First Lt. Watada

Lt. Watada is the first officer to refuse to participate in the "war" in Iraq. His position is quite clear. The "war" is illegal, and as he is sworn to uphold the constitution he is obliged to refuse to serve. This is potentially a truly monumental case. It is true that the "war" is illegal (as well as unconstitutional, immoral, and unnecessary). And as far as I know army personnel are instructed to not obey orders that are illegal. So, if Watada is doing the right thing, what can they do to him? Who is going to determine whether the "war" is legal or not? The Supreme Court? We know how they will decide. But how can they declare it legal when it so obviously is not? This could be interesting, even fascinating, except they will probably just hush it up and send poor Watada to Guantanamo (or Poland, or Romania, or who knows where).

Nicholas von Hoffman has a truly interesting piece in The Nation about the 104 acre embassy we are building in Iraq, "Bush's Bagdad Palace." Having spent more than half a billion dollars constructing this monstrosity, which will apparently house 8000 people completely independent of the rest of Iraq, they are not going to easily give it up (unless, of course, they generously will it to the Iraqis for the 2050 Olympics). As I said repeatedly, Bush/Cheney have no intention whatsoever of leaving Iraq. They are going to keep troops there and attempt to control Middle East affairs for as long as they want (until the oil runs out?). They have done exactly what they set out to do - install a puppet government that will do their bidding, and take over the country. Why anyone, let alone any Senators or Representatives, keep talking about bringing the troops home, is a mysery to me. They must know better. But perhaps not, they seem to be pretty damn stupid about everything else.

Oh, yes, renewing the Voting Rights Act. Blocked by Republicans, they say, because they don't want to have to print bilingual ballots or be supervised by the Feds. Your remember that the Act was passed in the first place because of the egregious abuses of the right to vote in the South. They want us to believe that they wouldn't do such things nowadays so they don't need any further supervision. Obviously States would not violate voters rights, just look at Florida and Ohio, for example.

Now we have learned that two American soldiers who were killed in Iraq a while ago were actually killed by the very Iraqi troops they were training. Apparently the resistance was offering $100 each for any Americans they could kill. Marvelous, with 140,000 troops there they are sitting on a potential fortune. As you know (if you are a complete idiot), things are going well in Iraq.

They are going especially well in Ramadi where the Falluja massacre is being re-enacted (see Dahr Jamail). Would someone explain to me what the point is of all the bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan? What are they tryng to accomplish other than multiplying the hatred they already have for us. We know from Vietnam and other places that bombing will not work. So why continue? We are never going to defeat the insurgency by more and more bombing, resulting in more and more civilian deaths. So why do they continue? Are they just unrepentant ghouls who like mass killing for its own sake? I think they drop all the bombs just so they can manufacture more of them and enrich their friends in the defense industry even more. Man, these people are sick!

Now they are going to try to stop a North Korean missile with their multi-billion dollar missile defense system that doesn't work. They actually say they don't know whether North Korea is just testing a missile or actually maybe attacking the U.S. These clowns apparently think that North Korea would actually try to attack the United States, just as they think Iran might attack us. I guess they think that North Koreans and Iranians either have death wishes or are completely out of touch with reality (as Bush/Cheney clearly are). Run for the hills, the North Korean and Iranians are coming and we are helpless to protect ourselves (with a defense budget larger than all the rest of the world put together). This is all BS of course, just have to keep the Military/Industrial Complex going non-stop (apparently forever).

Why is it that black olives always come in cans (except for specialty olives like Greek olives) whereas all green olives come in jars? Let's have some attention to serious questions for a change.