this administration, they are crazy

* tristero:

"Please, people. Do not misunderestimate him or this administration. They are crazy, and I am not speaking metaphorically here. They were crazy to ignore the warnings in the summer of '01. They were crazy to invade Iraq. They were crazy to pass laws keeping a brain-dead woman hooked up to a feeding tube. They are crazy to write into law that George W. Bush has the right to torture people at will. Indeed, they are crazy in their lust to assert their will over anything and everything.

And they are crazy to plan any kind of attack on Iran (in both senses: it's nuts to consider it, and they really, really want to do it). They are crazy to think that threatening something like that will put pressure on the Iranian government to capitulate; if anything it will increase Iranian nationalism, fuel anti-Americanism and increase the Iranian government's support.

They are also crazy to think that retaliation will come only via terrorist attacks on the US and those attacks will increase domestic support for the Bush regime ("we're the ones serious about national security"). No. Retaliation for a pre-emptive strike on Iran will be swift, brutal, and on numerous fronts. The US will be economically and culturally quarantined. The world will unite to fight the US on trade agreements, will implement sanctions and make international business deals impossibly difficult. To those rightwingers who say, "Yeah? The Frenchies gonna threaten us? Haha! Bring 'em on!" I say, be careful what you wish for. They don't call this a global economy for nuthin'."

* ron continues his sterling work on Pakistan. go here to read about rumours of a coup and news/rumours that Mullah Omar explicitly endorsed the truce between Pakistan and the Taliban in Waziristan. Nice.

* jeralyn:

"The Army's budget this year is $98,2 billion. Next year Schoomaker projects it will need a 41% increase to $138.8 billion. That's way too much money and just another reason we should start bringing troops home and let the Iraqis deal with their civil war. Without our unwanted intervention, they'll figure it out. Let's use the $98.2 billion budget money for reparations resulting from damage we've caused to Iraq and its citizens and for the medical, mental health and vocational benefits our returning vets surely will need instead of continuing to wage an unnecessary, futile war and cause more damage.

When do we admit Bush's vision of democracy in Iraq was a bad acid trip?"

* via talkleft:

With only days left before Congress adjourns for mid-term elections, some members of Congress continue to skirt regular order in an attempt to attach widely-criticized habeas repeal measures to unrelated legislation. While attempts to keep these unpopular measures off the DOD bill were initially unsuccessful, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is now insisting that a controversial "judiciary package" of crime legislation, which includes habeas-stripping measures, be attached to the DOD bill. We are also keeping an eye on another possible vehicle for the judiciary package -- the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which is presently in conference and will likely be finalized in the coming days."

* miguel and I have a joint post up over at KTM about Doug Dickerson - it turns out that a bunch of folks at NATO in Belgium saw the movie and have started spilling some dirt :-) yay for publicity to Sibel's case...