2003-11-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

We were told Bush, in his speech, would defend his decision to take military action in Iraq. That his address to a group dignitaries and academics Wednesday at London's Banqueting House would take pains to puncture misconceptions, in Britain and elsewhere, on the reasons for going to war. That Bush, marking the first full day of his state visit, would seek to answer critics, bend over backwards to moot perception of him as unilateralist, 'go-it-alone,' 'my-way-or-the-highway' cowboy from Texas. This will be a fence-mending speech, said keen observers. Bush, "stung" by criticism across the globe of fracturing old alliances, would try to pay tribute to multilateralism and consensus-building, stressing the "need" to work closely together, to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, holding up the French as paragons of humility. One thing's for sure, said brilliant pundits: Bush won't dare even mutter the word 'evil' from that podium. Certainly not in his first major speech of his 3 1/2-day visit as Britain's guest. Not on a continent so morally superior to the U.S. it gave birth to darling boys Hitler and Stalin.
If those were the reasons for this speech, then I must concede this speech was a Miserable Failure. Bush Miserably Failed to looked defensive, instead he looked bold, decisive, resolute, in charge. Using strong and forceful language, Bush was the portrait of confidence, grit, determination, and spunk. He was colorful and funny at times, clear and direct at all times. If looking weak and timid to mollify critics was the goal here, gee whiz, Bush did a terrible job! Showing sheepishness or insecurity, doubt or unease, are things that Bush has never been good at. Bush doesn't do sheepishness, period.
To illustrate, take this passage:

"The evil is in plain sight. The danger only increases with denial. Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. We will face threats with open eyes and we will defeat them."

Now, let me ask you: Is this any way to look fickle, hazy, unsure, iffy, lame, indecisive? Is this anyway to reassure Euroweenies that America is adrift -- wimpy, wobbly and unsure of itself? With all due respect, if the idea here was for Bush to talk like the French, the speech on every level was a Miserable Failure! Bush did an awful job of looking frail, shaky, hesitant, bewildered. Sorry, Charlie, but looking poised and self-assured is no way to win hearts and minds in Euroweenieland.
Bush added that "We did not charge hundred of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins."
While critics expected an 'I'm-So-Sorry-I-Liberated-Iraq, And-I-Promise-Never-To-Liberate-Again' speech, what they got was bold, unabashed American assertiveness and vision instead. Right between the eyes. Mettle, conviction and poise gushed from that podium. If looking spineless and feeble was the goal, Bush completely blew it! Throughout the speech, not a hint of fecklessness, not a sign of wishy-washy. There was more than ample opportunity for Bush to look limp, but Bush missed every one of them. Truth is, Bush may be great as Commander-in-Chief, but this is a President who can't come across as shallow and insipid. Bush, try as he might, just can't do wishy-washy. When you're hampered with so many skills and talents as leader, doing shallow and insipid can be a struggle. Bush is just not good at being ineffectual. He's terrible at not planning for the future. He can't seem to get the knack of thinking small. Euroweenieship requires thinking small. The average Euroweenie has more girly-boy in his little finger than Michael Jackson has in her/his/its whole body. So, if convincing Euroweenies that Bush is Euroweenie was the goal, this speech was doomed from the start.
No matter how you slice it, Bush failed the test of Euroweenieship.
Which means Bush passed the test of leadership with flying colors.
Great job, Mr. President.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
It sucks to be a Democrat these days

Nag, nag, nag. That's all Democrats do these days about Iraq. Morning, noon and night. Not an hour goes by without the Griping and Grumbling Democrats griping and grumbling about how terrible things are going in Iraq. They opposed the invasion, but nag that Bush should've used more troops for the invasion. They opposed using force, but nag that Bush should've used overwhelming force to crush Iraq's army completely. They also nag that there's no Iraq army; we scared the bejeebers out the Iraq army during the invasion with too much firepower and too many U.S. troops. Faced with overwhelming firepower, the Iraq army fled the battlefield. (Invading with French troops deploying white flags could've prevented this, but Bush "wasted every opportunity to build an international coalition," Sen. John F. Kerry pointedly notes). Bush won the war too decisively, in short. It produced a power vacuum. Had Bush had a little more Quagmire during the invasion -- as Big Media predicted he would -- we would not be in a Quagmire now. But, oh, no, Bush, stubborn as always, had to do it his way, winning the war in record time, proving infallible media predictions wrong, ignoring the injury to media egos this would cause. Not only that, but Bush refused to carry out solid Media invasion scenarios of ecological and human disaster. No food crisis, no refugee crisis, no environmental crisis, no civil war, no Arab uprising, no raging oil fires, no Scud Missile strikes on Israel, no tens of thousands of dead G.I.s, no al-Qaeda revenge here -- no wonder we're in so much trouble now!
As a huge body-bag surplus threatens huge body-bag job cuts, "The Q-word (Quagmire) is getting some air as America settles down for a winter at war," writes Tony Karon of TIME magazine.
"The Q-word," he writes, "has been popping up with increasing frequency as the war in Iraq drags without any bankable signs of progress. Webster's Collegiate dictionary defines a quagmire as 'soft miry land that shakes or yields under foot' and as 'a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position.' It has been part of the U.S. political lexicon ever since it seemed an apt description of the U.S. experience in Vietnam. In the last week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has had to devote a considerable amount of his time explaining why it's a misnomer for the current situation in Iraq. He was responding to the steady rumble from the media, politicians, Iraq experts and even some U.S. allies that the operation (in Iraq) has the hallmarks of a classic military-political quagmire -- unclear goals, no visible victory post and no convincing exit strategy."
"The military insists things are going according to plan," adds Karon, "and that the critics are forgetting the initial warnings from the Pentagon and the White House that this would be a long, complicated war in which previous definitions no longer apply...Still, the pundits' concern (about the deepening quagmire in Iraq) is understandable."
Regarding Operation Iron Hammer, Karon writes that "The bombing thus far has not dislodged the Taliban..."
Huh? The Taliban? Hold on there. Doesn't make sense. Must be a typo. I'll double-check.
Uh-oh.
Major screw-up.
Yes, I did it again, FReepers. You'd think I'd be more careful after that last screw-up of mine, but, oh, no, just had to screw-up again. How embarrassing.
The Karon article I've been quoting was not about Iraq but about Afghanistan -- days before the Taliban fell! Sorry for the confusion, FReepers. Next time, I'll really, really be careful ;-)
Meanwhile, in a wholly unthinkable and unprecedented development, there are reports that Bush isn't well liked by Britain's freakazoid antiwar Left, with anti-Americanism running high among groups devoted to anti-Americanism.
More shocking still, there are credible reports that antiwar protesters there are protesting, the protesting prompted by war in Iraq (funny, I thought they said the war was bogus) and Bush's visit for talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the first full state visit by a U.S. President. Organizers expect a massive 1% of the British public to show up for the protests. Only 59,920,000 Brits will sit out the protests. The protesters, displaying an impressively firm grip on fairyland, their anger at Bush for toppling Saddam sizzling, will make believe they're toppling Bush by toppling a make-believe statue of Bush in central London on Thursday. (Strange again. I thought they said the U.S. lost the war. This should be a victory march, not a protest).
The Stop The War Coalition, which sponsored the protests, includes such perfectly mainstream, everyday groups like the Workers Power (which praises "mainstream" suicide bombers), Green Socialist Network and Socialist Alliance (which praises 'mainstream' Castro), Socialist Workers Party (committed to 'mainstream' killing and global revolution), the Socialist Party (committed to Socialism as key to well-being and prosperity), Lawyers against the War, Globalise resistance, Al-Awda, etc. These groups, Ba'athists from the Ba'ath wing of the Ba'ath Party, say Bush is a bloody terror mastermind who duped Blair into helping Bush's global war policy. (Who knows -- maybe Bush planned the Kennedy assassination!) These groups also say Bush is really, really dumb.
The protesters are so peaceful and mainstream, "London police have mounted an unprecedented security operation," CNN reports, with concrete barriers "erected outside Buckingham Palace, while the Metropolitan Police have scheduled 14,000 officer shifts" to guard against assassination and other civil disobedience by the peaceful protesters.
A new poll by The Guardian newspaper shows how mainstream these mainstreamers truly are. In the survey, published Tuesday, only 62 percent of Britons consider America "a force for good" in the world, while a whopping 15 percent agreed with Howard Dean that America is an "evil empire." The survey also found that only 47 percent consider themselves bloody warmongers like Bush, supporting the decision to topple Saddam, although the number of bloody warmongers is up from 38 percent in September. The Guardian blames the rise in bloody warmongers in Britain on reports of suicide bombings in Iraq. No doubt the suicide bombings were either a fraud made up in Texas (see Teddy Kennedy) or the suicide bombers were working for evil Halliburton (see Henry Waxman, who's still investigating Enron). Yeah, yeah, go ahead, dismiss Kennedy if you want; I say the Neanderthal-baiter has a point when he says Bush has driven our policy in Iraq off a bridge, letting it drown in a tide-swept neo-con pond while Bush safely swims to shore. This policy is a car wreck! er, train wreck...
Analysts and keen observers say the trip could prove a PR nightmare for Bush. They say the danger for Bush is that Americans, seeing images of angry mobs on the streets of London burning U.S. flags, shouting anti-U.S. slogans and images of Left-wing crazies acting like Left-wing crazies could move voters in Missouri to say, 'Well, that does it for me. I can no longer support Bush or the war if Left-wing crazies in Britain don't support Bush or the war.' And we all remember how, after massive street demonstrations here in the U.S. last March, Bush was forced to cancel the war on Iraq -- NOT. Which is why the crazier the mobs, the angrier the mobs, the more Americans will rally to Bush.
Meanwhile, USA Today reports that "President Bush's job approval rating is sagging, and in several other categories he is at or near the lowest point of his presidency, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds."
Seven months after major combat operations were declared over, Iraq is still not a perfect democracy and as the war "drags on, (Americans are) nearly split over the president's leadership: 50% approve of the job he is doing, and 47% disapprove," says USA Today. "That equals the lowest approval and highest disapproval of his presidency."
Not only that, but in utterly horrific news for Vulnerable Bush, Democrat registration nationwide has surged again, soaring from 33 percent of total registration to 45 percent currently! We know this because, among the 1,004 interviewed in the USA Today-Gallup survey, no less than 457 were "Democrats or Democratic leaners." If the massive shift in registration continues apace, all Americans will be registered Democrats in about a month. The rebounding economy doesn't matter, say experts. Bush's reelection will depend on conditions in Iraq, not pocketbook issues here in the states.
Bush is finished! Doomed, I tell ya! Dean can measure the drapes in the White House.
In a related development, ABC News reports that "public views of the war in Iraq are holding steady" and the President's "job approval rating has stabilized as well."
"According to an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Bush's overall job approval rating stands at 57 percent, about the same as it was in late October and fairly stable since," says ABC News. "These are positive results for the White House," and "62 percent of Americans say U.S. forces should remain (in Iraq) until order is restored, despite the casualties."
The rebounding economy does matter, poll results show. Bush's reelection will depend more on pocketbook issues here in the states, than on conditions in Iraq.
Bush is unfinished! Undoomed, I tell ya! Howard Dean can not measure the drapes in the White House.
It must suck to be a Democrat these days.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
It's Operation Iron Hammer Time!

Not only did deposed leader Saddam Hussein try last-minute overtures to avert war (this could get Saddam the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize by Howard Dean), but now it turns out Saddam never really tried averting war after all. That was last week's double-sourced-checked, unassailable, indisputable media account of what really happened -- and why Bush is such a horrible madman and bloody warmonger and Saddam is not. This week, the word is that the whole Iraq war was Saddam's brilliant plan all along.
"The recent string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq has appeared to be so methodical and well crafted" that this had to be Saddam's plan all along, the Washington Post reports Thursday.
Knowing from the '91 Gulf War they could not defeat the Great Satan even with well-armed conventional forces, "the Baath Party government cached weapons before the Americans invaded this spring and planned to" defeat the Great Satan using even less-well-armed conventional guerrilla forces, through conventional "guerrilla tactics," says the Post. Conventional guerrilla tactics used by these conventional guerrillas include guerrillas blowing themselves up in suicide bombings against dangerous military targets like Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad. And U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. And pregnant women on street corners in Baghdad. These brave guerrillas have taken on even more dangerous targets --- unarmed school children in Baghdad.
Here's the latest final version of Saddam's magnificent plan all along (caution: This final version of Saddam's magnificent plan all along is subject to revisions next week): Pretend you had weapons of mass destruction in order to get invaded, get invaded, get deposed, lose your army, lose every battle, get your butt kicked at Umm Qasr, Basra, Najaf, Al Kut, Karbala, Tikrit, Mosul, Baghdad, etc., lose your 2 darling sons, flee into hiding, don a Burka, get chummy with al-Qaeda (despite never having any links to al-Qaeda -- see Terry McAuliffe), then orchestrate terrorist attacks (despite never having been a terrorist -- see Wesley Clark) all while hopping house-to-house every 2 hours to avoid detection. This plan of Saddam's was so clever, it even envisioned allowing Coalition reconstruction to restore electricity, water and sanitation to prewar levels, renovation of 1,500 schools, reopening of all hospitals and clinics, reopening of all courts, circulation of hundreds of new newspapers (giving Iraqis a taste of press freedom), election of local Councils across Iraq (giving Iraqis a taste of political freedom), unearthing of mass graves, Saddam torture chambers and rape rooms. Saddam's plan, in another brilliant master-stroke, allowed deployment of tens of thousands of Coalition-trained Iraqi police and security forces, restoring order in 90 percent of Iraq.
Despite what you think, all of this is evidence Saddam is making very good progress. All is going according to plan. (Bush critics like Howard Dean and Jacques Chirac might note that this shows Saddam is far smarter than Bush, for Saddam not only brilliantly planned to lose the war, but he planned the postwar as well).
In short, Saddam, even while evading capture, is busy orchestrating the attacks, doing the day-to-day operational planning or direction and resourcing of the effort.
The Washington Post's cites as evidence to back it's new-new-new-new version of Saddam's master plan a U.S. commander, who tells the Post that "there is no evidence that Hussein is orchestrating the attacks. 'He has to move so much that he can't do the day-to-day operational planning or direction and resourcing of the effort."

And "U.S. officials who interrogated former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and other former Iraqi officials said they found no evidence of such a strategy," the Post admits.
But the absence of any evidence of such a strategy only proves there is such a strategy because, says the Post, "there is no question that enemy attacks on U.S. troops and their foreign and Iraqi allies are increasing in scope, intensity, sophistication and frequency." Oh, and there's this CIA memo which says that patience among the Iraqi people with Coalition efforts to bring the "guerrillas" under control is wearing thin. The memo says that unless Coalition forces bring the "guerrillas" under control, the Iraqi people will stop cooperating with Coalition forces which will make it harder to bring the "guerrillas" under control. Then they'll join the guerrillas! It's all so very clear.
This CIA memo is very trustworthy, says the Post, and we should all be gloomy and defeatist, says the Post, even though "The quality of U.S. intelligence in Iraq has proven to be a major problem in recent months and was criticized in a recent internal Army study," and there's "widespread complaints about the lack of coordination and integration of the data," says the Post. Yes, the quality of CIA intelligence stinks but not the quality of CIA memos leaked to the Post in order to embarrass the President. Those are really, really, really trustworthy.
Not only that, but this CIA memo added that even though Saddam's "guerrillas" were "disorganized by the speed of the U.S. invasion," they "are now regrouping." Yes, the "guerrilla" effort is in the midst of a robust expansion, a solid Recovery, lifting hopes at the Washington Post for a powerful rebound of Quagmire, just like the good ol' days of Vietnam. Guerrilla forecasters at the Post expect solid guerrilla growth and expansion in the coming months, possibly fueled by Bush's tax cuts for the rich. After a halting start, the surge in guerrilla activity proves the Guerrilla Recovery is finally here.
But, alas! it's a Jobless Recovery! Just as guerrilla activity showed promising signs of improvement, U.S. military forces "launched strikes aimed at cracking down on Iraqi (guerrillas)," CNN reports Thursday. Dubbed Operation Iron Hammer, the campaign targeted suspected guerrilla hideouts in "western and southern Baghdad overnight." It's Iron Hammer time! "In southern Baghdad," adds CNN, "an AC-130H Spectre gunship was called in to destroy a warehouse used by Iraqi insurgents to meet and plan attacks against U.S. forces." The strikes dealt a heavy blow to the guerrilla recovery, sparking fear among Democrats that the shrinking guerrilla labor force could trigger a double-dip guerrilla recession. With U.S. forces striking again tonight, using heavy gunships, mortars and artillery on Day 3 of Operation Iron Hammer, the number of discouraged guerrillas who have given up looking for work will likely surge (suddenly staring an AC130H Spectre gunship in the face has a way of doing that).
"Operation Iron Hammer will continue tonight, tomorrow and in the coming days," Reuters quotes Captain David Gercken of the Army's 1st Armored Division as saying. "We're making sure (terrorists) have no place to meet, no place to plan attacks and no place to store weapons. There will be no safe heavens," said Gercken.
For the "guerrillas," with their shrinking labor force, growing unemployment, disappearing paychecks, growing discouragement, shrinking infrastructure, falling income -- if this is a "Recovery," I don't know how much more recovery these guerrillas can stand!
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

I, Gore. And I hate Bush! Part II

It's Deja vu, folks. I'd have finished this essay sooner if it weren't for all the dang interruptions. Some federal agents kept ringing my door bell, wanting to know what book I was reading and what websites I visited since last questioned -- 20 minutes earlier. At first I thought it was some annoying salesman at the door. Then I heard, 'This is the Bush Secret Police! Open up or I'll frog-march you out of that house in hand-cuffs!' Living in a Police State ruined my whole day.
It all so vividly reminded me of Gore's speech Sunday.
America, says Gore, now lives an Orwellian nightmare of horrific repression by Bush in which federal agents pursue suspected terrorist activities before terrorist activities are committed, illegal combatants are treated as illegal combatants, illegal non-citizens as illegal non-citizens (some even jailed and deported!), and al-Qaeda communications intercepted just like narco-traffick communications. You'd think there's a war going on or something.
There are even chilling reports of government agents removing displays of the Ten Commandants...oh, wait.
Gore's address has dominated the airwaves for days, a testament to the overwhelming strength of the current crop of '04 titans. Gore started his speech with a touch of humor, noting he's a "recovering politician." But then the speech got funnier. Gore took aim at the U.S.A. Patriot Act, a right-wing Republican power-grab which passed the Senate by a razor-thin 98-1, and the House, 357-66. Proving the real intent here was to turn America permanently into tyranny, many of the law's provisions expire by 2005.
Gore charged Bush with using "fear as a political tool to consolidate (his) power and to escape any accountability for its use." (There is overwhelming fear of Bush throughout this Police State -- only 67 percent say Bush is honest and trustworthy! -- and some suspect Gore's using this fear as a political tool to consolidate his base and remind Americans of just how much safer they would be under Gore. Why, just listening to Gore's speeches is enough to make you feel safe, more at ease...more relaxed...really relaxed...to the point that you start...*y a w n i n g* ... which prompts more *y a w n i n g* till you can't stand it anymore and you soon zzzZZZzzzZZZ).
See? Don't you feel safer just watching Al Gore on TV -- safely away from the White House?
"In my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden," Gore added.
Bush says the U.S. is fighting terrorism -- yeah, right. Nice try, Bush. Look, don't let Bush fool you. That's not what all this repression and tyranny is really about. This Orwellian nightmare we're living under has been Bush's life-long pursuit -- his dream all along. It's a Texas thing -- the pursuit of despotism. Buttressing his point, Gore looked really repressed and tyrannized as he delivered his speech before a crowd of internet Fedayeenies at Washington's DAR Constitution Hall. Indeed, you could see it in his eyes, and in the eyes of the crowd as it cheered -- all the oppression and tyranny they've suffered under Bush and Dick Cheney. It's enough to make you want to call Amnesty International, just in case they missed the speech, which was carried on C-Span, which Gore invented. (The White House, up to its usual bag of (tyranny) tricks, tried jamming all broadcasts of Gore's speech, but the jammers were so electrified by Gore's speech that they fell asleep).
Gore told the crowd of Move-on-ers who won't move on, "for the first time in our history, American citizens have been seized by the executive branch of government and put in prison without being charged with a crime." Analysts note this was another brilliant point by Al Gore. Would-be dirty bomber Jose Padilla was seized by the executive branch of government, not the legislative branch, another chilling first. (You can understand how all this talk of 'branches' makes the Wooden-One a tad nervous; a little 'branch' here, a little 'branch' there, and pretty soon you're talking a whole Gore). Nor has the dirty bomber had access to a lawyer, a thought which sends shivers up and down the spines of lawyers. Indeed, the heartbreaking plight of Jose Padilla is probably hot topic for nightly family dinner conversations across America. Think of how peachy things would be if Bush would just junk this idea of putting people in prison without charges, when all he has to do is switch parties, rename himself FDR, and start putting people in internment camps without charges. Or he can just say he's channeling FDR.
Or whatever. Anyway, in my opinion, it makes no more sense for Gore to launch an assault on the White House as the best way to get civil liberties than it did for Gore to launch a run for the White House as the best way to get to the White House.
In each case, Gore was barking up the wrong, er, tree.
Gore, calling for repeal of the Patriot Act, also harshly criticized imprisonment of al-Qaeda at Gitmo, demanding the cuddly little Hannibal Lecters be given hearings, judicial review and free subscriptions to Taliban Digest and Terror Sports Illustrated. "If we don't provide this, how can we expect American soldiers captured overseas to be treated with equal respect?" Gore pointedly asked. It's an excellent point since we all know al-Qaeda, except for some suicide bombings here and there, is signatory to the Geneva Conventions. (Gore's remark suggests that half the people in his audience probably wouldn't even be there if he were president. The other half would be wearing Burkas).
Gore, who accuses Bush of imposing 'Big Brother'-style Government, also accuses Bush of waiting too long to impose Big Brother-style Government, chiding Bush for not connecting the 9/11 dots early on and preventing 9/11. Or that Bush's Big Brother-style Government isn't working efficiently enough. For example, there isn't enough domestic spying: "In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches," says Gore. Although Bush is an absolute tyrant, who has organized law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies in service of tyranny, Bush "has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies," observed Gore. Bush's CIA-FBI-DOJ tyrants need to learn to work together better.
The Clinton-Gore administration, even after repeated attacks by al-Qaeda, did little or nothing to fight al-Qaeda, Bush supporters fire back -- a charge that isn't really fair, for Gore has yet to invent a memory chip for himself.
You know, for a guy who gripes so much about wire-taps and bugging, he sure likes bugging the heck out of America with inane gripes about wire-taps and bugging. And about how terribly oppressed he feels living under Bush.
Aren't you still glad these guys aren't in charge?
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

A Partially Birthed War Could have been Aborted, sources report

"As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal," the New York Times reported Wednesday night.
Boy, O boy, are we Zionist Cabalists in trouble now, or what? As a fellow mendacious Imperialist Infidel in good standing, I'm highly spooked by this bombshell expose'. Our whole shadowy plot to take over the world by force -- our nefarious scheme to destabilize the peaceful Middle East -- has, tragically, been exposed.
In an explosive development sure to rock Washington till the next Scott Peterson tidbit, very credible published reports (see above) say Iraqi intelligence officials, in a last-minute bid to avoid this horrible war we won and promote peace in our time, offered the U.S. a deal to allow U.S. agents into Iraq to search for banned weapons. These Iraqi officials told Bush officials, using a Lebanese-American businessman as go-between, the deal included handing over an al-Qaeda suspect linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (But this must be a typo because, as Barbra Streisand and other Iraq experts have 'splained patiently, there were no Iraq links to al-Qaeda or to bombings at the World Trade Center. Just ask Ramzi Yousef. And why would any sane terrorist think of fleeing to Baghdad when Saddam was so opposed to terrorism and al-Qaeda? Besides, Saddam said he locked the guy up -- only a year after his return -- but forgot to tell the world. Just like he forgot to tell the world that Iraq disarmed after kicking U.N. inspectors out in '98).
The Iraqi officials told the go-between, Imad El-Hage, to tell Washington that, in exchange for not toppling them, Saddam would have democracy up and running in 2 years. And he promised to stop hating and killing Jews so much -- no more money for Palestinian suicide bombers. Promise! It was the deal of a lifetime, a sweeping offer so generous, so breathtaking, only a Saddam-hater like Bush would dare turn it down.
But, tragically, Bush did. (Even more scandalous, Bush turned down lucrative oil bribes for Halliburton and Big Oil! How dare this Oil Cartel administration not act like an Oil Cartel administration?! Disgusting! Or did Bush deliberately trick Saddam into thinking this war was for oil, just to throw Saddam off track? Who knows if those NO BLOOD FOR OIL! protesters were secretly working for Karl Rove?)
We know the sad, sad story from there. After giving Saddam only 12-years to comply with U.N. resolutions, the U.S. rushed to war against Iraq in March and, after getting bogged down in a 48-hour quagmire, Bush then launched a 72-hour Operational Pause, toppling Saddam hours later as tanks operationally paused through Baghdad.
But why, besides the fact that Bush likes being mean to dictators, did Bush spurn the last-minute offer to make peace not war? I mean, it's not like Saddam has ever used stalling tactics before, no? Why would Bush not trust the nice Iraqi officials? Haven't agreements with Saddam always proven reliable? And doesn't this offer prove how Saddam just couldn't wait to comply with U.N. resolutions and that Bush couldn't wait to rush to war? And why was Saddam's offer to stop killing and hating Jews met with skepticism? Don't these epiphanies happen all the time? (The same way glowing employment reports from the Labor Dept. turn froth-at-the-mouth Bush-haters like Paul Krugman into die-hard Bush fans!) Besides, where's the evidence that Bush cares more about threats to U.S. security than Saddam and Nancy Pelosi do?
But wait. Why deal through back-channels? Arab pride, say experts on Arab pride. Saddam really wanted to comply with the U.N., but Arab pride got in the way. In short, the deal was to have 2 or 3 thousand Yanks scouring Iraq for WMD, all in secret. The world could not find out.
But, incredibly, the Bush people spurned El-Hage's wonderfully promising peace overture just because he turned out to be a shady arms smuggler and gunrunner. One of his clients was Liberia's Charles Taylor. El-Hage was busted at Dulles airport carrying a 45-caliber handgun and 4 stun guns in his luggage. He said he forgot he had them. This was back in January, right after a meeting at the Pentagon. Carrying a Liberian diplomatic passport, he was released. He hopped on a plane back to Lebanon. His chief U.S. contact, F. Michael Maloof, a Pentagon staffer, had been stripped of his security clearance, while El-Hage became the target of a federal probe for smuggling and gunrunning. Other than that, these were real credible guys! Can't you just feel the credibility here?
Oops, this just in...
According to very credible published reports, the Bush administration had a peace offer of its own. It was a serious peace plan, a final bid to avert war, in the form of an ultimatum to Saddam: You have 48 hours to skedaddle, or face war. The Associated Press reports that this offer was announced publicly, by President Bush himself, from the White House.
D e v e l o p i n g hard....
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

CBS Faces the Nation/Update on '04 Democrats

CBS, ending a remarkably successful promotion campaign to boost ratings for a mini-series, pulled the plug on the mini-series, "The Reagans." The film portrays the 40th President as a right-wing nutcase and an idiot. CBS for weeks denied the portrayal was unfair or distorted the Reagan legacy. Besides, experts said attacking a dying President who can't defend himself as a nutcase and an idiot was a brilliant move by CBS. The more controversy, the better. There's no such thing as bad publicity, these brilliant experts observed.
CBS says its move to cancel the mini-series and move it to Showtime had nothing to do with the growing public backlash. It's just a coincidence, really! Part of CBS's remarkably successful promotion campaign to boost ratings for the mini-series, originally set to air midway into November ratings sweeps. Airing it before a smaller cable audience was all part of the plan to show the movie to the widest audience possible.
Although CBS maintained publicly the movie was fair and accurate, CBS tried some last-minute editing. But after all the unfairness and inaccuracies were deleted, probably all that was left was 2 minutes worth of film. The 4-hour mini-series got mini-er and mini-er, becoming a mini-mini-miniseries. A two-minute mini-series? CBS now says that, although "producers have sources to verify each scene in the script" (even completely bogus scenes have sources!), the film "does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans" and that we here at CBS just found out about it. CBS denied any culpability and vowed to find the real un-balancers! Producers say CBS authorized the script.
CBS claims all it wanted was a love story about the Reagans and was surprised that a bunch of Left-wing Hollywood producers, who see Reagan as a nutcase and an idiot, would portray Reagan as a nutcase and an idiot. Nobody thought this could possibly happen.
Some say CBS's decision to pull the plug is dangerous. It's dangerous that powerful media corporations can't act like powerful media corporations any longer, facing a system of checks-and-balances with the public and advertisers in a free market place. That's never happened before! It's just not fair -- the bully public should pick on somebody its own size.
Meanwhile, the AP reports that "Democrats are struggling to find a message and messenger to challenge President Bush, who appears vulnerable on major issues." Bush appears so vulnerable that his job approval rating has climbed back up to 56 percent, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found. If this is vulnerability, I don't know how much more vulnerability Democrats can stand. Democrats have been struggling to find a message and messenger to challenge Bush only since approximately March 2, 1999, when then Governor Bush announced formation of a presidential exploratory committee. Bush grew so Vulnerable afterwards that he won the presidency the following year.
Released Sunday, the Washington Post poll, which the Washington Post called evidence of just how Vulnerable Bush is, also shows Bush Vulnerability taking its toll on '04 Democrats, with dean of Metrosexuals Howard Dean, front-runner for the nomination with 17 percent, trailing Bush, 54 percent to 39 percent. Tired former Army Gen. Wesley Clark, in 3th place with 14 percent, doesn't fare much better, trailing Bush by 12 points, 52 percent to 40 percent. For Democrats, stuck hopelessly in Bush Vulnerability, relief appears nowhere in sight. (Bush Vulnerability eased a bit the prior week, a Quinnipiac University poll showing a tightening contest, with Dean trailing Bush by only 6 percentage points, 48%-42%. But with Bush Vulnerability rebounding strongly by the middle of the week, as reflected in the Post poll, the respite for Democrats proved short-lived).
Embattled Democrats hotly reject suggestions they're bogged down in Bush Vulnerability, insisting they're making wonderful progress and that falling polls and public apathy towards Dean and the others don't mean a thing. Besides, the problem may boil down to lack of name recognition. For example, does anyone doubt that Joe Lieberman, who trails Bush, 53 percent to 40 percent, trails Bush because no one's ever heard of Joe Lieberman? It's not as though he's ever run nationally before, say, as running mate on Gore's spine-tinglingly exciting ticket in 2000. But just wait till people learn of this electrifying, thrilling candidate!
The unwelcomed poll numbers caps off an especially bloody week for the Metrosexual Nine, marked by squabbling and bickering over the Confederate flag, gun racks and other pre-eminent issues. Dean drew fire from rivals after saying in an interview in Iowa that he, though Metrosexual, still wants "to be the candidate for the guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." (Guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks could not be reached for comment). Dean told the Des Moines Register that "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross section of Democrats." Dean, having ripped rivals for being "Bush-lite," wants to bring southern voters back in the Democrat fold by being Bush-lite. Even expert observers have caught on, brilliantly noting that Dean's remarks about pickup trucks could be an appeal to southern voters, as opposed to subway commuters in New York or residents of Beverly Hills. As savvy readers can glean from Dean's comments about a bunch of guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks, integral to Dean's brilliant Southern Strategy is to avoid pigeonholing southern voters as a bunch of guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. Or that working white families in the south are dumb and racist. Besides, says Dean, there's a good reason why they're dumb and racist: Republicans, who trick "working white families in the south (into) voting for tax cuts for the richest 1 percent while their children remain with no health care" by appealing to race. It's a "cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades," said Dean.
Dean denies his Southern Strategy stereotypes working white families in the south by calling working white families in the south a bunch of hicks with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks, who hate blacks so much they'd rather vote for rich Republicans than tolerant, big-hearted liberals like himself, even if voting for rich Republicans means letting their children go without health-care.
Dean's Confederate flag comments ignited a firestorm of criticism from rivals, however.
Clark, who saved us from real imminent threats like China's Embassy in Yugoslavia, blasted Dean, saying "Every Democratic candidate for president needs to condemn the divisiveness the Confederate flag represents." "Every Democratic candidate for president" would not include Clark -- or has Clark already changed party registration ('Independent' to Old Europe Democrat)? To be fair, Clark, for days, hasn't changed his stance on an issue -- a record for Clark.
Gephardt blasted Dean, saying Dean seeks the votes of people "who disagree with us on bedrock Democratic values on civil rights." These bedrock Democratic values include the belief that Bobby Byrd shares these bedrock Democratic values, which hold that blacks and Latinos are stupid and need racial quotas to compete with intellectually superior whites.
Lieberman (whoever he is) said through spokesman Craig Smith (whoever he is) that Dean "ought to be more careful about what he says." "Says" but not what he *thinks*? With Dean, no need to worry about thinking; the towering intellect from Vermont rarely does any.
Al Sharpton also blasted Dean, accusing Dean of harboring an "anti-black agenda." Any good liberal racial-healer knows real racial-healing always begins with an anti-white agenda. Sharpton's tireless efforts at uniting the races include inciting race riots and leading angry mobs to picket Jewish-owned stores. And hanging out with Louis Farrakhan. Sharpton denies his race-baiting is race-baiting.
Kerry also blasted Dean, calling his comments of wanting the votes of guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks "simply unconscionable." He also accused Dean of harboring sympathy for the NRA, a subversive group that millions and millions of American have joined. Kerry said that the way to fight this group, whose cells of 2nd Amendment-believers are spread across the country, is to vote for Kerry, who goes pheasant hunting using a 12-gauge shotgun -- a bid for the votes of guys with gun racks in their pickup trucks. Kerry, pandering to the anti-gun lobby, accused Dean of pandering to the 'gun-lobby.'
As for tonight's CNN debate, my snoring drowned out the sound, so I missed it ;-)
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
I have a really, really sad story to tell

The Recession, which served for 10 memorable quarters as larger-than-life folk hero for millions of Democrats, died Thursday due to complications from low interest rates and chronic tax cuts. Well, actually (if you want to get technical about it) it really died back in July, the beginning of the Third Quarter, but news of its tragic demise was withheld pending notification of next of kin, Tom Daschle, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. The Commerce Department made the harrowing news official Thursday, announcing the economy grew a blistering 7.2 percent rate during the Third Quarter.
The sickly Recession reportedly passed away peacefully at home, DNC headquarters in Washington. The Recession was 10 quarters old.
Following the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which adoring Recession fans -- Big Media and Democrats -- pooh-poohed as benefiting too few to pose a threat, the legendary Recession was hit by a heartbreaking series of health-related setbacks. Struggling courageously against forces far greater than itself, the limping Recession had been diagnosed with RepublicanTaxCutsAreKillingMe! syndrome, an all too common condition recessions eventually fall victim to under presidential supply-siders. With the economy rebounding, the Recession's condition got progressively worse, especially after the infamous second round of Bush tax cuts callously enacted the following year. So sad. Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, indifferent to it's plight, made matters worse for the Recession, slashing key interest rates mercilessly -- then keeping them at 45-year lows.
Democrats, initially in denial, were stunned and bewildered. For some, it's hard to believe the Recession is dead. Oh, sure, there were worrisome bouts of economic recovery, but C'mon! Nobody thought it would come to this. No one thought the gathering storm clouds could augur doom for such a young Recession. Indeed, at one point, hope was the Recession would gather such momentum as to trigger all-out Deflation. Instead, it was the Recession shrinking, quarter after quarter. All Democrat efforts to roll back the threatening recovery, to give the ailing Recession a fighting chance, failed. So sad. (Although I wonder why Democrats aren't calling for passage of a Recessions With Disabilities Act.)
With tears in their eyes, Democrats fondly recount watching the Recession every night on TV. Even nightly reruns, especially on CBS's "Evening News With Dan Rather," were loads of fun to watch. New nightly episodes on ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News With Tom Brokaw" were also fun. My only complaint was their penchant for silent, grainy, black-and-white film in this modern age. You could hardly make out the long lines outside some soup kitchen in Chicago, supposedly sponsored by Al Capone. Very poor quality video. (To see, Click here).
Some Democrats think the Recession's death was timed by Bush and Co. with an eye to next year's election. How could such a once promising Recession just croak overnight? This stinks! Sure the Recession was ailing, but why die now? Isn't it obvious that Bush planned the whole thing for political purposes? With elections less than 13 months away, millions of Recession-bashing shoppers, empowered by tax cuts, hit every mall and shopping-center they could find, buying up everything in sight, to kill the Recession and make Bush look good. Scrambling, consumers bought clothes, homes, home appliances, cars, furniture, stereos, DVDs -- all to make Bush look good and hurt Howard Dean's chances. (The pace of consumer spending jumped by 6.6 percent in the Third Quarter, bushwhacking the Recession). Businesses did the same -- going hog-crazy investing, grabbing every piece of capital equipment they could grab, all to make Bush look good. (The pace of business investment soared by 15.4 percent in the same quarter).
Companies have also started hiring/slowing the pace of layoffs -- initial jobless claims last week dropped another 5,000 to 386,000 -- in a bid to cut the jobless rate and make Bush look good. Companies are also increasing wages and benefits -- all to make Bush look good. It's a Vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy! In other words, Lefties misunderestimated just how lethal tax cuts can be to their beloved Recessions. (I can hear the slogans already: Hey hey! How many Recessions have you killed today?!?!) Till now, Dems thought tax cuts were not economic policy as much as crooked kickback schemes for GOP campaign contributors. Aimed at wealthy Halliburton executives, for example. So few would 'benefit,' tax cuts could never lay a glove on Recessions.
Terrible miscalculation, it turns out. Democrats have egg on their face yet again, their cherished Recession lays in an open grave, as Bush keeps doing circles around them. All the while Democrat frustration mounts. Which reminds me. Democrats point to suicide bombings in Baghdad as evidence the terrorists -- who are not terrorists, say Lefties, but 'brave guerrillas' -- are making very good progress in Iraq. The bad guys -- not the good guys -- are winning, rest assured. Blowing up relief workers, pregnant women, and innocent bystanders are not really acts of desperation, but displays of supreme optimism -- and confidence. The more reckless they act, the less irrational they are. The more mindless the violence, the more rational and thoughtful those commiting the violence. In other words, the more desperate they act, the less desperate they are. But they're not really desperate -- they only look that way ... really! Don't let Bush fool you. So, when Democrats say Bush's a blithering idiot and an evil mastermind; that Bush is happy talking people and terrorizing people with unhappy talk of "imminent threats"; that Bush is doing too little about homeland security and Bush is going overboard with homeland security through the Patriot Act; that Bush is a reckless warmonger who shuns coalition-building (Iraq) and Bush is too slow to move and too worried about coalition-building (North Korea) -- that all these inconsistencies aren't inconsistencies at all, but actually signs of Democrat confidence. So, given all these non-inconsistencies, and given Democrats blame Bush for everything from California wildfires (to divert attention from violence in Iraq) to violence in Iraq (to divert attention from California wildfires), it's only natural that Bush will be blamed for killing the Recession with tax cuts, no? Just you wait and see!
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
Bush says terrorists are responsible for Baghdad terrorism. Nonsense, say experts

Well, that does it. If events this week aren't proof enough that Democrats were right -- that the chilling Boykin videotapes would make Islamofascists really, really mad at the 'ol Great Satan -- I don't know what could be. To recount, in a series of secretly recorded videotapes, the top Pentagon official, a suspected Christian, is seen and heard threatening al-Qaeda with further U.S. reprisals for Sept. 11. Even worse, say Democrats, Gen. Boykin injects religion into this war, something Islamofascists have been very careful not to do. More outrageous still, Boykin says Islamoterrorists follow a false god, or idol. He accused Osama of religious intolerance just because Osama hates Christians and Jews. As I noted last week, we Great Satan fans must be very careful here -- ascribing religious motives to Islamofascists can be quite a stretch. When some Islamowackjob calmly chants, DEATH TO INFIDELS!!!, or DIE, INFIDEL DIE!!!, who's to say such chants aren't just eloquent expressions opposing our policy against Fidel -- Cuba's secular communist leader? DIE, YOU ZIONIST IMPERIALIST DOG!! is another warm and fuzzy that, say Boykin critics, has nothing to do with Jews or religion. The slogan merely implores Bush not to act unilaterally -- like a ZIONIST IMPERIALIST DOG!! -- but seek U.N. and French approval before launching military action or tax cuts. (Bush's 'Go-it-alone' approach in foreign affairs really irks the heck out of al-Qaeda). We should welcome such lucid expressions as notable signs of progress.
But we haven't. Even worse, say Democrats, not only was Boykin reckless in linking Islamoterrorism with Islamists, but he failed to remind Islamists of just how peaceful they are, prompting Islamists to launch an angry wave of terror this week. What's really weird is how these Islamists somehow knew about the chilling Boykin videotapes months before the tapes were aired or even discovered. A division commander told the AP that the rocket attack Sunday on the Al Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad "required 'some reconnaissance and some rehearsal,' and possibly two months' preparation." Imagine being mad as hell about a videotape you don't even know exists yet. That's gotta be hard. (North Korea's Kim Jong Il seemingly has the same mysterious powers. Kimmy abandoned written pledges to freeze all nuclear weapons programs while Bush was governor of Texas, blaming Bush's reckless 'Axis of Evil' speech, which frightened Kimmy years before the speech was written).
The next day, on Monday, a coordinated wave of suicide bombing attacks killed 3 dozen people, injuring over 200, Baghdad's worse killing-spree since the fall of Baghdad last April. Although press reports note the love-fest coincides with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, we should refrain from making such connections, lest we fall into the Boykin mindset. No way could violence on the start of Ramadan have anything to do with the start of Ramadan. After all, recall that the U.S., during the Afghan and Gulf War campaigns, was strongly urged to cease hostilities during Ramadan, lest we offend the Wahhabis and Talibanis, making them really, really mad. Why risk offending the Taliban by killing them on Ramadan, when you can whack 'em any other month of the year? Bush ignored such pleas for restraint, and the Talibanis died furious.
Again, the point is there's no way this Ramadan killing-spree has anything to do with religion. It's obviously all Gen. Boykin's fault, and we INFIDEL ZIONIST IMPERIALIST DOGS should stop making excuses for Boykin.
Iraq war critics note that, except for the 350,000 Muslims shot, gassed or run through people-shredders under Saddam, the death of 40 Muslims in Iraq is unprecedented. Anyway, Saddam didn't really mean to kill that many people. Or he did, but the U.N. sanctions and Bush made him do it. At any rate, the killing under Saddam was far less messy, Saddam opting for bullets and people-shredders, rather than messy car-bombs that tie up traffic in Baghdad and rudely disrupt Happy Hour for U.N. suits in New York.
The Bush administration oddly calls the latest wave of terrorism terrorism, acts commited by desperate killers who hate freedom and who seek to disrupt progress -- claims hotly challenged by media experts and Democrats as silly. Blowing up a powerful military colossus like dangerous Red Cross headquarters and killing dangerous patients lying in hospital beds and pregnant women on street corners isn't terrorism, they note, but brave and daring acts of guerrilla resistance to a brutal Halliburton-led occupation which has brutally restored electricity to prewar levels, brutally restored water and sanitation, brutally renovated 1,500 schools, brutally raised teacher and doctor salaries, brutally vaccinated millions of children, brutally allowed newspapers to flourish, brutally reopened all schools, brutally allowed the country to be infested with free elections and locally elected councils. Wake up and smell the brutality, folks! With so much dangerous freedom running rampant, experts wonder what this world is coming to.
Red Cross headquarters, secretly controlled by Harken Energy, Skull and Bones, and Donald Rumsfeld, is just the tip of the brutal occupation iceberg, knowledgeable experts and Democrats knowledeably note. All 240 of Iraq's deadly hospitals still remain, armed with stockpiles of precision-guided hospital beds, while thousands of dangerous pregnant women and millions of school children remain unkilled, a threat to the security of the brave resistance. (No word yet how soon these menacing threats will be taken out by the brave resistance). Ominously, the streets of Baghdad still teem with unkilled shoppers buying-up air-conditioners, dishes, designer clothing, refrigerators, tickets to movies, sporting events and other threatening activities.
Experts also note that the brave guerrilla fighters, by shooting and car-bombing Iraqi civilians, are bound to become very popular with Iraqi civilians, wooing hearts and minds of those who haven't been shot or bombed yet. The Fedayeen will be welcomed as liberators from the clutches of Halliburton and Dick Cheney! Months of Condoleezza Rice occupation will finally be over! No more press freedoms! No more equality! Unfree at last! Unfree at last! Yes! Let's face it; the Iraqi people, deep down, are like people everywhere, deep down. They yearn for 1-way thrill-rides through people-shredders, the quiet peace and repose of mass graves, the sexual fireworks of rape rooms, the memorable sensations of torture chambers, the stimulating effects of electric shock.
Then again, if man-on-the-street interviews of Iraqi civilians on Tuesday are any indication, the brave Iraqi resistance faces a long, hard slog to win hearts and minds over, even with Monday's truly bold moves.
"The people who did this are not Iraqis -- they are from other countries," The AP quotes Najah Shamon, "a luggage vendor," as saying. Obviously, Najah isn't listening to experts on Iraq, who know how much Iraqis, deep down, hate freedom. Najah hates freedom too, she just doesn't know it yet. Najah doesn't know Najah as well as experts like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw know Najah. Knowledgeable experts maintain that groups blowing up grandma and uncle Khalid at the local grocery store are really her liberators. She just doesn't know it. So who's doing the bombing and killing? "I accuse al-Qaeda," says Najah. Regrettably, Najah isn't following the New York Times editorial page which assures us there is no al-Qaeda link to Iraq. Or, maybe now there is, but it's all Bush's fault.
The President seems a bit confused as well, asserting in a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday that "foreign terrorists" are behind some of the mayhem, alluding to attackers captured carrying Syrian passports. But that doesn't prove anything, say experts. We know Iraqis are born clenching a Syrian passport!
Anyway, the latest killing-spree isn't the work of foreigners, but brave Iraqi resistance fighters killing and maiming Iraqi civilians in order to give 'em a generous prescription drug benefit. (Democrat strategists also believe the Jihadi attacks are because Bush was so rude to the French).
"This is not human," the AP quotes grocery store owner Remon David Tuma as saying. "If they think Americans are the enemy, why are they hurting Iraqis?" Obviously, our friend Tuma here needs to get up to speed with AP military experts -- experts like Sonya Ross, who, quoting a Mid-East expert, wrote Tuesday that "'The United States is under severe attack by people who want the U.S. out of Iraq.'" In other words, the U.S. is under severe attack by people who can't hit the side of a mountain. They want to hit Americans, but, dadgummit, they miss their target almost every time. When it comes to killing Yankees, these guys are Osama-lite.
Which, come to think of it, is why Democrats face a long, hard slog to win hearts and minds here in the U.S. Without a huge GI body-count, they'll never get voters to see Iraq as Vietnam and the war as a Miserable Failure. Which is why they're hoping the recent killing-spree is just target practice. Dream on, Democrats. Dream on.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

New threatening Videotape raises fear to new levels

In chilling new videotapes, aired on all cable networks every hour on the hour, a top Pentagon General threatens al-Qaeda and other peaceful Islamic groups with further U.S. attacks in retaliation for Sept. 11. (Apparently this guy hasn't gotten the new Rumsfeld memo, which, says USA Today, proclaims the U.S. has already lost the War on Terror.)
The voice and image in the shocking videotapes was assessed to be that of Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, whom investigative reporters have linked to several evangelical Christian church groups through speeches, prayer breakfasts, and other suspicious activities. In the tapes, the speaker, a suspected Christian, bashed Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, casting the War on Terror, widely seen as a clash of radical Islam and western society, as a clash of radical Islam and western society. Even worse, the suspect in the tapes appeared to be saying western society is somehow better, despite artery-clogging McDonalds, pop-up ads, Reality TV (!), Reality TV awards (!!) spam mail (!!!) Ben and J. Lo (!!!!), Halliburton (!!!!!) and O'Reilly on Fox criticizing the heroic French (!!!!!!). It's time to wake up and smell the oppression ... of western culture!
Failing to understand the roots of Osama's rage, suggesting terrorists should bear some responsibility for terrorism, Boykin appeared to scapegoat suicide bombers for suicide bombing. Talk about blaming the innocent perpetrator! Scholars and keen observers, shocked and bewildered, wondered where Boykin gets this ridiculous idea that Judeo-Christian values are any more moral than Wahhabism. Obviously, Boykin needs to have a chat with Taliban "Jihad Johnny."
Using words eerily similar to Bush's, another notorious Saddam-hating, Osama-basher, Boykin scandalously accused Mullah Omar and other terrorists of fanaticism and religious intolerance, alleging that terrorists hate America because of their religious intolerance -- towards Jews and Christians, especially. As if their hatred of Jews and Christians had anything to do with religion! All experts at Reuters know that's not the case. Even more outrageous, Boykin said the enemy in the War on Terror is Satan, rather than the Great Satan, led by George Bush! Democrats charge Boykin's comments injects religion in this war, something terrorists Osama and Mullah Omar have cautiously avoided doing thus far. Terrorists, Democrats note, have never considered this a religious war. Now terrorists, thanks to Boykin, will be really, really mad. And more religious than ever. They may even start to hate us. The General's remarks have sparked fear that, by not complimenting Islamicists as generally peaceful, a new wave of violence by Islamicists could result.
Democrats also accuse Boykin of harboring uncivilized 14th century religious beliefs, urging him to join the 21th Century, just like Somali Warlords and Wahhabis have done.
Although Boykin on Tuesday called for a full Inspector General's probe of his dangerous beliefs and troublesome church associations, critics note the suspect, a week after the incriminating videos surfaced, has yet to be questioned.
Tolerant Muslim groups say Boykin's reprehensible Taliban-Osama-bashing merits only the stiffest punishment -- getting canned from his job as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. "I think they need to remove the general," said Tolerant Muslim leader James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington. With charges of affiliation with known Christian groups swirling around him, Boykin "is unfit for the position he is being called upon to serve," added the Tolerant Muslim leader in an interview on PBS. Tolerant Sen. John F. Kerry, who served in Vietnam, blasted Boykin's remarks, noting that the chilling videos reveal an alarming pattern of Christian activities and statements by Boykin which are "wrong" and "un-American." Kerry, who served in Vietnam, also says it's wrong and un-American to call Kerry wrong and un-American simply for expressing a different political or religious belief.
Three-thousand 9/11 victims still could not be reached for comment on Gen. Boykin.
Democrats argue that, since government officials have no business meddling in personal religious beliefs, Boykin's outrageous comments, delivered before shadowy groups like the First Baptist Church of Daytona, Florida, demand that government officials meddle in Boykin's personal religious beliefs. To be fair, this is not to say liberals aren't respectful of religious differences; it's Christianity where they draw the line.
The videos were seized by Democrats as just the latest evidence the Bush administration is run entirely by right-wing Christian ideologues. Democrats also complain the Bush administration is run entirely by right-wing Jewish ideologues -- or neo-cons.
More damaging still, Gen. Boykin, unlike tired army Gen. Wesley Clark, failed to contest the legitimacy of Bush's Presidency in the tapes. Many Democrats feel strongly that the election was stolen from Al Gore in Florida by Bush getting more voters to vote for Bush than for Al Gore in Florida.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
What does Iraq look like without the Media Filter?

"There's a sense that people in America aren't getting the truth," President Bush observed recently, regarding news coverage on Iraq. "I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people."
The 'filter' the President refers to is the filter of Big Media reportage, which reports regularly of tremendous progress Saddam forces have made since the fall of Saddam in April. The fall of Saddam -- a minor setback for Saddam, really -- was prompted by the evil Halliburton-led invasion of Iraq in late March. The 3 major broadcast networks -- part of the filter -- say they're not really anti-Bush, only trying to set the record straight: That Bush is a warmonger, his advisers are warmongers and postwar setbacks for Saddam haven't really happened. The post-Saddam aftermath has gone swimmingly for Saddam, despite what Bush says, Big Media insists. Forty-three of 55 top Baathists are dead or captured, but that's no big deal. Things are looking upbeat for Saddam. Don't let Bush fool you, Saddam isn't bogged down in any Quagmire, they say. It's America, not Saddam, on the run in postwar Iraq. From Basra to Mosul, Saddam is making very good progress, dismantling Coalition forces triumphantly. The besieged Coalition forces are led by evil neo-con think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, in league with Skull and Bones, in league with Halliburton, which seeks global hegemony for Halliburton, says Big Media.
Big Media refuses to say how long before Neo-Con-led forces are driven out and Saddam's march to Baghdad is complete. But it could happen any day now, you'll see.
To justify war, the neo-cons, led by Richard Perle, sought to foster the notion that Saddam was a bad guy, among other misconceptions. In fact, so deep, so profound, so nefarious was this neo-con plot, that the neo-cons even got Saddam's inner circle of advisers to fool Saddam, telling him he had Weapons of Mass Destruction when he really didn't. This misinformation was then fed to the CIA -- all part of a plot hatched by Fred Barnes and Richard Perle to start a war against an innocent dictator misled by top advisers who were taking orders from neo-cons in Washington.
"Was (Saddam) tricked by his own people?" Brit Hume asked not-yet-Arnoldized Rep. Jane Harmon, California Democrat, on Fox News Sunday. "It's a possibility," replied the brilliant Congresscritter.
Hume, impressed with her brilliance, pressed Harmon further: "The greatest intelligence hoax of all time, you now believe in it."
Harmon: "I think."
But this doesn't get George W. Bush off the hook. "WEEK AFTER WEEK AFTER WEEK AFTER WEEK, WE WERE TOLD LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE!!," Sen. Ted Kennedy calmly observed last week on the Senate floor, denying his personal attacks were personal attacks. BUSH LIED! SADDAM NEVER LIED! Obviously Bush, an evil mastermind, was in on the plot to trick Saddam into thinking he still possessed WMD. Although Bush is an evil mastermind, at times he's the dumbest evil mastermind in history, forgetting to plant the Bloody Glove on Saddam. It's all so very clear.
But this evil right-wing plot is unraveling, rest assured, as the U.S. occupation has been a Miserable Failure.
Since the fall of Baghdad, Big Media has waged a massive public relations campaign, defending its opposition to military action through gazillions of articles and gazillions of hours of airtime, aimed at dispelling silly notions that Saddam might be losing and America might be winning the war.
Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and other Democrat officials strongly deny they're filters, or that they have a hidden agenda.
They're only trying to present a fair and balanced picture of the U.S. occupation, which, they say, has been horrible, shocking, brutal.
And a Quagmire.
Well, has it been a brutal Quagmire? I've done some digging.(For the record, Al Gore does not claim to have invented Quagmire).
Since Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, Quagmire in Iraq has come under increasing fire. In the past 6 months, U.S. forces have pounded Iraq with 13,000 reconstruction projects and 1,500 school rehabilitations, confesses L. Paul Bremer, U.S. anti-Quagmire administrator in Iraq and notorious Quagmire-basher. The offensive dealt a heavy blow to Quagmire, leaving it in critical condition as of this writing (late Tuesday evening). Eight hundred schools in northern Iraq have been hit with new windows, new paint and new textbooks, a further setback for the embattled Quagmire.
Coalition forces, in another major offensive, have attacked Iraq with higher salaries for doctors and teachers and 22 million vaccination doses to children, a major blow to contagious disease, raising still more doubt about Quagmire's poor postwar planning. Six months of bungling and ineptitude Quagmire has amassed has left Quagmire's struggling mission in serious doubt, even among its loyalist fans at Democrat headquarters and France. All 240 hospitals and all 1,200 clinics in Iraq are up and running, a very troubling development for Quagmire as bacteria spores and disease face increasingly long odds. Folks, this stuff is World Series! Er, Serious.
The unrelenting reconstruction barrage unleashed by Coalition forces have brutally killed the electricity shortage, with power now exceeding pre-war levels and 75% of pre-war telephone services restored, another terrible setback for Quagmire. The energy crunch has lost so much ground, few believe it can ever recover. Not even Affirmation Action -- for example, giving the energy crunch special admissions preference in 10 percent of homes in Iraq -- can save it now. It's all so terribly unfair!
While the French and Old Europe Democrats are Quagmire's biggest fans, hostility towards Quagmire runs at fever pitch among our troops. (Sorta like Cubs fans towards Steve Bartman after inning 8, Game 6 at Wrigley? Nah, wouldn't go that far.)
Throughout Iraq, Quagmire is getting ambushed, outmaneuvered. With Coalition forces on the hunt, Quagmire can run, but Quagmire can't hide. The string of U.S.-led raids, seizing hundreds of Quagmire "guerrilla" reinforcements, bedevils the struggling Quagmire, as it grapples with increasingly sophisticated U.S. resistance to Quagmire.
Dealing a massive setback to street crime, Coalition forces have carpet-bombed Iraq with over 40,000 new Iraqi police now on duty, with more on the way. Frustrating Democrats and other die-hard Saddam supporters further, the new Iraqi police force has no intention of handing control back to Quagmire any time soon.
An outbreak of severely contagious freedom has infected the country, with over 170 new newspapers in circulation. (Don't know if the New York Times or L.A. Times are on stands though, given Iraqi distaste for Ba'athist propaganda, plagiarism and 30-year old grope stories about Arnold, an icon in Baghdad.) Satellite dishes, forbidden under Saddam, are now sold on street corners everywhere.Transmitting the infectious condition further, "all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are (now) open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools," added Ambassador Bremer, in a further grim assessment for Quagmirists. "Today nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning," as signs and symptoms of freedom spread by the hour. Threatening Iraq with a successful transition to democracy, elected local councils now dot the land, as 25 ministers -- selected by evil Halliburton! -- run the central government in Baghdad. With oil pumping at near pre-war levels, a new currency, and growing anti-Quagmireism throughout Iraq, the future for Quagmire looks increasingly bleak as pervasive U.S. success grows evermore...pervasive. Quagmire's early success was waaaaaay overrated.
While top Democrats believe the road to the White House leads through Baghdad -- drive U.S. forces from Iraq, and the White House goes Dem in '04 -- unless Quagmire 'finds its voice,' and soon, Quagmire is doomed in the sands of Iraq.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

My Two Cents

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