Fair, the "F-word"

Western farmers to vote in federal barley plebiscite:

Federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl . . . wants to ensure the question is fair. "There are a bunch of things you could say that could skew the question and I think everybody understands that if you want this to be legitimate, which I do, then you have to ask an unbiased question," Strahl said in a telephone interview. "You do that by making sure there aren't words like 'freedom' in there and 'getting out of the yoke.' "

So I guess neither "Do you want to throw off the shackles of a socialist marketing scheme ..." or "Do you want to watch your family starve because no company will give you a decent price for your grain ...." will do.

Oh, what a lovely war?

Robert Parry describes the broader Middle East war which he thinks the Bush administration is trying to start:

. . . Bush announced other steps that could be interpreted as building a military infrastructure for a regional war or at least for air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities . . .
Militarily, a second aircraft carrier strike force would do little to interdict arms smuggling across the Iran-Iraq border. Similarly, Patriot anti-missile batteries would be of no use in defeating lightly armed insurgent forces and militias inside Iraq.
However, both deployments would be useful to deter – or defend against – retaliatory missile strikes from Iran if the Israelis or the United States bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities or stage military raids inside Iranian territory.
Iran has a relatively sophisticated arsenal of short- and medium-range missiles. Those short-range missiles could be fired at U.S. bases in Iraq or elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. The medium-range missiles could conceivably hit Tel Aviv.
Not only could Patriot missiles be used to knock down Iranian missiles while they’re heading toward their targets, but the fearsome firepower of two aircraft carrier strike forces could deter any Iranian retaliatory strike following a U.S. or Israeli attack.
In other words, the deployments would fit with Israel or the United States bombing Iran’s nuclear sites and then trying to tamp down any Iranian response.
Another danger to American interests, however, would be pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq seeking revenge against U.S. troops. If that were to happen, Bush’s escalation of troop levels in Iraq would make sense as a way to protect the Green Zone and other sensitive targets.
So, Bush’s actions and rhetoric over the past several weeks continue to mesh with a scenario for a wider regional war . . .

And in the meantime, the Patriot air missile defense units are mobilized and USS F-16's have arrived at the Incirlik Air base in southern Turkey.
My question is this, is the rest of the world going to tell the Bush administration to stop?
Or are we going to stand around twiddling our thumbs while Bush starts a devastating war?

Signs and whispers

One thing to remember with the Bush administration is that things are always worse than they first appear.
It feels paranoid to read between the lines of every Bush speech, trying to parse deeper meanings out of words and syllables and sentence fragments. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't really out to get you.
Like Digby, I sorta dozed off during Bush's speech tonight. But reading the tea leaves, there are a few indications of what the future may hold.
Here's one: Bush blamed "too many restrictions on the troops" for the US lack of success in Baghdad so far -- funny, I never heard American troops being criticized before for their restraint. But this is Operation Big Swinging Dick, and everyone's Inner Cheney now gets to kick ass. Expect more air strikes killing more civilians, more cluster bombs, more door-kicking, more shoot-first-never-ask-questions-at-all.
And here's another one: Iraqi forces will be "going door to door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents". Now these Iraqi forces are going to be Kurdish troops, so we'll have Kurds kicking in the doors of both Sunnis and Shiites. That oughta calm things down, yes siree.
And then there is this one: what's with that part of the speech about providing Patriot Missile defense systems to "our friends and allies" -- like maybe Israel? Saudi Arabia? Who is going to be firing those Patriot missiles toward the friends & allies anyway? Is this why Saudi Arabia summoned Cheney in December, to demand protection during war with Iran?
And Bush apparently still thinks America is losing the war because of those gosh-darn 'outside agitators' from Syria and Iran. I don't know quite what to make of this -- do Bush and Cheney really think they can convince America that their problems in Iraq are the fault of Syria and Iran? Do they think they can gin up another war based on "darkened" intelligence and the American people will go along with it again?
Well, maybe.
But here are the whispers. Maybe this time America won't drink the Koolaid. For the very first time ever tonight, after Bush's speech, I heard David Gregory of MSNBC report on the anti-war protestors at the White House. They've been there for years, but the press just never mentioned them before. And after five years of refusing to mention any Bush administration lies, the Associated Press actually has a story posted tonight titled Bush rhetoric hard to square with facts.
Matthew Yglesias writes:

... to sum up, neither the American military nor the American congress nor the American people nor the Iraqi government nor the Iraqi public wants an American military escalation. Naturally, we're getting one.

I wonder if America now shares his skepticism?
UPDATE: Dave at Galloping Beaver finds some more stuff which the Bush administration hoped would stay hidden a little longer.

Blizzard

We drove home in this. Luckily, my husband is a great driver -- there were several times when we couldn't see the front end of the car, but we had to keep going because otherwise the people behind would have hit us. A 15 minute drive took 2 hours.
The newspaper says this blizzard is one of worst ever and its certainly the worst I've ever seen -- and I 've lived here for most of the last 57 years.
I thought it was completely irresponsible for the highways workers to strike -- this could have killed innocent people. They came to their senses and went back yesterday, just in time for today's blizzard.

Great line of the day

Stephen Colbert about Bill O'Reilly:

"It is an honor to speak face-to-face with a broadcasting legend, and I feel the same way about Mr. O'Reilly."

"Little Mosque" is good

Little Mosque on the Prairie -- I liked it, a lot. Mercy isn't quite Dog River, not yet anyway, but I think it will come close.
And the Mayor of Dog River showed up in the restaurant, too.
Besides, anything that Margaret Wente doesn't like is, by definition, must-see TV.

A dark moment in Canadian history

Via Raw Story managing editor Larisa Alexandrovna's At-Largely blog, here is a fascinating but horrifying CP story -- Canadian victim of CIA brainwashing seeks class-action against government:

Janine Huard says she was a young mother of four with mild post-partum depression when she checked herself in for psychiatric treatment at a Montreal hospital more than five decades ago. . . . On and off over more than a decade at McGill University's renowned Allan Memorial Institute, Huard says she received massive electroshocks and was fed more than 40 experimental pills a day . . . "I came out of there so sick that my mother had to live with me for 10 years," Huard says. "I couldn't take care of my children any more.". . . The ordeal came at the hands of Dr. Ewen Cameron, an Edinburgh-educated, New York-based doctor who pioneered "psychic driving," by which he believed he could erase the memories of patients and rebuild their psyches without psychiatric defect.
The idea intrigued the CIA, which recruited Cameron to experiment with mind control techniques beginning in 1950 . . . Cameron gave patients LSD and subjected them to massive and multiple electroshock treatments. Some underwent sleep deprivation or total sensory deprivation.
Others were kept in drug-induced comas for months on end while speakers under their pillows broadcasts messages for up to 16 hours a day.

Apparently the story of the CIA experiments in Canada has been known for a number of years -- in fact, some of the victims have already been compensated, but victims like Huard haven't received any compentation yet because they were not considered to have been sufficiently damaged by the so-called 'treatments'. But all this was news to me. The Wikipedia entry says:

The CIA appears to have given [Dr. Cameron] the potentially deadly experiments to carry out since they would be used on non-U.S. citizens.

We have a history of this.

We have met the enemy and he is us

Echidne of the Snakes asks Who put our oil underneath their sand?
It occured to me that the arrogant Western world has been asking that question for the last 300 years:
Who put our diamonds underneath their jungle?
Who put our minerals underneath their mountains?
Who allowed their buffalo to graze where we want to put our railroad, and grow our crops?
And now we're asking:
Who overfished our cod and who cut our rainforests and who polluted our lakes and who burned our coal?
We have met the enemy and he is us.

Great line of the day

From Paul Krugman, as quoted by Atrios:

. . . Iraq has become a quagmire of the vanities — a place where America is spending blood and treasure to protect the egos of men who won’t admit that they were wrong.

Operation Big Swinging Dick

Throwing another 20,000 troops into Iraq should be called "Operation Big Swinging Dick" -- because that's whose idea it was, and that's what the idea is.
It's a typical Dick Cheney balls-up, and the purpose is really just to show the Democrats and the GOP doubters that Bush is still the boss.
If you want to understand Iraq, read Juan Cole and Today in Iraq for the details and Steve Gilliard for the big picture. Here is Gilliard's summary of what has gone wrong for the Americans in Iraq:

. . . here's a brief explaination of why the Iraq war failed.
1)Iraq is not an artificial state, but one with distinct interest groups. Saddam spent much of his time protecting himself from, and catering to them. Some people, the Talibanis, the Sadrs, were never happy, but others were. If you try to fracture Iraq, no state will be strong enough to survive.
2) Exiles sold their fantasies of being conquering heroes and instead were met with contempt from the survivors of Saddam. They were weaker compared to the prevailing forces, the Sunni shieks, B'aathists, Sadrists and Sistani. All would define what would happen in Iraq far more than any exile.
3) There were two different plans for Iraq, both doomed to fail. The first was to hand the country over to Chalabi, which would have resulted in anarchy within days, or to establish a colonial regime. Since the infighting was so intense, neither plan was fully hatched until Viceroy Bremer was sent to bring order.
4)The Bush Administration had no respect for the complications of establishing order in a colony, so they sent the young and untrained to run Iraq. Few ever saw what they were supposed to be changing. The Americans neither trusted nor respected the Iraqis they were supposed to serve. Having no training in foreign service matters, they were more hinderance than help.
5)Combat never stopped. The US was unable to ever establish order in the streets of Baghdad, which meant their word was useless. Soon, those who worked with the Americans became targets. The Iraqis had a much better sense of how to manipulate the Americans than vice versa.
6) Despite all their blather, few people realized what this war was quickly turning into. They talked about Al Qaeda and dead enders, but in less than a year, the Shia were running major attacks on them. Only Sistani's intervention prevented a full scale war on the Americans. The US was falling into the trap of fighting a colonial war, while all the warbloggers talked about Islamofascism. While they were attacking Cindy Sheehan, they forgot one thing: her son was killed by the Sadrists. Which went against the narrative we had been fed.
7) By the time the Iraqis finally had elections, what you had was all the factions, excluding the Sunnis, in parliment, and they wanted revenge. The government forces quickly fell under the spell of various militias and while we trained them, they didn't improve their effectiveness. But the Mahdi Army did. SCIRI did, the guerrillas in Anbar Province did.
While there was a great deal of rhetoric about a united Iraq, the US was playing the game of divide and conquer. Their trump move was to install Hakim's puppet over Maliki. Until Sistani said no, and left the power in the hands of Sadr. The exact opposite of their plans.
It wasn't bungled execution.
No Iraqi government not controlled by the Sadrists could have survived. Because they are the majority. They had no interest in sharing anything or a democratic government. Because this is a colonial war, and no structure set up by the US would have had any credibility.

So 20,000 troops aren't going to make any difference at all. Apparently the Iraqi government is saying it will bring in Kurdish pesh merga units to disarm the militias - oh, sure -- while the Americans troops fight the Sunnis. Gilliard describes what is actually going to happen next:

. . . someone better realize that the Saddam execution and the Sistani quashing of the coup means the last man standing is the guy with the funny teeth and black turban.
Bush is so clueless and desperate that he doesn't realize he's being coopted into assisting ethnic cleansing. At the end of this, Sadr will be in near total control of most of Iraq's population.
Petraeus should know better. While US troops are getting killed killing Sunnis, Sadr will increase his control over the military and police. He thinks they're going to disarm the Mahdi Army? Hell no. The Mahdi Army are the real protectors of the Shia population, they have won support on the ground by saving lives and feeding people. The government is subordinate to Sadr and his supporters, and Sistani made that happen.
Bush and his supporters live in a cloud cuckoo land where they don't understand how they have been manuvered into this mess. Americans troops are being asked to die to establish a Shia theocracy in Iraq.

War 2, the Sequel*

Dave at Galloping Beaver picks up a number of key points about the American plan for War 2, the Sequel* otherwise known as war with Iran, including this very significant piece to the puzzle:

Would Bush do it?
Do we really need to ask that?
He would if he could get away with it. The truth is, he has the authority under two umbrellas: The Authorization for the Use Of Military Force which flowed from the September 2001 attacks and the War Powers Act of 1973, which gives him 60 days to do whatever he wants. The AUMF is weak in that it specifies the power is to be used to go after the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
That would be why Lieberman is suddenly making linkages between al Qaeda and Iran. It was the same lie that got Bush his war in Iraq.

Emphasis mine.
* And yes, I am deliberately using a movie title parody for this war, because I think it is being promoted by Cheney and Abrams and the other Washington chickenhawks as a John Wayne movie where the hero always gets the girl and the Americans always win in the end.
Apparently none of them have ever seen Dr. Strangelove.
Or Platoon.

Great line of the day

From Molly Irwins in the Chicago Tribune - Bush won't end Iraq war on his own:

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck--so it's up to us. You and me.

Attack of the Amazon Women

Wild speculation? But wouldn't it be interesting, if true. So here's my scenario:
Dick Cheney resigns and Condi Rice is appointed VP.
Then Bush is impeached and Rice becomes President.
Then, in a fit of absoultely insane bipartisanship, Rice appoints Hillary as her VP.
So there you have it -- Rice, Clinton and Pelosi in charge of the United States.
Wouldn't that be a party? Oh, well, dare to dream...

There's a man with a gun over there

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear . . .

Bush to name new general to oversee Iraq:

. . . Admiral Fallon would be the first Navy officer to serve as the senior officer of the Central Command, which is managing simultaneous ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admiral Fallon is regarded within the military as one of its stronger regional combat commanders, and his possible appointment also reflects a greater emphasis on countering Iranian power, a mission that relies heavily on naval forces and combat airpower to project American influence in the Persian Gulf.

There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware . . .

Arianna Huffington:

. . . [Wes] Clark was really angry about what he'd read in this column by UPI Editor at Large Arnaud de Borchgrave . . . de Borchgrave details Bibi Netanyahu leading the charge to lobby the Bush administration to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, and paints U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007/08 as all-but-a-done deal.
"How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark. "It's outrageous. We're the United States of America; we don't do that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the military option is off the table -- but diplomacy is not what Jim Baker says it is. It's not, What will it take for you boys to support us on Iraq? It's sitting down for a couple of days and talking about our families and our hopes, and building relationships."
When we asked him what made him so sure the Bush administration was headed in this direction, he replied: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers." . . . For Clark, this is the biggest foreign policy issue facing the U.S. "I'm worried about the surge," he said. "But I'm worried about this even more."

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down. . .

Exclusive: Iran War 'In 2 yrs':

CIA specialist on Iran Reuel Marc Gerecht said there had been a "tidal shift" of opinion towards military action, especially in Israel.
He added: "I think it has now become highly likely the Israelis will launch a strike before the end of George Bush's presidency."
An Israeli attack before the US election in November 2008 risks sparking a military explosion in the Middle East.
It is likely to be backed up by American and possibly British air support from Iraq.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away . . .

Reveaked: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran:

Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. . . Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack . . .

Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down . . .

Justice shuffle

I know the big news of the day was the replacement of Rona Ambrose as Environment minister, but I actually thought the replacement of Vic Toews as Justice Minister could turn out to be pretty significant, too.
What's going to happen to all the Conservative "let's send more Canadians to jail" law proposals, like the three-strikes idea (which is, I think, both contrary to natural justice and unnecessary), not to mention "let's staff our courts with more right-wing, ideological judges" and then"'let's tie their hands with more mandatory sentences".