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.

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.

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?

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.

(image found HERE)

I remember many times under George Bush’s regime Iraqis being found in groups in Iraq on the side of the road bound, blindfolded, and tortured with power drills. Now we’re finding out today after the CIA’s Inspector General released a report that techniques used by the CIA included the use of power drills to terrify the prisoners in their custody. The report does not say that the drills were actually used on the prisoners, but what has been nagging at me for years now are the questions: WHO HAD POWER DRILLS IN IRAQ TO TORTURE IRAQIS WITH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (after the nightly curfew was imposed each night) TO BEGIN WITH? AND WHO HAD THE MEANS TO PULL IRAQIS OUT OF THEIR HOMES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SO THEY COULD TORTURE & KILL? (in some cases the bodies were found in the morning which meant they had died somewhere between curfew the night before and dawn the next day)

I’m telling you…..the American contractors had the means to do both. And maybe some of our soldiers did too.  We just found out recently that the CIA had hired Blackwater as an assassination squad who were SUPPOSED TO KILL TOP LEADERS IN AL-QAIDA. Sounds good, right? Well, I think Blackwater thought everyone who had brown skin was a top al-Qaida member and this is why Iraqis were found on the side of the road dead with power drill marks on their bodies! Spit.

I’m not saying all were tortured & killed with power drills by Blackwater, but I would like to know how many incidences they are connected to!

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the war criminals should be in prison!

By the way, I’m not happy either with President Obama for keeping Blackwater on the freaking payroll! It’s time to cut ties with these thieving vicious monsters!

From Democracy Now:

Report: Blackwater Involved in CIA Renditions

The German newspaper Der Spiegel is reporting the CIA used the private military firm Blackwater to transfer foreign prisoners to secret jails. Two former Blackwater employees reportedly claim Blackwater helped move the prisoners to secret prison camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The news follows last week’s disclosures Blackwater has played a major role in the CIA’s drone attacks in Pakistan and in its aborted assassination program. According to the New York Times, Blackwater currently has over $400 million in State Department contracts. On Friday, the veteran journalist Helen Thomas asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the Obama administration’s dealings with Blackwater.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: “I asked for an update, which I have not yet gotten, on where we are in different contracts. I would—as it relates to CIA’s use of contracting, I would point you specifically to them for responses on that.”

Helen Thomas: “I don’t think they would tell us.”

Gibbs: “They may tell you, Helen. If you use that sweet voice on the phone, you never know what you could get.”

Thomas: “I want them to stop killing people.”

Gibbs: “You should let them know.”

Thomas: “You should, too.”

In April 2004 a reporter asked the question;

In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you’d made in your life and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You’ve looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say? And what lessons have you learned from it?

His answer is memorable for it’s arrogance and clueless at the same time;

Hmmm. I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I’m sure historians will look back and say, Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way. You know, I just — I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet.

Given his presidency is finished and beginning to be judged by history, something he claimed would result in his resurrection in the publics eyes, I would ask a slightly different version of the same question.

In the first campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you’d made in your life and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. Now that you can reflect on your presidency, what mistakes might have been made. What would your biggest mistake in your presidency be, would you say?

I think if he is completely honest and candid, his answer would surprise many of us.

I for one do not think he would say;

The fact he totally missed the intell and warnings pre 9-11.

The failure to properly prosecute the Afghan operation and focusing on actually capturing Osama bin Laden.

His failure to properly access the intell and realities about the Iraqi situation pre-invasion.

The actions post invasion in Iraq which both allowed the insurrection to arise and bumbling mostly by Rumsfeld that fed it for years.

The total debacle of his and the government under him response to the worst natural disaster in our nations history, hurricane Katrina.

His numerous failures to actually follow the US Constitution and International law, ie allowing torture, wholesale unlawful spying on Americans.

Pushing the US military to the breaking point, and not addressing the stress and needs of uniformed military and veterans during wartime.

Nomination of Alberto Gonzales to any post.

The failure to properly enforce regulations and demand proper accounting standards before the worst recession post WW2.

No as important as each of those failures are, I think George W Bush regrets one decision he made even more then any of them.

I think that he just might consider his greatest mistake was actually made on July 25, 2000, when he asked Richard Bruce Cheney to be his running mate.

Once he asked Cheney to run with him, he seemed to hand much of the power and decision making power over to Cheney.

Cheney brought his PNAC team in to the bush administration with him, from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith, at Defense, to Armitage, Cheney’s daughter and Bolton at State, to Libby and Addington, running his hit squad inside the VP office. These team Cheney players set the course for the first six years of Bush’s time in office and doomed Bush to a course for the failures he experienced in foreign policy.

But Cheney had a larger influence then just rigging the foreign policy views to match the PNAC delusions, he under cut Treas Sec O’Neill and Sec of State Powell, and was the prime mover in the Plame Affair black eye the Bush Administration suffered. This resulted in the major disasters for Bush by the end of his presidency;

Powell couldn’t stop the invasion and resulting fiasco in Iraq and O’Neill wasn’t allowed to point out how disastrous the policies Bush was perusing would end, like they did in our current recession. Cheney made sure of it. Cheney also was the prime architect of the efforts to under mine the US Constitution and laws to promote a view of the presidency which does not exist in either the founding fathers original ideal nor the document the wrote to found this nation. Cheney in the end setup Bush for the vast majority of the failures he experienced.

The only major failure Bush experienced which Cheney isn’t prominently featured in was Katrina.

Cheney came into office with a set of plans for the Middle East, and how power should be exercised by the executive branch, that Bush never discussed with the voting public. However until at least November 2006 Bush seemed to aqueous to the ideas of Cheney most of the time. By the time the results of those policies were obvious to most Americans, the Bush administration was resoundingly rejected both in the mid term elections of November 2006 and the presidential election of 2008. John McCain seemed to run from Bush/Cheney in 2008 even more then Gore ran from Clinton in 2000

I expect if one could actually sit down for a few beers with Bush, and he relaxed and got honest both with himself and the rest of us, he would admit his very first “presidential decision” was actually his worst;

IE, asking Dick Cheney to be his running mate.

Gawd I love this woman.

From Truth Out (her article is posted in it’s entirety below):

I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, which is a Palestinian Right’s Conference (al-Awda translates to “The Returning”), when the pilot’s voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.

As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to “remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom.” Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn’t belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.

As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child’s brains, blood and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.

Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause, and we can’t even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport, or walk through a metal detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated “free speech” zones (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter), and oftentimes brutally treated if we decide we are entitled to “free speech” on every inch of American soil.

If you watch any one of the cable news networks this weekend between doing holiday weekend things, you will be subjected to images of row upon row of white headstones of dead US military lined up in perfect formation in the afterlife as they were in life. Patriotic music will swell and we will be reminded in script font to “Remember our heroes,” or some such BS as that.

Before Casey was killed, a message like that would barely register in my consciousness as I rushed around preparing for Casey’s birthday bar-be-que that became a family tradition since he was born on Memorial Day in 1979. If I had a vision of how Memorial Day and Casey’s birthday would change for my family, I would have fled these violent shores to protect what was mine, not this murderous country’s. Be my guest; look at those headstones with pride or indifference. I look at them now with horror, regret, pain and a longing for justice.

I can guarantee what you won’t see this holiday weekend are images of the over one million Iraqi dead. Say we assign, in an arbitrary way for purely illustrative purposes, an average height of five feet for every person killed in Iraq and then line those people up from head to toe. That gruesome line would stretch from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon… 950 driving miles up Interstate 5. If we count the Iraqis who have been forced to flee, we would have to go back and forth between Los Angeles and Portland another four times.

There are obscene amounts of people who have been slaughtered for the US Profit Driven Military Empire who do not count here in America on any day. People in Vietnam are still dying from the toxins dumped on their country by the US, not to mention the millions who died during that war. Let the carnage escalate in Afghanistan while we protect our personal images by turning a blind eye to Obama’s war crimes. Are you going to feel a lump of pride in your bosom when the coffins start to be photographed at Dover for this imperial crime of aggression? Will you look at those flag-draped boxes of the lifeless body of some mother’s child and think: “Now, I am free.” Is it better to be dead when Obama is president?

A tough, but real, aspect of this all to consider is, how many of the soldiers buried in coffins in military cemeteries killed or tortured innocent people as paid goons for the Empire? To me, it is deeply and profoundly sad on so many levels. If I have any consolation through all of this, I learned that my son bravely refused to go on the mission that killed him, but he was literally dragged into the vehicle and was dead minutes later – before he was forced to do something that was against his nature and nurture.

Casey will always be my hero, but he was a victim of US Imperialism and his death should bring shame, not pride, as it did not bring freedom to anyone. I will, of course, mourn his senseless death on Memorial Day as I do every day.

However, we do not need another day here in America to glorify war that enables the Military Industrial Complex to commit its crimes under the black cloak of “Patriotism.”

From Palestine to Africa to South America, our quest for global economic domination kills, sickens, maims or oppresses people on a daily basis, and about 25,000 children per day die of starvation. I am not okay with these facts and I am not proud of my country.

I will spend my reflective time on Memorial Day to mourn not only the deaths of so many people all over the world due to war, but mourn the fact that they are the unseen and uncared for victims of US Empire.

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.

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 ………………………