If drug-trafficking is funding the violence on the other side (we will tactfully not mention who is funding the violence on our side… oh what the hell, yeah OK, us, we taxpayers in Australia, Britain and the US) how do you hide a drug crop that big?

Ask any veteran, a Chickenhawk always talks the walk.(U.S. Veteran 79-82)

Fact Check: “...by the most careful Estimates,(the # of Iraqis killed)ranges from 30,000 to 250,000.”
The Lancet study,which is a ‘most careful estimate’,is between 650,000 and 900,000.Usually the lower figure is quoted.Just in case Joe Conason hadn’t seen this before the Congressional elections on Nov.7th,when it came out in the back pages of the newspapers.Someone needed to tell him since he is a writer.
Also,just to be clear,it is now known,and was at the time by the military industrial congressional complex,that the war on/in VietNam and in Iraq are for the profit of the defense industries,and to steal the resources of the other country.The’domino theory’ was always the propaganda for the masses of the middle class,to SCARE them{my parents beleived that}.Even a child could see that,and I was a child at the time,teenager.
    Writing papers on the VietNam war,which was still going on when I started college,it became infinitely clear what the war was about,=PROFIT.One paper was titled,‘The Growing,Marketing and Processing of Heroine in the Golden Triangle Region of SE Asia’.I liked writing that one.Found out all about Air America,the airlines{not the radio station}that flew raw opium out of the hilltribe country to labs supplied by US companies to process it into pure heroine{Alfred McCoy’s books are a wealth of info on this}.Ollie North and some other currently still active operatives are around in this current regime.
  At the age of 19,I got the crazy idea that the war was all about heroine profits!and the obvious sale of armaments.My mother thought I was a crazy and a communist when I told her what I was writing about.
  The point is,Joe is a journalist and a writer,he should really get with the truth on these wars for profit, because if this does not work it’s way into the concsiousness of this nation,the wars perpetrated by the elite-corporate class will indeed become never ending.They are the Only ones who benefit,not the people,and certainly not the Iraqi people,the people of VietNam or the American people. Open your eyes to what wars are about and follow the money, Not the ‘Catapolted Propaganda’!  to put it in bush’s own words.

like everyone else i have no solution to the Iraq violence. I know why Iraqis are dying, they are dying because a criminal US politician removed a dictator (who had achieved some measure of functionality in his country albeit by horrendous means) simply to protect the US hegemony via control of Iraqi oil. Iraqis are dying because they live in Iraq. But I’m confused as to why your US kids are still dying in Iraq. Because a criminal US politician started a war simply to protect his country’s hegemony via control of Iraqi oil? Is it a matter of honour to keep sacrificing your children? And in the process delaying the inevitable civil war that only the Iraqis can wage amongst themselves? Why not pull out and use your vast resources that are currently being wasted on an unwinnable war to find the sources of funding behind the militants in Iraq on all sides? Isn’t that the best way to help the Iraqis now?

But we DID quit the Vietnam war, and we DID leave, and we DID lose, and Vietnam is fine now. THAT’S THE LESSON, PRESIDENT DINGBAT.

Most Americans lack the capacity to truly comprehend the deeply fraudulent and true criminal nature of the unelected cheney/bush fascist regime and it’s radical and extremist far right agenda.  The activities and demonstrated contempt for rule of law should give anyone pause.  NEVER in American history has such a corrupt group seized power in America, yet The People aren’t aware or willing to believe the full extent of the goals of this regime.

Thanks for including McCain as he will probably be the one who ultimately pardons Bush for war crimes.  It will truly silly and could happen pretty soon.  Otherwise it is Pelosi in ‘07.

What war?

Everybody in the media keeps insisting that we are fighting a “war” in Iraq.  Ever since the former the former government was overthrown, the war has been over.  It is now in the post-war occupation phase. 

Calling it a war has fed into the (now mostly discredited) myth that this is “wartime” and that we have a “wartime president” (or “war president”, in his own words), and that criticizing the president in “wartime” is out of bounds and even treasonous. 

It also feeds into the idea that there is still a war to win, and that we need to stay in it to win it.  In fact there is nothing to win.  In fact we are occupying Iraq with no apparent end in sight. 

When will the media stop buying into administration propaganda and start calling the current phase what it really is: an occupation.

McCain for president? Of what country? He is a self serving person who will kiss anybody’s ass to get to the top…QUESTION:  Did McCain and Bush get preferential treatment? McCain during flight school and Bush for avoiding the Vietnam War?
  McCain is NO MODERATE!  He is just an egg sucking politician of the lowest rank…I can not wait to vote AGAINST him!  He is a loser…

Tsk, tsk.  Mustn’t say anything about OIL or MONEY—two concepts that seem to completely lose meaning for some people when you pair them with the occupation of Iraq.

Like that idiot Richard Cohen in the Post indignantly huffing about how ridiculous it is to claim the war was about anything so lowly and crass as money or oil resources.

It’s un-American to suggest that Americans are greedy and self-seeking.  Runs counter to the Great Nation Myth—which myth is usually held by that generation that labeled itself Greatest.

That it’s TRUE has nothing to do with it!

I just visited snopes.com and after 20 clicks and checking lots of different categories including political and humor down a couple levels, I COULD NOT FIND ANY OF THOSE IMAGES YOU SPOKE OF.  Where are they?

Please give the link here so we can tell if it is true that it all came from snopes.com.  Or email me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

thanks.

Nobody gets it….
This whole war couldn’t be screwed up worse unless we were doing it intentionally?????
Yes, to destabilize the middle east was the goal from the begining for the,“Project for a New American Century”.
Ask yourself this…. Is there any possible way that we could have screwed the war in Iraq up more unless we intended to and not do other things intentionally?
By the way, they all make out in the end…
Oil companies get to have higher prices.
War companies get to sell more product.
The American Government gets to pit Arab people’s against eachother for ethnic cleansing.
The Middle East is set back by destabilization.
Governmental contractors dealing with terrorism issues gain too because terrorism will be on the rise.

The people that dont make out?
The US citizens because terrorism raises.
The American People because fuel prices go up on home heating oil and vehicle oil.
The American People because their children and brothers and sisters are stuck in Iraq.
The American People because goods and services go up with fuel costs.
Overall, they get to keep American’s guessing and unstable too, so they cant focus on the screwing they are getting here at home.

It’s a master plan and nobody knows or cares…

Remember, Bush made the statement about the lesson of the Vietnam War was that we should not have quit IN FRONT OF THE VICTORS! He was telling his hosts that he wishes that they had lost and would not be in power.  Our Boy King is truely amazing.

If McCain was elected next president, he’ll move the White House to “Hanoi Hilton”.

CMK. What the hell are you talking about. We were never in an ARMs race with China or Vietnam. Changes taking place in those countries are due to internal dynamics and have nothing to do with St. Ronnie. The only things we should give Ronnie credit for is almost bankrupting the economy, betraying America with his “October surpise” with Iran, illigally arming a terrorist group the contras, flooding America with Crack cocaine in the process and of course giving Osama his start in the business. It sickens me that he died in his bed instead of in a jail where he belonged.

Zenseeker:

You copied that entire gallery whole cloth from snopes.com Shame on you.

Even if Bushco were impeached and sent to the Hague, tried and sentenced to long prison terms or hangings, they still wouldn’t get it. Look into any of their button eyes and you realize there’s nothing in there. Nothing but a mindset that will not be changed no matter what.

joe—
    you’ve behaved cowardly when it comes to addressing the issue of unanswered questions related to 9/11.  mock bush all you want.  it does no good if you’re not really wiling to take him on. daniel ellsberg thinks there was american involvement and deciet at the highest levels.  were have we heard that before?  time to call these people out for their crimes.  we need you, joe.

Both Bush McCain were silver spoon youth-one who avoided the draft through family influence and then failed to fulfill his National Guard obligation with reprecussion fear; the other crashed aircraft Naval flight training,but was “graduated” since his father was an Admiral.

Sen. McCain admitted giving information to the North Vietnamese and accepted other “perks” as well, such as a special surgeon to operate in his limb injury while other POWs suffered. He has often disrespectual towrards POW families Vietnam Vets here in Arizona and initially refused to acknowledge any difficulties encountered by either group.

So,is it any surprise these two view Iraq with jaded vision?  Both have numerous demons pursuing refuse to recognize their own issues.The Vietnamese are still “gooks,” as he stated publicly and the President is sadly lacking in the basic knowledge of the war much less Middle Eastern history.

The best bet is to simply send both of them with Cheney and Rumsfeld to Iraq to gain reak war experience through house to house fighting and hugging a foxhole,

Great article Joe.  This administration will take whatever situation they are faced with and spin it to their perceived advantage.  Unfortunately or fortunately depends how you look at it, they are so twisted that their perceived advantage is so ridiculous, farfetched and filled with gaps in logic, that most of us just shake our heads and say: “What idiots.”  Soon they will spin it that the end result of Vietnam and its future was what they had in mind and planned out all along.  Their thinking goes deep they will tell you….kidding aside, this type of mentality and delusion is potentially so volatile that it is a good thing we are keeping them constantly in check.
Try out my Bush’s Hall of Shame with over a hundred media and caricatures of Bush.  Also try my Slapping Hall of Shame for slap games like Slap the Heck out of Bush.
Take care and keep up the good fight.

This one we can give Reagan come credit. Look at China and Nam we beat them by out spending them militarly. Now they got A free market economy and real freedom is slowly getting a hand hold. the only way we can get out of Iraq is to get religion out of the ?. If we can figure out that problem we might have A chance there.

Joe said,

Both Bush and McCain still believe that we should be willing to accept and inflict more casualties in Iraq—so perhaps they should also be asked how long that war should continue, and what price in lives and dollars would still be consistent with “victory.”

“perhaps”, my ass!

I want to know!!!

NONE.

“what price in lives and dollars would still be consistent with “victory.”

Let’s face facts from this lying administration and chronic liar of a president: the cost of lives, in their eyes means nothing to them.

The only thing they are concerned with… the only reason they’re in Iraq and want to stay there forever…is the profits they’re making every second we’re there.

When these liars talk about Iraq, it boggles the mind that people believe anything they say. Believe instead what is happening to the money.

I read recently that our vice president (accent on ‘vice’) made over $8 million in profits from his conflict-of-interest Halliburton connection this year alone vs. something like $350,000 he made last year.

I’ve read a year or two ago how something like $18 billion that went to Iraq and Halliburton mysteriously ‘disappeared’. And it wasn’t the first or last time this has happened.

It’s all about the money and a group of greedy, immoral war profiteers.

It’s all about ‘staying the course’ so these scumbags can ‘line their pockets’ with the blood money of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens.

It’s why we’re there. It’s why 9/11 happened. It’s why we need to talk about not just impeachment but imprisonment.

And just think, if Joe Conason and the rest of the pundits hadn’t wilfully ignored the 200,000 or so of us who turned the east side of Manhattan into gridlock protesting the ill-advised war on February 15, 2003, none of this would have happened.

Bush is a complete bafoon.the only problem seems to be that our cowerdly congress and populace are foolish enough to let him get away with making us all look like warmongering bastards. he needs to be first impeached,then sent to the hague for a formal trial like saddam recieved,then publicly hanged for all the world to see how international war criminals are delt with by the world community.

Thankyou Joe for including MaCain in your article.  Please continue to do so as he is as dangerous and vacuous as “W”