Iraq Observations

Mr. McCain says the Surge worked.

Okay let us look at before and after the Surge

Before the Surge 145,000 combat troops in Iraq
After the Surge 145,000 cobat troops in Iraq

Before the Surge no timetable for an end to the war
After the Surge no timetable for an end to the war

Before the Surge the US spending 12 billion a month in Iraq
After the Surge the US spending 12 billion a month in Iraq

Before the Surge a barely functioning Iraqi Government
After the Surge a barely functioning Iraqi Government

Before the Surge little predictable power and water
After teh Surge more of the same

Deaths are down after the Surge. Why? Because we are paying the killers money to not shoot at us. We are paying the killers of American troops to become policemen. And when we stop paying them? Or do we just keep paying the extortion? What we are now doing in Iraq is like the FBI giving up on the Mob and paying the Mob to leave the FBI alone.

Hey Elliot Ness! Why don't you pay Al Capone whatever he wants to leave Chicago alone?

We are governmened by cowards, too stupid to know when to start wars and when not to, and too chicken shit to take responsibility for their disasters. So now we Americans get to pay protection money to terrorists to leave us alone.

Hurray for the Iraq War! What a cluster-f.

Reality keeps slipping away in Iraq

Okay people listen up!

We want the Iraqi army to be ready to take over before we leave. This is what Democrats and Republicans, including the Bush league, say. "When they stand up we will stand down." This is what we said for years in Vietnam too.

Anyway the point is that EVERYONE is planning to leave Iraq in a state that will require its army to maintain control.

So we invaded a nation whose army and security services were in control and we intend to leave a nation whose army and security services are in control. That's just great. Well done America.

Next time a President wants to waste a trillion dollars and kill thousands of citizen soldiers lets just tie them all to stakes on the mall in DC and set fire to a giant pile of cash. The ramification will probably be less and at least we could get it over in a weekend.

Iraq War is stupid, the deaths are needless, and the money is wasted. Hurray for America!

Bush is damned stupid

The "Mental" mania of the Republicans just keeps coming. Where from? From the idea that all economic problems are basically mental problems. If you think you are doing fine then you are. This is really fucked up since that is the logic that says just because you have colon cancer and are a-symptomatic you are doing fine. Or that you shouldn't worry about falling off the cliff since you have not hit the ground yet.

This lamebrained idea goes all the way back to the Great Depression. The thinking was that if people just kept spending and did not take their money out of banks there would have been no depression. This is so horribly wrong.

First of all the Great Depression started in centeral Europe as a result of WWI. It took time for the terrible economic effects to reach the US. Rampant stock speculation and banks willingness to put more and more of their capital in such speculation meant that when the downturn hit the US in 1929, the banks had nothing to fall back on. People were losing their jobs, they took out their saving to live on. Banks, who had no cash assets left folded up. Businesses who's solidity was based on bank investments suddenly had the rug pulled out from under them because the banks had to dump more stock to reclaim cash. More people lost their jobs. blah blah blah.

But the Republicans still think, after all these years, after all the Democratic regulations designed to stop something like that from happening again, that if we just wish for good times they will happen. So Bush trots himself out onto TV this morning to say that off shore drilling is really designed to get people to feel better about their energy future. This is the essence of Conservatism made clear yet again. Just feel good and you are good. In a post last year I said that Marxists and Neo-cons have more in common than either would like to admit. Both think that economic good times for all is basically a philosophical argument. That you can get where you want to be economically by getting people to think a certain way. Bull shit!

The economy is not human, and does not act in a human way. It is a very complicated math problem and if certain portions of that equation dictate Depression then it is up to humans to react to stop it. Not just by thinking "There is no place like home. There is no place like home..."

Mental Recession

The DOW has lost 3000 points in less than a year.
Gas is over $4.00 a gallon.
My friends are having their jobs outsourced to India.
Our company is struggling to break even.
Wife's Health Insurance increased 25% last month.
Thank goodness it is all in my head!

Constitutional Powers of WAR

Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water."

"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"

"To provide and maintain a Navy"

"To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces."

"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress"

It is pretty clear what POWER the Congress has if it decides to get its head out of its ass and actually use it.

It can close Gitmo
It can end the war in Iraq
It can decide pretty much the whole war business. The President is basically just another GI in America's armed forces.

Patriotism

I got to listen to a lot of people yelling at each other about the good and bad of patriotism. Of course all the yelling was on the radio. I don't know what it is about the radio that gets people willing to be so damn loud and obnoxious.

So here is my bit on Patriotism for 2008. If you are trying to make life better for the people around you who are not directly related to you, chances are you are patriotic. If you felt nothing for your community you would do nothing for them and that is not very patriotic. You do not have to defeat fascism in order to be a patriot. Just helping out at your local school, or staffing the food bank, etc, is just as good. Since it is the small, unnoticeable, things that in aggregate make the most lasting change for the better. Those little things make a nation great or weak, loved or hated.

If I were running for President I would have a jacket with 1000 flag pins all over it and wear it into a debate. This would get peoples attention. Then I would say that since I have 1000 flag pins on I am more patriotic than all of Congress since at most they will have 535 flag pins on. Then I would ask the audience for their concerns and then command the flag jacket to solve their problems. This of course would not work and there would be a lot of laughs. Making my point that little metal pins don't mean jack or do jack.

Pride is not patriotism. Pride is pride, that is why it is called pride and not patriotism. Pride must be kept from patriotism for it to be beneficial to the nation. Pride leads to blindness which leads to mistakes. To make a great nation pride must be avoided. Pride, like sugar, is superficially satisfying but offers no real sustenance. Pride is the fast-food version of patriotism. We have lots of prideful people walking around thinking we are great for the mere fact of us being us. They probably also partake in McDonalds. As we need to ween ourselves off the fast food we need to ween ourselves of the pride.