We're there because we're there because we're there...

Shorter Peter MacKay: 'Our troops will stay in Afghanistan because they're already there'.
Hmm...
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay apparently opposes a vote in Parliament about the Afghanistan mission because some MPs would vote against it: "The last thing we want to show is any wavering or any backing away from the commitment of our Canadian troops. We have to be 100 per cent behind them."
I guess he thinks our troops are stupid, and they don't know already that, depending on the poll, somewhere between 50 to 60 per cent of Canadians do not support the Afghanistan mission anymore.
So we aren't "100 percent behind them" even now. And they know it. But personally, I would think its more important to our troops that we make sure their mission in Afghanistan is important and worthwhile. What is it, exactly, we are asking them to die for? We had better make sure that we all know what it is.
I wouldn't say I oppose the Afghanistan mission, not yet anyway -- but I sure would welcome some discussion about what our troops are doing there.
MacKay couldn't actually seem to identify a real goal for our troops, like protecting cities or villages or making sure roads are safe for travel, or running special ops against taliban and warlord areas,for example. Instead, he just talked about how "this is the type of mission demanded in this day and age", that terrorism "has its roots in Afghanistan" and that we are "committed to fight with our allies".
And Stephen Harper is just as bad -- he says "You do not send men and women into harm's way on a dangerous mission with the support of our party and other Canadians, and then decide, once they're over there, that you're not sure you should have sent them."
Well, why not?
If the troops get there and find out they don't have a mission or they're not being used effectively or they're just cannon fodder or bait (which is how Canadian troops actually have been used at other times and in other wars) or the whole Afghanistan war has become a misbegotten, poorly-executed exercise in futility that is not worth anybody dying for, then I would hope we would get our troops out of there and the sooner the better.

Great lines of the day

At Daily Kos, DarkSyde says it loud about Iraq:

GOP Shill posing as reporter: "Many are saying the reason we're not winning is because [insert reference to critics, i.e., liberals, democrats, progressives, defeatists, etc.] have been critical of the war and have eroded supp--" Cut them off right there!
Response: "The Republicans Are Losing the War. This was a Republican War dreamed up by Republicans, packaged by Republicans and marketed like a soft drink by Republicans. It was Republicans who ignored the dangers and warnings from senior combat vets and went in too light and poorly equipped, it was Republicans who smugly assured us we would be greeted as liberators, that the oil would pay for it, and that we had to act immediately before a mushroom cloud bloomed over an American City. It was the Republicans at the most senior levels that absolutely assured us that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction and cleverly floated the implication that there were operational links between Iraq and 9/11. This is a Republican War and it's Republicans who are losing the War. And since it's the Republicans who claim it's the central front in the War on Terror, then by their own definition it follows that The Republicans are Losing that War."
If by now the panicked host or foundering discussion partner hasn't cut you off, s/he will probably try the ole bait and switch "But Democrats also supported the war, what about them?", keep piling on the painful truth:
"It was a Republican controlled Congress who enabled this Republican White House to start this Republican War, who rubber-stamped every stumble and screw-up, from rocky start to looming catastrophic finish. It has been Republican pundits and apologists who have defended it every step of the way. It was Republicans who claimed we were doing great, the whole time things were going to hell in a handbasket. It was Republican companies that hogged every tax dollar they could get and 'misplaced' billions in their greedy zeal. It was the Republicans who lied or bungled or got it dead wrong from the get-go. It was Republicans who fed tens of thousands of other people's brave sons and daughters in our armed forces into a meat grinder, to be killed or maimed for this massive Republican mistake. The only way we well ever stop these Losers is to get them out of office before the Republicans Lose More Wars."
Say it slowly, say it fast. Say it many times. The Republicans are Losing the War.

Emphasis mine. Exactly. This war was and is the fault of the people who wanted to fight it.

Just tell me all the details, darlin'

A South Dakota Senator named Bill Napoli says that under their new anti-abortion legislation, rape MIGHT be a good enough reason for an abortion -- but he would have to know all the delicious details first. And then, of course, I guess it would be HIS decision, not HERS -- why, she might just be a slut who only deserves a shotgun marriage instead!
This wingnut was recently interviewed on a PBS show.
Its the first time we're heard such ridiculous nonsense since the 1970s, but not, I fear, the last. Thanks to Dibgy for alerting the blogosphere to this guy:

BILL NAPOLI: My calls have been running 3-1 in favor of this bill.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls 'convenience.' He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
. . .
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Democratic Representative Elaine Roberts is one of South Dakota's few pro-choice legislators. What's next, she fears, is a host of measures that regulate women's private lives.
ELAINE ROBERTS: We already have a law that says that pharmacists by conscience could refuse to fill my prescription for contraceptives. There is already a move from some groups who have worked on this to say that there should be no contraceptives, that sexual intercourse is for the purpose of reproduction.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Much of what she fears as an assault on basic rights Senator Napoli sees as a return to traditional values.
BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: You really do?
BILL NAPOLI: Yes, I do. I don't think we're so far beyond that, that we can't go back to that.

Great line of the day

In The Joys of Living in a Fantasyland Glenn Greenwald writes:

But the notion that this was a very bad week for Bush is only true for those who live in the world of facts. Bush followers are lucky. They have an outstanding capacity to create their own fantasy world where any facts which reflect negatively on the Leader are simply discarded and ignored.

Emphasis mine.
I wonder how long they can keep this going -- "No clothes? Why, he's wearing simply beautiful clothes. Just look at all those gorgeous colours. And the fabrics, oh the fabrics..."

Didn't the media know we're in a war?

As much as we criticize the Americans for what they are doing in Iraq, we Canadians think we are still the good guys. And even though a majority of Canadians now want our soldiers out of Afghanistan, we still think our soldiers are the good guys.
So when our soldiers get attacked, the tone of the media coverage is, how surprising! Like, how could they attack our guys? Don't they know we're just trying to help?

. . . Lieut. Trevor Greene was chatting with dozens of elders near his forward base in Gumbad when an Afghan villager pulled an axe with a 60-centimetre handle from inside his clothing. The villager, in his 20s, held the axe high over Greene's head and yelled "Allah Akbar" - God is Great - the signature call of an Islamist suicide attacker.
The man fulfilled his destiny. He delivered his nearly lethal blow and then died where he stood, his body riddled with bullets from Capt. Kevin Schamuhn and two of his fellow soldiers . . . . The notion the act was of a lone maniac quickly disappeared.
While villagers scattered in all directions, enemy small-arms fire broke out from across the river. Canadians and their Afghan allies returned fire. Then, as things calmed slightly, another man moved toward coalition forces and tossed a hand grenade.
The Afghans and Canadians returned fire again as the grenade exploded harmlessly. Schamuhn believes the man was hit but the grenade attacker scurried away in the mayhem.
As things calmed down, a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter whisked Greene away to a Canadian hospital at Kandahar Airfield. He remains there in serious condition, awaiting a plane ride to Germany and home.
The Afghans and Canadians went into the village to find answers. All they found were seven old men and some women and children.
"There were no fighting-age males there," said Schamuhn.
"The leaders we had been speaking to earlier had disappeared and all the young men that we were talking to had disappeared."
No villager would say who the dead attacker was.
The platoon from Company A of the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry brigade in Afghanistan was making a series of stops in small villages Saturday from their forward operating base 70 kilometres north of Kandahar.
Moving into rural areas is a key part of Canada's plan to bring security and reconstruction to Kandahar province.
Villagers in a meeting hours earlier welcomed them with blankets and bread and meats.
The meetings with local leaders are known as shura and are key to getting anything done in rural areas.
The fateful meeting was off to a good start when the
attacker struck, Schamuhn said.
The first hint of trouble could only be seen in the light of hindsight, he said. "About two or three minutes prior to the incident, all the children that were present were escorted away, about 20 to 30 metres away," Schamuhn recalled. "But none of us picked up on this, there was no weird feeling, no gut feeling that something was about to go down."
Schamuhn has grown to trust villagers through dozens of encounters. He and Greene had removed their helmets and set down their arms in a sign of respect and trust. "I'm sure I've shaken hands with some people who have plotted against us," he said.
"You can't tell."
Schamuhn said he had started to believe the oft-repeated Afghan contention that foreigners are causing all the trouble. He doesn't believe it now. "This guy, he was a local villager from this village who was coerced or persuaded by some outside force to do this against us," Schamuhn said. "We were completely vulnerable to them and they took complete advantage of that. There was a lot of people who knew what was about to happen."

Yes.
Well, that would be because there's a war going on over there.
Didn't we already know this?

Have we no shame?

Do the Geneva Conventions and rule of law mean as little to Canada now as they do to the United States? This is just disgusting:

. . . neither the new Conservative government in Ottawa nor its previous Liberal governments seem troubled by [Guantanamo]. . . Not only has there been no Canadian demand for it to close, but Canada's special-forces units in Afghanistan continue to hand terrorism suspects over to U.S. forces who ship at least some of them to Guantanamo. "Canada's silence on Guantanamo is related to the fact that we are complicit in the whole process'" of seizing and holding suspects "in a twilight zone," NDP defence spokesman Bill Blaikie said yesterday. "This is typical of the way both the Liberals and Conservatives have handled the whole issue of Guantanamo," instead of joining with other governments and calling for its closing . . .

Sauce. Goose. Gander.

and all that jazz -- "PM won't co-operate as ethics commissioner looks into Emerson's defection".

Great line of the day

I love James Wolcott. In Hix Nix Crix Pix James Wolcott punctures the Oscar kvetching:

Think of the movies now considered classic . . . such as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Last Detail, Five Easy Pieces, Blazing Saddles, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, on and on--do these movies speak to the pieties and platitudes that William Bennett holds dear? Even back then during all the noise and excitement I remember sweet old ladies wondering why they didn't make nice movies like The Sound of Music anymore . . . Get over it, grandma! They're not going to make movies like Sound of Music anymore, they barely made them back then.
The heartland issue is such a crock, especially when it's taken up by pseudo-populist pundits who cling to both coasts and wouldn't move to the middle of the country unless the name of that middle was Chicago. Fuck the heartland. It doesn't exist. It's a metaphor for all the simple good things Americans would believe in if they flattered themselves by believing in simple good things. (Go reread Sherwood Anderson or Sinclair Lewis if you want to savor the loneliness and cultureless vacuity of so much of the bedrock America we insist on coloring with Norman Rockwell nostalgia.) It's true that more Americans than usual are unaquainted and uninterested in the Oscar pics this year, but how many Americans saw McCabe and Mrs. Miller when it came out? Or Mean Streets? Not that long ago, the Oscars noms were panned because for being an index of popularity, not quality; now quality prevails in the judging, tastes have improved even at the Golden Globes, and the kvetching chorus is complaining that the finalists chosen aren't commercial enough, and don't reflect the interests and values of average Americans. There's no such thing as an average American anymore (if there ever was), unless by "average American" you mean (as news producers and pundits seem to do) white, middle-aged, heterosexual Christian small-towners and suburbanites who won't even be watching the Academy Awards because it'll be past their bedtime and they have elk to milk the next morning.

Bombing Iraq back to the stone age

Sounds like the United States is going to "win" in Iraq by bombing it back to the stone age, killing everyone they can kill.
When everything looks like Fallaujah does -- see above -- then they can declare victory and leave.
They tried this in Vietnam, too -- at least then the anti-war movement was strong enough to stop Nixon from using nuclear weapons to "win" that war, though it was a near thing -- and it didn't work there either.
But they get despicable when they're desperate. AP is reporting that AC-130 gunships are now returning to Iraq:

The left-side ports of the AC-130s, 98-foot-long planes that can slowly circle over a target for long periods, bristle with a potent arsenal - 40 mm cannon that can fire 120 rounds per minute, and big 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The plane's latest version, the AC-130U, known as 'Spooky,' also carries Gatling gun-type 20 mm cannon. The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops. In Vietnam, for example, they were deployed against North Vietnamese supply convoys along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where the Air Force claimed to have destroyed 10,000 trucks over several years. The use of AC-130s in places like Fallujah, urban settings where insurgents may be among crowded populations of noncombatants, has been criticized by human rights groups. . .

They're buying more depleted uranium shells, too.
But what's one more war crime as far as today's Pentagon is concerned?

Bush cargo cults

Thanks, Tbogg -- I hadn't realized before that the person who invented "the Clenis" and "101st Fighting Keyboarders" was Tbogg. Now he had another turn or phrase, the Bush Cargo Cult to describe people like Kate O'Beirne who will always, always think that Bush is doing the right thing and try to give him cover for his behaviour, no matter how incomprehensible it is.
The Cargo Cults, as I understand it, arose in the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia after WWII when the Americans left -- the island tribes believed that the airplanes were operated by gods and these gods would return if the islanders worshipped them in the right way, so they constructed runways and "airplane" icons to which they prayed.
And here's a few more Bush jokes:
"On Wednesday President Bush will fly to India. See, last week he met with American workers. This week he will go to India and visit their old jobs." --Jay Leno
"President Bush is on his way to India. I guess he had to go, he lost the number for tech support." --Jay Leno
"After Afghanistan, President Bush flew to India, where he was greeted by 10,000 angry protestors. As a result, most Americans spent all day on hold with computer problems." --Conan O'Brien
"He was only in Afghanistan for four hours. That may not sound like much, but it's more time than he spent in the Texas National Guard." --Jay Leno
"President Bush also going to visit Pakistan. I think he wants to put them in charge of our airport security." --Jay Leno
"President Bush is so unpopular now, in fact Dick Cheney has a higher approval rating among quail." --David Letterman
"Actually, they're going to hold off on that Dubai ports deal for 45 days while Congress debates it. 45 days, well that's good. Those problems in the Middle East tend to clear up pretty quickly." --Jay Leno
"Looks like some kind of civil war brewing in Iraq. Well, who could have seen that coming? That came out of left field, huh? They say it is total chaos over there. People are roaming the streets with guns. It's like everyone is Dick Cheney now." --Jay Leno

Broke

Well, I see Chuck Guite has a fool for a lawyer.

Faith-based chemistry

I couldn't resist sharing this one:

Gonzo bulls--t!

I hate this kind of gonzo reporting.
Sun media is trumpeting to a breathless public that "Federal justice department employees have played fast and loose with travel and hospitality rules and cost taxpayers a bundle, an internal audit reveals"
This isn't true at all. Its an inflated story manufactured to embarass the government and a bunch of civil servants who have done virtually nothing wrong.
Here's the actual report Travel and Hospitality - March 2005. The auditors reviewed 331 travel expense claims from a two year period, and found 4 (that's right, four) where the civil servants submitted incorrect claims for personal travel combined with business travel, and one or two where there was some kind of fraud -- the report notes that a civil servant has been fired. Oh, yeah, and there were a few instances where the travel permission form wasn't filled out in quite as much detail as Treasury Board requires, like sometimes it didn't specify the exact kind of air travel authorized, and sometimes the form didn't explain why a government-approved hotel had not been used. The report also notes in its Introduction, however, that the these travel claims are mostly small beer:

. . . a large percentage of the Department's travel transactions are small. For example, in the two fiscal years 2002–2003 and 2003–2004, on average, approximately 70 percent of travel that was classified as Travel–Public Servants was for claims of $500 or less. Similarly, over the same two fiscal years, approximately 85 percent of departmental hospitality claims were for $500 or less.

Its too bad nobody bothered to read the report before writing this story. At least the story admits, rather grudginly, that the department cut its travel expenses in half from 2002-03 to 2003-04, though apparently saving us taxpayers $6 million a year isn't deserving of any credit.

Accident update

Well, so for the last 18 months we've been planning this trip to Britain -- my first time ever overseas, going with my husband and sister and brother to see the Crufts dog show, spend St. Patricks day in Dublin, plus see London and Edinburgh. Trip of a lifetime and we were supposed to leave next Wednesday.
So today my doctor tells me that its not likely that I will be well enough to go -- I still have pain in my chest from the broken ribs, and in my neck from whiplash, I cannot sleep for more than about three hours at a time, I am still using Tylenol #3s, my knee is still bunged up so I cannot walk very well, and I still have enough problems with edema in my legs that I might not be able to tolerate the flight either.
But, but, but...
So my sister and brother are likely going to go anyway, but my husband and I will likely stay behind -- we have to use the airmiles by next August, so hopefully we'll go somewhere by then, maybe still to Britain if we can.
And yes, I'm happy to be alive and that it wasn't worse and all that, and as my husband said, England will still be there even if we cannot get to it until later. But damnit all anyway, I had PLANS...
When I broke my leg ten years ago, I remember lying there in the hospital, and I had this vision that somewhere my real life was still going on, and that even though I had taken this sudden detour sideways, somewhere there was another Me, the Real Me, who was going on with life as usual.
So I now see, next Wednesday, the Real Me getting on that plane and flying off to a wonderful holiday in England -- leaving me behind.

Ideas that kill people

Odd, isn't it -- when we look at history, the "idea" is frequently blamed for bloodshed and mayhem -- I'm thinking about the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, when catholics fought protestants, and various kinds of protestants fought each other, and it was pretty clear that the basic cause of the conflict was their differing ideas of God. And likewise in the 20th century, when fascism fought democracy, and when communism fought capitalism. Nobody had any problems with the concept that some ideas are proven to be right by history, while others are proven to be wrong.
So what is so different now about the loss of the war in Iraq? It was a bad idea in the first place and lots of people said it was a bad idea -- illegal, for one thing, because the US didn't even dare ask the Security Council to vote on the war for fear that not only would the war be vetoed, they wouldn't even get a majority in favour -- and immoral, a war which caused more people around the world to march against it than any other war in world history.
And even now, the pro-war neocons refuse to accept that their idea was wrong. Digby sums up the neocon narrative:

. . . neocon shills like Kristol will soothe the rubes with tales of how the Bush administration tied the military's hands. If they'd have let them go they could have gotten the job done in a couple of weeks. We could have bombed em back into the stone age if necessary. After all, everything turned out just great with Japan and Germany. But, no. They wouldn't let our brave men and women get the job done. (Of course you can't blame them too much. It was the dominant Democrat hippies who made them do it.)
It gives the Republicans a good excuse to run on 'restoring honor' to the country. The rubes eat it up and get all excited about proving ourselves in the next war. A war we must fight for freedom and democracy, of course. Because we're so good . . .

Darn it, yes, the United States is good. But this war was bad, and now its broken and no one knows how to fix it.