Antiwar.com Blog

Pat Robertson’s statement that the US should knock off Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, because he is a “terrific danger” to the US and Venezuela will become “the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.” is a perfect illustration, outrage not withstanding, of the difference between public and private morality. It’s alright for Robertson to suggest murder, as long as it’s the State that’s carrying it out. If, on the other hand, Robertson were to seriously suggest that he was planning to kill his neighbor, or a competitor, what do you suppose the reaction might be? As I said, the comments have caused some public sensation, but not as much as they should have. In a more civilized era, Robertson would no doubt have been shunned to the point of effective non-existence for comments like these.
Robertson may not be aware that the US does not engage in political assassinations. It is, in fact, illegal by Executive Order;

“Prohibition of Assassination. No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”

Setting aside morality for the moment, Robertson identifies “communist infiltration” and “Muslim extremism” as his motives for the killing. Don’t make me laugh. Communism failed, as it was preordained to do. It never had a chance of succeeding and should have been greeted with snickers when first proposed. Robertson must be one of the only people left who’s willing to publicly say that he believes communism can work, so much so that he’s willing to commit murder to stop it. The irony of a prominent Fundie talking about Muslim extremism is…well he makes it too easy. Chavez is a danger to Venezuela, not the US, and it’s Venezuela’s problem to solve, if they choose to do so. America’s problem is Pat Robertson.
The contemptible thing about these kinds of helpful suggestions by warmongers is that they invariably involve someone else doing the dirty work. I say that if Robertson wants Chavez on the slab, he should have the guts to do the job personally.

This is really a pathetic story.  First, from Digby:

Cindy Sheehan, right, hugs President
Bush supporter Gary Qualls of Temple, Texas after the two met at her
camp near Crawford, Texas, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2005. Qualls’ son Marine
LCPL. Louis W. Qualls was killed in the battle of Fallujah Nov. 14,
2004. Qualls answered an invitation from Sheehan to meet with pro-Bush
parents that lost children in Iraq. Qualls was the only parent that
came.

“Over the weekend, as the camp prepared for the arrival of the counter-demonstrators, a huge diesel pickup truck rumbled into camp with its nose menacingly pointed towards the tents. It sat for a while, and everyone waited to see what would happen. Ann Wright, the main organizer of camp activities, finally approached the truck and met the driver. He was a father, Wright discovered, and his son had been killed in Iraq.

He did not agree with this protest, he said, but wanted to know if his son’s name was on one of the crosses in the Arlington West cemetery. Ann Wright invited the man to walk the rows of crosses and find his son’s name. They found it. Ann and the man from the truck sat down in front of the cross, wrapped their arms around each other, and wept. Later, the man shared a beer with Cindy Sheehan and told her he loved her.

Read the Rest Of The Story here.

“Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it” – Shakespeare, Henry V

Every so often, the confused cranium of George W. Bush emerges from seclusion and words escape his lips which are apparently designed to be explanations of his policies. Typically, his statements only create greater confusion amongst observers, possibly including the President himself. Ever expanding confusion, mirroring ever expanding entropy, the second law of thermodynamics applied to the gray matter of George Bush*; that would be a neat explanation for this statement, concerning deceased US servicemen;

“We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for. We’ll honor their sacrifice by staying on the offensive against the terrorists and building strong allies in Afghanistan and Iraq that will help us win and fight … the war on terror.”

“Finish the task” — what task? as tex pointed out below, Bush has never defined the task. The task, like the justification for the task, is whatever Bush wants it to be, moment by moment. That’s what “they gave their lives for” as he puts it. They gave their lives for the imagination of George W. Bush. “Honor their sacrifice”…by wiping out any resistance to our dreams of world domination, no matter who be in our way. And who are “the terrorists” Bush is always referring to? The president is always talking about terrorists and insurgents, insurgents and terrorists. He hasn’t clearly delineated who the enemy is. Clearly, the enemy is anyone whom George W. Bush imagines them to be. “Building strong allies” refers to the permanent US military bases in Iraq, assuming Bush remembers that he is having them built. And then this matter of “the war on terror”, another thing Bush has never bothered to define in anything resembling specific terms. Since we don’t know exactly what the war on terror is, it isn’t possible to win it, except in the imagination of its Creator: George W. Bush. The president imagines the cause, imagines the enemy — why not simply get out of the region and he can imagine the casualties too!

*For the Second Law to apply to Bush’s brain, it would have to be, in technical terms, a ‘closed system’, in which no new positive thermal energy can enter…

Or something.  Swopa has Salam Pax’s constitution-blogging:

swopa:  Team Shiite opts for a short punt

Salam Pax: So nothing really. They just wanted to make sure the current Assembly is not dissolved. al-Hassani is having a press conference and he is talking about four outstanding issues. One of them is the issue of regions. [sic]

al-hassani is saying this is not to be called an extension because we do have a draft what’s going to be done are amendments only.

And it looks like the preamble has not been agreed upon yet!

"we had two choices either take an unfinished draft or apply for a new extension. We chose the unfinished draft".

OK, so now you know as much as most Iraqis know about what happened.

UPDATE:

Salam’s dad is back from the Assembly:

“everybody’s got a bloody nose”. That’s what he is telling me.
There are still two issues which are still open. The formation of regions is still very much debated. The Shia want this to be an issue decided within the region itself i.e. if Basra wants to become an autonomous region this is decided in Basra only the central federal government has no say. The other parties want this to be a national decision.

The other big issue is de-Baathification. The Shia parties want this tobe mentioned in the constitution. Allawi and the Sunnis don’t want this to be mentioned there.

I did see the draft, I wasn’t allowed to touch it tho :-) It looks like a hastily written document, not even good hand writing. It is hand written and with lots of things crossed out. Each page is signed by a memeber of the Shia coalition and a member of the Kurdish coalition.

There’s more….

Steve Earle, entertaining at Camp Casey:

I think it’s really important for those of us who’ve been talking about this (opposing the war)  from when we first went in to Iraq and even before that to remember that the Vietnam War didn’t end because I opposed it, it ended because my father came to oppose it.  We have Cindy Sheehan to thank for the beginnings of what I believe is a mainstream movement against this war.

Video, broadband WMV.  Other versions available at truthout’s Cindy page.

The Trillion-Dollar War – New York Times

But the biggest long-term costs are disability and health payments for returning troops, which will be incurred even if hostilities were to stop tomorrow. The United States currently pays more than $2 billion in disability claims per year for 159,000 veterans of the 1991 gulf war, even though that conflict lasted only five weeks, with 148 dead and 467 wounded. Even assuming that the 525,000 American troops who have so far served in Iraq and Afghanistan will require treatment only on the same scale as their predecessors from the gulf war, these payments are likely to run at $7 billion a year for the next 45 years.

via Libertarian Jackass

Of course, anyone paying attention already knows that “assuming that American troops who have so far served in Iraq and Afghanistan will require treatment only on the same scale as their predecessors from the gulf war” is out the window.