slaughter-boarding

WAR
* "You may remember that in 2002, the year before the Iraq War began, the United Nations Security Council ordered Iraq to produce a report detailing all of its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons — past and present. Iraqi officials complied and produced an 11,800-page report on Iraq's weapons programs. The report described all the chemical and biological weapons the country once had — where they came from and what was done with them — as well as what had happened to Iraq's nuclear weapons program... Although the report was prepared for the United Nations, U.S. officials intercepted the report, edited out 8,000 pages (over two thirds) of it, and delivered its Reader's Digest version of the report to the UN." ive mentioned this recently and tried to prevent it from slipping down the memory hole. lest we forget. (go read for a reminder) http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/HusseinWasRight.htm

* heres the quote from negrponte i mentioned yesterday:
"MR. RUSSERT: But if they set a specific timetable, would we honor it?
AMB. NEGROPONTE: Well, we are here at the invitation of the Iraqis, and we are here in complete respect for their sovereignty. But you are asking a hypothetical question, and I wouldn't want anything I say to be construed as predicting whether or not that might actually happen"
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6853606/

* heres what negroponte said in the guardian saturday:
"As far as the legal mechanism is concerned, resolution 1546 says: "This mandate shall expire upon completion of the political process set out in paragraph 4 above and declares that it will terminate this mandate earlier if requested by the government of Iraq."
If that's the wish of the government of Iraq we will comply with those wishes. But we haven't been approached on this issue, although obviously we stand prepared to engage the future government on any issue concerning our presence here."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1396031,00.html
it seems odd that he changed/dodged his tune to 'i cant answer' the next day on mtp. its also nice that russert didnt ask a followup. sovereignty. oi. 'yes' is the hardest word

* "James Dobbins, former US special envoy to Afghanistan and Kosovo:
Both staying and going carry with them significant risks and costs...
If there is partition, it will be accompanied by large-scale ethnic cleansing. If it ends up that way, it is better done quickly." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1396031,00.html

* ya know how cheney tactfully said on coronation day that the israelis might just go and blow up iran and leave the r.o.w. to sort out the mess' - it seems that the israelis would have to fly over iraq, which is 'legally' under US control - so israel couldnt attack iran without am approval/complicity.


AMDOM
* ""If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read
Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy. It's a great
book."" the sniggering murderer can actually read. who knew? natan
of course is a likudnik extremist. kristol was on fauxnews today
paying homage.

* btw - g tells the story of watching the teeve with the sound
down, and picking the political leanings (or praps more accurately,
the political association) of the pundit by how they looked - which
he brilliantly called the 'go away-dar' - i saw a classic example
today - with steve forbes vs robreich on mtp. forbes is spookily
stepford. the other thing abuot repugs on the teeve is the
self-satisfied smirk when they reel off a talking point and are
so-very-proud of themselves - like they just learnt that the square
peggy goes in the square hole. QED. meanwhile the realitybased
person kinda realises that we arent sposed to be playing an
infantile game.

* along the same lines - have u ever seen a repug with a beard?
(apart from bozell, and sullivan). and the israelis are always
beautiful - which is unfair. except for pletka - and she deserves
to look a lot worse anyway. she gets so much airtime on the beeb
:-( i hope they all have ageing portraits in the attic. btw - could
laura be more stepford?

* btw - theres a big brouhaha going on about who will save/lead the
dems - i dont really get into it cos as far as i can tell we are
already a one-party world. the dean crew seem to be doing ok - and
conyers endorsed him. romney and frost and the rest are scary - if
theres anything thatll save the dems im with teddykennedy - they
cant be repug-lites. and even if the dems do win on that platform,
they might 'save' the party, but so what? its already way too late
for the dems not be repugs - they should reverse all the damage
already done - but its stupid to view it thru a linear/zerosum
lense. if any poor/gay/women/unwhite/middleclass/smart person et al
are voting repug, then the problem is the message delivery. im not
a lakoff disciple by any stretch - but they sure as hell need to
get the msg delivery tighter - otherwise they will always be
trumped. i appreciate that the vastrightwingconspiracy machine
appears almost insurmountable - but the dems will never beat it
unless they at least think about it - of course they need to do it
at both a tactical and strategic level - but at a minimum, the
tactical side needs lots of work, regardless of whether u buy into
the lakoffian model. remember jonks response to the question about
the global test? 'i will not cede authority' - ninety fucking eight
% of the population doesnt know what 'cede' means 4 x sake. and
remember that chick who was going on faux to debate some issue or
other and asked for the talking points and was met with blank
stares? unless the dnc at least gets that shit sorted out, it
wouldnt matter if jesus herself was chair of the dnc - and he had a
bunch of parables up his sleeve. meanwhile, the rnc chair is gay,
yet dobson is praising 43 and condemning spongepantssquarebob or
woteva his name is. its amazing. run ralph run.

* "Wolf Blitzer described the protesters as "angry, angry people" and he also explicitly tried to downplay the protesters significance.
On air he said, "We don't want to make too much of the protesters, because we don't know how many there were. Certainly, the nature of this business, the nature of television, we could over-exaggerate based on the images, and they might just be a tiny, tiny overall number." "
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/24/1542206

* pdbs are 'historical documents'. the pres needs to learn some history





________________________________________________________________________________
war makes me mad, sad, bad. tsunamis makes me sad.
wotisitgood4.blogspot.com