other interesting individuals, held stakes in that is.
Or Arbusto Energy
Arbusto Energy (sometimes referred to as Arbusto Oil) was a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1977, for former US President George W. Bush by a group of investors which included Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Henry Draper III, Bill Gammell, and James R. Bath. The company’s chief financial officer was K. Michael Conaway, now a United States Congressman from Texas.
It was later revealed that Bath made an investment of $50,000 while representing Salem bin Laden of the Saudi Binladin Group. This fact became controversial after the September 11, 2001 attacks due to Salem bin Laden being an older, half-brother of Osama bin Laden, who planned and financed the attacks. Upon Salem bin Laden’s death in a 1988 airplane crash, in Texas, his interest in Arbusto (along with other Binladin Group assets), passed to Khalid bin Mahfouz (a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman residing in Ireland, who was accused of supporting al-Qaeda.)
As for the Israelis, they won’t complain, cause even though the Saudis mouth the words, they never took the actions Saddam or Iran has in supporting Hezbollah or the Palestinians. The reason is simple the House of Saud has as much to fear from the Arab street as Israel ever has. Al Qaeda’s primary mission is actually to over throw the House of Saud, and replace the pro-western government there with one based on strict sharia rule.
Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from the foreign influences in Muslim countries and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate.
Naw, I can’t see the reich wing neo-con screeching for a war against the Saudis, nor their lunatic fringe in the MSM to push for it, in fact I bet this doesn’t really register on the US Main Stream entertainment Media at all.
Not in their interest of stirring up the rabble rousers, nor in the interest of the moneyed players (on both sides of the ocean) who pull their strings.
PS: I bet you don’t even hear either dipshit; Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann mention it.
Interesting,
The guy the reich wing trumpeted to deny this story as false;
Shock Troops
Master Sergeant John Hatley, First Sergeant for Company A, First Battalion, First Infantry Division, during it’s deployment in Iraq.
…. was convicted two days ago by a military Courts-Martial in Germany of executing four handcuffed, blindfolded Iraqi men by shooting them in the backs of their heads.
In effect senior officers of the United States Army said he was not what he portrayed himself to be during the orchestrated reich wing media attack on the Beauchamp article. Instead he was criminal guilty of murder, and sentenced him to life in prison. sort of undercuts his statements don’t ya think?
In other words what was written by Private Beauchamp did have merit because the people he wrote about especially senior enlisted have been found guilty. The people the reich wing spinmeisters relied on sort of have been convicted of crimes like Beauchamp wrote about.
Besides Hadley two others have Beauchamp served with also been imprisoned for the crimes they committed.
Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., 28, the medic for the unit Hadley was in, was found of premeditated murder in February and sentenced him to life in prison.
On March 30, Sgt. First Class Joseph P. Mayo, 27, pleaded guilty to murder and received a 35-year sentence.
Sort of makes you wonder why the reich-wing media worked so hard to deny the truth the US Army just confirmed?
Why not actually find out what the truth actually is before going all rabid over somebody who in the end simply reported what he saw?
This sorta parallels the torture revelations, the reich wing said we never tortured until the truth came out, now they wanna say so what, like committing crimes is no big deal.
I wonder why they think that?
Bush and Cheney LIED as usual,
Wanna STILL claim the US didn’t torture under Bush?
Read it all …… if you can stomach it.
….then remember how bad John McCain told us all the Hanoi Hilton was ….
What makes our actions different from those who tortured John McCain?
Very similar techniques were used by the North Vietnamese and by the US under Bush
….. and we wonder why those released sometimes go join the enemy?
We as a country should be ashamed this was done,
Supposedly in our name to keep us safe.
BTW, this report was leaked,
It is still supposed to have been kept secret.
Remember this is not the only case of torture or the only people US personnel tortured.
The blowback is yet to be seen.
jebus would be so proud,
Jesus of Nazareth ……. not so much. 
Oh wait. Did I say first US casualty meaning the first US soldier to die in the Iraq occupation came home today, since the March 17, 2003 invasion of that nation? Silly me. He’s not the first. Sgt. Phillip Myers is one of over 4,000 US soldiers who have died in Iraq, but he’s the first US soldier to die in Iraq to come back to the United States for our country to see him getting the respect he deserves, because unfortunately up until today…..Americans were not allowed to see our war dead and their flag draped coffins. Nope. The right wing presidents a few decades ago decided that they wanted Americans to love the idea of war, so allowing us to see the flag draped coffins was a big no-no, because they wanted us to think war was fun and not so bad. Yeah, yeah, if we didn’t see the flag draped coffins then that means we don’t have to think about war and continue on with our lives! When asked about seeing the flag draped coffins of our soldiers who had died in Iraq, Barbara Bush said, “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”. Spit. Republicans don’t want you to see the real cost of war while they’re making money hand over fist, okay? They don’t want to feel guilty…..and they don’t.
(picture)
So good for President Obama (and Bill Gates of the Pentagon!) to allow Americans to see our war dead! Barbara Bush and other right wing crazies like her must be livid! These soldiers sacrificed for our country and they deserve respect and honor from us. They don’t need to be hidden from sight so the fragile egos and minds of the uber wealthy can remain strong! Gawd.
On March 20th 2009 a very bad thing happened, ….. but a much worse thing was avoided.
The nuclear powered submarine USS Hartford (SSN-768) (a Los Angeles-Class attack submarine) and the US Navy amphibious surface ship USS New Orleans (LPD-18) , the newest vessel in the US Navy, did something ships should never do, they tried to occupy the same spot in the seas, they collided.
The collision was real serious, as you can see;
Photos from whiskeyandgunpowder
Notice the damage to the subs sail (that very large jagged crack is definitely not in the blueprints) making submersion impossible, which will make getting it half way around the planet for repairs interesting. A Navy website has comments which say there are cracks in the frame also
According to one report, submarine Hartford rolled 85-degrees to starboard. The impact and rolling caused injuries to 15 Sailors on board. The bow planes and sail of the submerged Hartford ripped into the hull of New Orleans.
According to a Navy statement, the collision punched a 16-by-18 foot hole in the fuel tanks of New Orleans. Two interior ballast tanks were also damaged, the statement said. USS New Orleans lost about 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel, which rapidly dissipated in the ocean and could not be tracked after a few days. There were no injuries to New Orleans crew of 360 or the embarked unit of 700 US Marines.
Nuclear-powered submarine Hartford was severely damaged. Indeed, the submarine’s sail was torn from its mountings to the vessel’s pressure hull. The submarine’s sail is clearly bent by several degrees to starboard. It’s not part of the builder’s specs, that’s for sure. Apparently, the submarine’s communication masts and periscope are warped and inoperable. The watertight integrity of the pressure hull is suspect. After the collision, Hartford transited on the surface to Bahrain, where the vessel tied up to a military pier.
According to a report in the latest issue of Navy Times, this is a “deployment ending” event for the USS Hartford. The submarine cannot fulfill its combat mission. The vessel must move to a nuclear-capable shipyard to undergo extensive repairs, costing “in the tens of millions of dollars” according to one source.
That is a very bad thing to happen, especially considering a nuclear powered sub was involved. However as bad as it was, remember 15 sailors were hurt in the accident Though they all have returned to duty. Where it happened couldn’t have been worse, right smack in the middle of the Straights of Hormuz.
For those of you who do not know where that is, it is the place Iran and the US have squabbled over since 1979, the same place where all the super tankers from the Saudis Iraq and Kuwait must traverse through to bring the oil to Europe, Japan, Korea, China and even the US. The same place last year the Iranian navy’s speed boats played chicken with the US Navy both last April and as recent as January.
If we had suffered a “Kursk” style sinking of a nuclear sub there all traffic would have come to a screeching halt. Nobody would have wanted to float a very large ship full of highly flammable oil directly over the top of a damaged submerged nuclear powered sub. Remember the Kursk did catch fire ….. and could have exploded. The Navy would have locked the area down until they could have recovered the sub. Which would have made the Iranians not very happy, which might have lead to more games of high speed chicken. .
This would have had dire consequences to the price of oil and it’s products like gasoline plastics which of course would have further stressed a severely stressed world economy. This of course would have sunk us much deeper into a recession lest a (gasp) depression. Sort of making the last year seem quite mild by comparison.
So all in all, we dodged a real bad situation a couple of weeks ago, thank god, allah, the flying spaghetti monster, yehovah, budda, krishna, bael, zeus, poseidon, your lucky rabbits foot … take your pick. Yes, if the accident had been worse, think of how the Iranians might have responded, because a good amount of their oil and revenue from it flows through that narrow strip of water. Or if the Iranians had chosen that particular time to play chicken again. We all got lucky this time, wars have started in stranger circumstances, just ask the poor Iraqis about the last six years …….. or the Vietnamese about a place called the Gulf of Tonkin.
We all just missed a real bad, bad or worse ………………………
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I suppose having a Vietnam vet in White House would depend on his or her experience while there. Not all Vietnam vets faced combat or were in the thick of it. Not all were POW’s either. For instance, our family has known a Vietnam veteran who still to this day has the occasional meltdown. His name is Norman and we first met him at our summer camp when my sister and I became friends with Norman’s son. Norman’s time in Vietnam was a disheartening one. His job as a flamethrower was to burn down villages, you know, he would burn down the cottages with the people in it. His memories are vivid of what he witnessed as he did this numerous times and his face still has the pock-marks where the heat of the flames blew back onto his face. Let’s just say…upon returning home after the war, Norman almost immediately signed up to be a volunteer fireman in the town he and his new bride chose. His reasoning? He told us it was because he wanted to SAVE LIVES FROM A BURNING BUILDING. Makes sense to me that he’d want to do this. Being a volunteer fireman was part of Norman’s therapy throughout his life. But. He still has the flashbacks and I remember many times when his wife and sons would come to visit us at the lake, Norman wouldn’t be with them. Why? His wife would say, “Norman is having a terrible time today”. Sad! But that is the reality of ALL WAR VETERANS who were in combat. The madness in their heads never ends. No amount of therapy can really overcome it. They can manage their lives, however, but the memories are still very close to the surface I’m afraid.
Sooooooo…
I’m sorry, but the thought of John McCain (an ex-POW) running our country makes me scared. The whole idea of it does not make me feel safe. In fact, can you imagine if this man had a flashback during a conversation with another world leader? Scary! And what on earth makes an ex-POW qualified for this job? Anyone know? Care to explain your reasons to me?
Let’s put it into perspective: WOULD WE TRUST KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMAD (an American prisoner for years who has endured torture) TO RUN THE COUNTRY OF PAKISTAN if he was released at some point? Think about that for a second. What if KSM said to us, “Yes, I was tortured for years but my mind is stable. I hold no animosity to the Americans or any other country for that matter”? Can we trust that statement? I’m sure that will be an argument John McCain will make at some point….that he’s overcome the anger and manages it well. But we all know he has anger issues for crying out loud and how he can go from laughing & jovial to outright rage & lunacy at the drop of a dime!!!
We need to talk about this. John McCain’s time as a POW gives off the impression that he will make a great leader and there are Americans who will ONLY think of this when they go to the ballot box to cast their vote. What makes these people believe that a POW is the right kind of mentality for the office of the presidency?
Some questions to ponder….
McCain chose to stay in the arms of his captors during Vietnam because he didn’t want his buddies to be left behind. Is this why he wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years? So our soldiers will be there for the other soldiers and it’s just easier to stay in a war then to get out of one?
If McCain was truly in a bamboo cage for 6 years while in Vietnam, how does this play into running a war?
Norman would not be fit to be the president of the United States. He loves our country, yes, but mentally he wouldn’t be able to handle it especially if we’re at war. How many Vietnam vets in your life have had flashbacks over the past few years because of what is going on in Iraq? Many will tell you….quite a few. I can’t even imagine what a POW who was brutally tortured over the years has gone through? And isn’t it interesting that John McCain decided recently that torture was okay to do as long as it was being done by our CIA? Does this sound like a man who has good reasoning skills? Surely he’s not forgotten his time in Vietnam, has he? I don’t think so. To be honest with you, I think McCain has lost his mind!
I do not want McCain anywhere near the nuclear codes of our country. It’s bad enough that we had two yellowbellied chickenhawks near it over the past eight years! Jees.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think a POW would make a fine fabulous leader of our nation at this point in time?
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Spits of rage…