CapitalistImperialistPig

Recyled action movie themes war plan. No, in-f*&%$#g-deed. Failure is not an option - it's an outcome, and unfortunately, a very likely one for those who thoughts are all stupid cliches.

...when you find yourself asking "What would Tony do?" And it was Soprano you had in mind.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace showed some commendable backbone in a joint interview with Donald Rumsfeld. Dana Millbank tells the story in this Washington Post article . When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval. But Pace had a different view. "It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it," the general said. Rumsfeld interjected: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it." But Pace meant what he said. "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," he said, firmly. Rumsfeld was defense secretary in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq, and he has remained in that job for the o...

I don't think I care whether kids are taught that evolution is "true" or that God or little green men intervened repeatedly in evolution. I do care that Darwin's reasoning be taught. If textbooks and teachers do that, I'm happy to leave people to form their own opinions. My view of the highlights of that reasoning: 1) Animals and plants are not just a random assortment of biological designs. There are clear patterns of relationships, with some much more closely related than others. They can be organized rather neatly into hierarchies. This much was known to the ancients, and rather developed by CD's time. 2) Humans have applied breeding selection to breed diverse types in a single species, dogs and pigeons being a couple of types of interest to Darwin. We now know that Chihuahua, Saint Bernard, and all the others have been bred from wolves in the past several thousand years. 3) Geological time is immense beyond the human scale of imagination. Darwin kn...

From an AP interview: In an Associated Press interview, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning. Underlings exploited Bush's detachment and made poor decisions, Wilkerson said. Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard." Ummm, Larry, sometimes the obvious interpretation is the correct one. And should that coordinating conjunction be an "and?"

Eight-term Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty to conspiring to accept bribes in return for influencing defense contracts today. Bob Ney, Tom Delay, and a few others might be looking down that lonesome road someday soon. As far as I can tell, Cunningham is not particularly central to the vast network of Republican scumbaggery - that role goes to Abramoff and friends - Delay, Reed, Ney, maybe Rove and Nordquist. As for former "top-gun" Duke - he probably wont be flying much for a while now. UPDATE: This San Diego Union-Tribune time-line catalogs the spectacular rise and calamitous decline of the now former congressman. Hints of Shakespearean trajedy here, but just a bit to venal to make it.

Reading the news is very depressing. It seems quite possible that our President is not only stupid but also rather unhinged. Seymour Hersh has yet another disturbing story on Iraq in The New Yorker. Patrick Clawson, believed to be close to Cheney and Rumsfeld's thinking says: He continued, “We want to draw down our forces, but the President is prepared to tough this one out. There is a very deep feeling on his part that the issue of Iraq was settled by the American people at the polling places in 2004.” The war against the insurgency “may end up being a nasty and murderous civil war in Iraq, but we and our allies would still win,” he said. “As long as the Kurds and the Shiites stay on our side, we’re set to go. There’s no sense that the world is caving in. We’re in the middle of a seven-year slog in Iraq, and eighty per cent of the Iraqis are receptive to our message.” What a fool. Right now they might want our help to crush the Sunnis, but they will turn on us as soon as they ...