...or are you just happy to see me?

BAGHDAD, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) --The U.S. and Iraqi security forces have killed some 400 suspected insurgents and detained a similar number of people during the 11-day-old major security clampdown in the capital, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday.

Um...Nope, no human rights violations here. Move along.

I'm sure there's a reason why this isn't getting wider reportage in the U.S. media. Well, I mentioned it here a week ago. So that's something I guess.

Labels: insurgency, iraq, Nuri al-Maliki

Our nation is replete with monuments to the vision and sacrifice of our forefathers, but we Americans are richly undeserving of their legacy. To paraphrase, never before have so many with so much done so little for so few.

On President's Day 2007, America finds herself mistrusted and reviled by our friends and hated by every wacko in the world with an ax to grind. Our enemies don't hate freedom. Al Qaida and terrorist states don't give a shit about the democratic vision of an egalitarian society of self-governing citizens our founders hoped we'd one day become. They hate us because our government and our corporations have been wrapping themselves in that vision like a cloak for over a century as they've exerted their will on peoples having the misfortune to live in resource-rich environments. Oh yeah, plus we support Israel's right to exist.

We won't stop supporting Israel; that's nonnegotiable, but we might be able to do something about the vision thing. Not to appease the wackos, mind you. They're assholes. But our friends need to be on board with us if we're going to keep this grand experiment of ours going. They need to know that we still respect the vision, and that we will sacrifice whatever it takes to keep that vision alive.

Reckless bravado, brinkmanship, and shear incompetence got us into this situation, and I think they can get us out. We need a leader today like no other. Someone to stand for America, and take one for the team. Who can single handedly repair America's image abroad as a brash, arrogant, bully driven only by avarice and bent on world domination? President George W. Bush.

With a single, radical act the President can finish his second term in office by leading our nation into this new millennium not as a pariah state, but as a shining example for all the world to follow by exhibiting – with spectacular fashion – the single quality the world believes no American can possess: Humility.

I propose a national monument to folly. The monument would at once commemorate those who have served their nation with honor and distinction believing in a duty to something larger than the misguided will of a single Commander-in-Chief, while also serving as a testament to future generations of Americans and their leaders that ours is a nation too great to ever again allow the sin of hubris to enter our halls of power. The American National Monument to Folly should stand in no less august a location as the site of the singular monument to American pride and vision: Mount Rushmore. Shoulder-to-shoulder with the majesty of our greatest leaders, the visage of George W. Bush could be added by 2046, the 100th anniverssary of his birth.




President Bush, declare your willingness to do all that you can for our nation. Volunteer yourself to symbolize, forever more, American Folly. Our nation needs you. Do it for the Gipper. Do it for America.

Labels: George W. Bush, Israel, warrantless wiretaps

Tits deep and falling fast the al-Maliki-led, U.S.-backed government in Iraq is struggling to provide basic necessities to a nation broken by war, civil and sectarian strife, and ancient animosities. While American troops are dying every day as the situation continues it's bottomless descent, it took a Congressional repudiation for the Bush Administration to take action.

As the symbolic, non-binding resolution moves from the House to the Senate today, Secretary of State Condoleza Rice flew to Baghdad unannounced to secure the Administration's position in the hearts and minds of Iraq's beleaguered leaders. She'll be playing hardball demanding results from the latest plan to quell the violence in the nation's capitol, while offering assurances that the Bush Administration has no intention of caving to Congress or the American people. The escalation will happen. But, if swift progress is not made, the U.S. will lessen it's support of the ruling coalition, which is essentially a death sentence to anyone working in the Iraqi government at the moment. In short: "We don't care how you do it, just get it done." The pressure is on.

The Administration's escalation plan calls for 21,500 U.S. troops to be embedded with Iraqi forces to secure key areas of Baghdad and Al Anbar province. This allows the full spectrum of American military intelligence, technology, and fire support to be made available to Iraqi units on the ground through their American embeds without compromising U.S. operational security. It also allows Iraqi troops - taking orders from their own civilian government - to effectively become the best equipped, best informed, and best trained death squads the world has ever known without asking U.S. troops to become war criminals. It's all very neat and tidy.

Dear people of Iraq, rejoice for you have been liberated.

Labels: Condoleza Rice, iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, Surge

A 22-year veteran CIA analyst known only as 'Doe' won a minor legal victory this week when U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that his/her/its case could proceed against the CIA. Doe's suit alleges CIA officials pressured and later terminated the decorated agent in the agency's counter-proliferation department for gathering evidence contrary to the Bush Administration's official line with regard to Iraq's pre-war WMD programs. Shocking. I know.

I say minor victory because this is probably the last you will ever hear of it. First, because the U.S. media would rather cover the NASCAR 'scandal' and Anna Nicole Smith (I refuse to link either on principle) than high crimes and misdemeanors. Second, because the story has been essentially Googlebombed out of existence by the CIA/extraordinary rendition proceedings in Italy (try and Google the CIA this week and see if you can find this story). And last, but not least, because U.S.District Judge Gladys Kessler, has been promoted and is being replaced by "former White House insider Dabney Friedrich."

I give credit where credit is due. No one plays the shell game better than this Administration. They've fired or forced-out seven U.S. Attorneys since march, and now this. It's like watching Cheney and Rove channeling Penn and Teller. If that image does haunt your dreams...

Special thanks to Matt for pointing this story out. Viva La Revolution!

Labels: cia, Dabney Friedrich, Extraordinary Rendition, Gladys Kessler, US Attorney firings

The year was 1994, and I was a bright-eyed sophomore majoring in Political Science and Asian Studies when the Clinton Administration signed the Agreed Framework with North Korea. It was a simple plan. North Korea would remain party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (i.e. it would not develop a bomb), and it would submit to an IAEA inspection regime to ensure compliance. In return, the U.S. would pony-up heating oil and economic aid so the North Koreans wouldn't freeze or starve to death, and we would pledge not to attack them with nuclear weapons so they wouldn't turn to ash and blow away or glow in the dark with permanent orange afros.

Things were about as normal as they could be when dealing with North Korea until 2003 when the Bush Administration - fresh off of declaring North Korea's membership in the Axis of Evil - decided it would try to out-crazy Kim Jong Il, and flushed the Clinton-era framework down the toilet like a Koran in Camp X-ray(no credible evidence, my ass). North Korea promptly withdrew from the NPT. Thus began Bush's post-Iraq foreign policy Big Top Adventure/damage control operation now known as the Six-Party Talks. The plan was to partner with everyone else in the neighborhood - South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China - and pressure the North into ceasing production of weaponized nuclear materials. By last October - after multiple breakdowns, false-starts, and a rousing game of slap-ass and touch-dick - North Korea had successfully tested its first nuclear weapon.

Today, after several years of unmitigated failure, the Bush Administration is declaring victory. Apparently its first in any arena (what, no banner?). The new agreement is much better than the Clinton-era framework, and has the official BushCo seal of awesomeness! In the new deal the North Koreans get even more oil and more aid than before, and the added bonus of normalized relations with the U.S. which allows all kinds of money to be made by multinational corporations on both sides of the crazy curtain. In return, the U.S. gets the international inspectors we used to have before the 2003 bout of uncontrolled diplomatic diarrhea and vomiting re-admitted to North Korean nuclear facilities. Oh, and they have the bomb.

So yeah...breathe deep and taste that victory. Thanks again, George.

Labels: Kim Jong Il, North Korea

It's February, and in a normal year before a presidential election the campaign cycle would be just a gleam in a political science junkie's eye, but this is no normal year. Our incumbent president is so unpopular candidates from both sides of the aisle are clamoring to announce their intentions to run for the highest office of the land, and the cycle is already revving up to full speed.

There are a lot of great candidates out there - all of whom could likely do a far better job than our current Commander-in-Chief - but none of them has captured my imagination as much as a man who's already proven he can win the White House: Former next President of the United States, Al Gore.

While Mr. Gore has yet to officially announce his candidacy, and indeed may choose not to run at all, I am officially kicking off Operation Lockbox in support of his campaign. Rapid dissent will hence forth feature news and resources related to the Gore campaign - whether real or imagined - for the duration of Operation Lockbox. I encourage you to learn more about the man who was elected in 2000 to be America's 43rd President, and who - with your help - I hope to see elected again as our 44th in 2008.

Labels: 2008 Election, Al Gore, operation lockbox

Even as debate rages in Congress and around watercoolers throughout world regarding President Bush's Iraq escalation plan, the ground work is being laid for America's next ill conceived military boondoggle: Iran.

Across America - in Illinois, Hawaii, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Arkansas, and Kentucky - sightings of so-called UFOs are spiking. While these sightings are dismissed or ignored by military and civil air authorities, watchers of the night sky who also pay attention to global geo-politics recognize this activity for what it is: maneuvers and operations in preparation for a military strike.

With these activities taking place beneath the noses of Congress and the American people, a strike on Iran is now a foregone conclusion. It is a question of when, not if a strike will occur.

What makes these questions other than academic is that Bush is putting in place military assets that will enable him to order and effect the rapid nuclear castration of Iran. But scarcely a peep of protest has been heard from our congressional leadership.

Observers have noted the dispatch of minesweepers and another U.S. carrier to the Persian Gulf, the naming of Admiral Bill "Fox" Fallon to head CentCom, which today manages two ground wars, and the return of U.S. fighter-bombers to Turkey. ~via

Either the unitary executive is about to open another front in the struggle for Pax Americana, or the Greys are finally coming home.

Labels: Congress, iran, iraq, Surge, Unitary Executive

Not quite ready for prime time?


When Microsoft does get this perfected however, how long before we can expect it to be combined with this?

Labels: Microsoft, Speech Recognition, technology, Vista

General George Casey, outgoing commander of "Coalition of the Willing" forces in Iraq today surprised some by going on record as disagreeing with the Commander-in-Chief's troop escalation gambit. The President has repeatedly stated the need for 21,500 more troops to be deployed as soon as possible. Casey, who has been nominated for the post of Army Chief of Staff, told the Senate Armed Forces committee that only half that number were needed.

After watching this Administration try and fail to wage a war on the cheap - by ignoring former Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki's recommendations of an occupation force of "several hundred thousand" troops for success in Iraq - John McCain (R-AZ) very nearly got out of his seat and bitch slapped General Casey. Well, not really. But he did say this:

"I'm not certain five additional brigades in Baghdad and one more in Anbar province are sufficient to do the job," said McCain. "I am certain, however, that the job cannot be done with just two additional brigades, as you, General Casey, had advocated." ~ via

Currently there is no word of whether the now mythological Civilian Reserve Corps will be ready to support the 21,500 troops the President wants to send into Baghdad and Anbar province in the coming weeks, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, an additional 28,000 troops will be necessary to support the expanded mission. That means 49,500 service members - not 21,500 - will join those already deployed without a timetable for disengagement, and without a plan for victory.

Details. Details. Details.

Labels: Civilian Reserve Corps, Gen. Shinseki, General George Casey, Surge