I am personally very sorry.

I do sincerely appreciate your efforts..

In Middle East; it is more bondages and more slavery

With the end of World war II the Western Colonial powers were compelled to withdraw from foreign lands and some 40 countries of the Word, mainly around Middle East were liberated. But the power Brokers, the old subjugator and oppressors were able to do one thing; a clever demarcation of lands; to make sure that they were able to revisit the land of black gold and economic resources in the future.

The lands so demarcated were bestowed to the Monarch and kings of the area installed to be governed with one prime theme; “Monarch and Kings in the Middle East to act as the Bobbies on the beat, policing the streets of Middle East; with their police Head Quarters in Washington”. Since then these Monarch and kings are acting as stooges, a show pieces, where as people are fixed in slavery and bondages!

Where as the old master is again seen, bent upon revisiting the old trails; but here more than half a century has passed by but that very sun has yet to shine in the court yards of Middle east which may bring back the peace, dignity and prosperity in the lives of people.

The present day oppressors in the Middle East may change their flags or the faces; but one thing is certain that they are now there to stay for many more decades to come.

For Middle Eastern the matter to understand would be that miracles may not take place in slavery and bondage!

But a man; may he be from any age, century, trail or a creed!
When ever he has risen; he rose to the call of his inner self; of his Inner Conscious.
------------------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for None.

“What, me worry?”

(Petreaus sure looks like Mad’s Alfred E.)

Thank you Louise for posting the sad story of Ted Westhusing. Because this story was never reported in the mainstream media I occasionally read, I wouldn’t have ever heard about it if it was’nt for your post.

From reading the story, one thing is clear: A courageous man like Ted Westhusing would not commit suicide. He was murdered by those who stood to lose due to his whistle-blowing. And I am sure, in this sad long quagmire we call Iraq, many many more sad stories similar to that of Westhusing were repeated, but never reported; the secrets of which were buried with the victims’ bodies.

The most tragic part of evil wars is not in the stories of deaths and destruction we come to learn their details, but rather in the stories of death and destruction that remain a mystery. It’s the families of those last group that mostly need our sincerest sympathy.

Any general who would have his troops die for opportunists is a sleaze bag, a puppet of the president he works for, no surprise here.  A sad story, under despicable circumstances, to be ignored by the mass media, for they are part of the same thing the Col found despicable, the opportunists.

No reason for him to commit suicide, seems his demise was relevant only to the money hungry.

Why the letter?

And then there is the suicide.
Who keeps track of that?

And the corruption.
Who keeps track of that?

And the lies, endless lies contrived and delivered for personal gain. Lies that lead to corruption. Corruption that leads to more lies.

And the hidden casualties.

Moral men destroyed by the amoral men that command and lead them.

Who keeps track of that?

“Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing”

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2440
http://www.unknownnews.org/0512021127Westhusing.html

In January 2005, Col. Ted Westhusing began work on what the Pentagon considered the most important mission in Iraq: training Iraqi forces to take over security duties from U.S. troops.

His formal title was director, counter terrorism/special operations, Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. He liked working with his Iraqi counterparts and seemed to get along well with the contractors from Virginia-based U.S. Investigations Services [USIS], a private security company with contracts worth $79 million to help train Iraqi police units that were conducting special operations.

A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that USIS had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations.
http://usis.com/default.aspx

Allegations in the complaint accused USIS of fraud and murder of Iraqi’s.

Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the complaints to superiors Gen. Joseph Fil and Gen. David Petraeus, who launched an investigation.

In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.

U.S. officials investigated and found “no contractual violations,” an Army spokesman said.

But the following circumstances lead one to wonder, did Westhusing uncover something Fil and Petraeus prefer to leave covered? And did his continued digging lead to his being put in danger?

One thing for sure. What he found out - and because of the contempt and disgust he felt from whatever he discovered - he was ready to throw away a lifetime career of success in the military, and a brilliant future!

Perhaps by ending his own life. Or perhaps by blowing the whistle when he returned home shortly.

We’ll never know, because his return home was aborted.

His wife recalled a phone conversation that chilled her two weeks before his death.

“I heard something in his voice,” she told investigators. “In Ted’s voice, there was fear. He did not like the nighttime and being alone.”

“… on June 5, Westhusing had one meeting at Camp Dublin with the contractors and another with government personnel. At the second meeting he expressed his disgust with “money-grubbing contractors” and said he “had not come over to Iraq for this.” Westhusing was slated to leave Camp Dublin after lunch. When he did not show up for a meeting, one of the contractors went looking for him. At about 1:15 in the afternoon, Westhusing was discovered in trailer 602A. Near his body was a note addressed to his commanders, Petraeus and Fil. The first part of the four-page letter lashes out at Petraeus and Fil. Written in large, block letters, it read:

“Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]—You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. [sic] Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.
COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.”

“After Westhusing’s death, Some family members and friends began wondering if he had been murdered. Westhusing was supposed to leave for the U.S. on July 7. Yet he killed himself on June 5. Why, they asked, couldn’t he stick it out for just one more month?”

Westhusing’s family and friends are troubled that he died at Camp Dublin, where he was without a bodyguard, surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They wonder why the manager who discovered Westhusing’s body and picked up his weapon was not tested for gunpowder residue.

There were conflicting stories from the contractors about how they discovered Westhusing’s body. [o]ne of the first people to find Westhusing in his room, a military contractor, moved Westhusing’s pistol from its original position, claiming he had done so for safety reasons. That person was never checked for gunpowder residue.”

Mostly, they wonder how Col. Ted Westhusing—father, husband, son and expert on doing right—could have found himself in a place so dark that he saw no light.

“He’s the last person who would commit suicide,” said Fichtelberg, his graduate school colleague. “He couldn’t have done it. He’s just too damn stubborn.”

Westhusing’s body was flown back to Dover Air Force Base. Waiting were his family and a close friend from West Point, a lieutenant colonel.

In the military report, the unidentified colonel told investigators that he had turned to Michelle, Westhusing’s wife, and asked what happened.

She answered:  “Iraq.”

Fil is now the commanding general of the Multinational Division in Baghdad and of the 1st Cavalry Division. On February 12, Petraeus took command of all U.S. forces in Iraq. He now wears four stars. And as in 2005, Petraeus’s main job in Iraq will be building up beleaguered police and military. He made that point clear in a open letter to U.S. soldiers and civilians serving in Iraq, which he had distributed on the day he took command. His letter declared that, “Shoulder-to-shoulder with our Iraqi comrades, we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the Iraqi people. Together with our Iraqi partners, we must defeat those who oppose the new Iraq.”

In re-reading the “note” it can be viewed as a rough draft for a letter of resignation. Did a “contractor” confronting him see his resignation as a threat of exposure? And a convenient “suicide” note?

How many Iraq stories do we never hear?

Last week we saw Petraeus in action. Like the child building a castle out of blocks, he finds great personal satisfaction in his growing structure. But he does not know where it will end, or what it will look like, or even when he will be through. He’s just enjoying the praise heaped on him from other children in the group, who have all relinquished their blocks so the castle can continue growing. But make no mistake. Whatever the General says or does, the ultimate reward will be whatever is in it for him. And as long as he has a president who gives him carte blanche, he will say and do whatever feeds his personal machine. And hang the cost!

For a man like Bush, he is the perfect general. And for Bush and all the Bush-men, the cost, both in lives lost, or destroyed, and money lost or wasted is irrelevant. Just so long as they get THERE’S. And that is the real story behind Petraeus and Iraq.

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2440
http://www.unknownnews.org/0512021127Westhusing.html

I Like your analogies, the only thing is none of the people I know are in support of the war and bigger bombs.  Now if we moved over to the Hillary Obama thread, most of them seem not to want to talk about the war, guess I am armed with an analogy and no-place to use it. 

Both candidates have sold us down the river on the war issue, being abandoned by our so called leaders is normal, but the blatant criminal practices by Bush and company being ignored is beyond reality.

Wave the flag watch fox the news and smile.

As many times as we say it and as many debates as are held some people just don’t GET IT!  I came upon this article as I was roaming around.  From the Scholars and Rogues site by Lee Camps:

“Recently I was arguing with one of my dumber friends about the Iraq war. He loves Bush and thinks bigger bombs is the answer in Iraq. I wasn’t gaining any ground in the argument until I used a simple analogy. I said, “Your solution is like shattering an expensive vase and then saying, ‘We need to keep smashing it until it’s fixed.’”

I stumped him. He was silent. So here’s a brief list of other analogies you can use on your dumb friends. And the truth is, I’ve seen similar ones work on some of the smartest political pundits.

1) The country of Iraq has essentially been demolished. The right-wingers keep saying the answer is continued large-scale military action. That’s like if someone got into a car accident, went into a coma, and the doctors believed the patient could be healed by more car accidents. So they just keep putting him into cars and sending him off cliffs.”

Full Article:  http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/04/10/how-to-win -the-iraq-war-debate-against-your-dumb-friends/#more-1908

Yeah, we’re not very good listeners most of the time.  Washington told us to be wary of political parties...and look how that turned out.

I read, not long ago, that the Highway program under Ike was actually him stealing money from the defense budget.  He rationalized it by claiming that the road network was necessary for defense.

They will not listen because they do not fear the American people.  Instead, the American people fear their leaders.

The founders of our nation would be disgusted with us.

Read someplace the Ike said the Military complex needed to be watched and kept in check.  Well we watched but did not check. The only thing balancing is the Military check books.

This is the dead end where “National Greatness” conservatism leaves us: mired in foreign entanglements from which there is no exit, our treasury being depleted for nothing, our freedoms at home eroded and discarded on the excuse of keeping us safe from “terrorists” (another word for “those who resist our foreign adventures").

Unfortunately, both Democrat and Republican leaders buy into this “National Greatness” claptrap. Almost all of them believe in one hundred percent, unquestioning loyalty to Israel. Almost all of them want to continue our 60-year presence in Germany and Japan, our 50-year presence in Korea, and a permanent presence everywhere else. Folks, it cannot be done if we value our freedom and our prosperity. These so-called “leaders” are psychotic megalomaniacs.

John McCain is the perfect embodiment of this megalomania: he is foul-mouthed, petulant, temperamental, delusional, and uninformed. This last is particularly critical: a man who keeps confusing Shi’ites, Sunnis, Al-Qaeda, and Sadrists claims to be competent to referee a civil war in Iraq, on the far side of the globe. What sheer imperial chutzpah! 

The American people, however, are not so sure about all this “National Greatness” stuff. They would, given the choice, prefer a foreign policy based on non-intervention, peace, and trade. Their “leaders” will not hear of it.

Lefty, though you seem to come out strongly against Bush and gang, but in fact you’re the one closest to their thinking in your state of denial about Israel’s control of the politics of America. This is now a universal fact that the American congress and the White House are an Israeli-occupied territory.

It’s indeed your state of denial and lack of basic comprehension that should be called psychopathic.

They the naysayers, think and judge others as themselves and believe Iran will become more powerful in the region and Iran is bad, according to the moron axis of evil.

Greg Bacon, thank you for posting this great informative piece. Many among us knew that Kristol was one of the main architects and promoters of war against Arab-Muslim lands on behalf of Israel. And despite of that you will find the blind, ignorant ones, like Lefty, who will rather continue to be in a state of denial about what are now clearly universal facts. Your piece helped in affirming and confirming these facts, therefore, all lovers of the truth should thank you for your efforts.

. Hiding behind Army Gen. David Petraeus’s medals and uniform, President Bush sent his proxy to Capitol Hill to repeat the administration’s threadbare mantras yet another time.

Just six days earlier, however, a different high-ranking U.S. military officer spoke to the senators – Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, now retired. “The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims,” his testimony began.

“The decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves,” Odom explained. “Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

“This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications.”

Persuading the Sunnis not to shoot at U.S. troops comes at a high financial toll. “ . . . Our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty,” Odom pointed out. “I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost of in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased.”

In other words, the short-sighted tactic of paying one faction not to shoot at U.S. troops is setting Iraq up for long-term fighting between multiple factions by giving one side the funds needed to buy arms and pay militia members.

Odom also made hash of claims that Al Qaeda will have a staging area in Iraq for further attacks against the United States if we withdraw our entire military presence.

“The Sunnis will soon destroy Al Qaeda if we leave Iraq,” Odom said. “The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest Al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the Al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on Internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.

“As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of Congress are aligned with Al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.”

That should give all of us pause. Odom’s entire testimony is 180 degrees opposite of what we keep hearing from clueless pundits on all sides and nightly news broadcasts.

So what do we do now? As a first step, Odom urged withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. troops rapidly but in good order. “Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping U.S. strategy in the region,” he said.

Next, he advised the senators, is to establish a new aim of regional stability, “not a meaningless victory in Iraq.” To make progress toward that stability, however, the United States must alter its approach to Iran.

“If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support of Taliban groups in Afghanistan,” Odom pointed out. “Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a U.S. attack on Iran.

“Iran’s policy toward Iraq would have to change radically as we withdraw,” Odom continued. “It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.”

Odom concluded: “Naysayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a U.S. withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.”

Lefty, You meant to say president and friends.

So like Goldilocks.

Firing how many generals and military leaders to find the perfect, “yes man cronie, oh, such exhausting work for the Bush, now we know why Bush finds it necessary to spend so much time relaxing on the Ranch. All this time I thought he was just counting his money.

Considering that Al Qaeada are ALREADY being paid indirectly by the USA, why wouldn’t thye help???? Osama bin Laden is long dead anyway...... Benazir Bhutto said so.... and was murdered for her trouble!

....and they BOMB Christians in Lebanon!!!!! What, you though that Arabs weren’t Christians???

Weel, Russian and European Jews AREN’T Semites, either........

Duh, Israel ISN’T Christian, bachu!!!!!!! They don’t give a fuck.....

Who was it who started all this with the bombing of Belgrade ......and the bombing of the Chinese embassy there??? ....... oh, never mind, uhh!

^ good.  Everyone agrees in their own way to the dire straits that lay ahead.  I remain perplexed and depressed by our national state of somnolence.  But I see the real question as; what will it take to awaken the sleeper (us)?  My fear is there is no real answer to this question.  Petraeus and Crocker have been called a dog and pony show (rightfully so), but this has been going on for almost 8 years with all of the player (actors) of the last two administrations and we just sit and watch it.  If it was a TV show surely you would have switched channels by now.

Isn’t it amazing how Israel, (a country with little wealth, no natural resources and certainly not $12 trillion in proven oil reserves like Saudi Arabia), and Jews, can exercise so much power and influence over so many Christians who hate Jews!  It doesn’t make any sense!  In fact, the very idea appears to be downright psychopathic!

How did such a pathetic, corrupt, maliable, weakling become a general?  What a disgrace!

He can lead the way for the conservanazi failure in it’s War on Iraq. Let it drag on until the US military is crippled. Let it drag on until the US economy can’t support it. By that time, most Americans will realize that the lies from the conservanazi republicants has brought on all the misery this country has suffered. When the US Army is in tatters for lack of new war machines or material, remind them that they backed the bu$h regime. When officers and other supporters of bu$h whine about long, hard repeated combat tours in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, remind them they had a choice and that was to believe the bu$hit or not. They chose to believe it and thought the greatest politicians were the conservanazis.

THAT IS THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THE IRAQ QUAGMIRE. CATASTROPHIC FAILURE AND COLLAPSE OF THE US ARMY. MILITARY OFFICERS SHOULD BE REMINDED THAT THEY SHOULD BE APOLITICAL. THEY LOVE bu$h. THEY DESERVE EACH OTHER.

Obviously, the truth hasn’t helped at all.

Then, the conservanazis will think it was a long dry spell of power since the Great Depression. They will be relegated to the trash heap of great conservanazi ideas like THE PNAC crowd of chickenhawks.
BUCK FUSH!

got it...sorry for making you chase

Indeed, we could leave almost immediately (as immediately as logistics allow).  But there really are serious issues with just pulling the plug.

As bad and stupid as it was to go barreling into Iraq, leaving it broken would be just as bad...or maybe worse.  On the other hand, we - singlehandedly - can no longer fix it...though i don’t think that establishing “democracy” or fixing it is of any concern to the neocon imperialists.

I agree that nothing’s going to change with a new president.  At least not without a very clear ultimatum from the American people that it must end.

Thank You very much, Purple Girl......and to your eloquence I add:

peace |pēs|
noun
freedom from, or the cessation of, war or violence..

nonviolence |nänˈvīələns|
noun
the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change..

I am thinking now of Gandhi....
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,” he asked, “whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

When asked what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea.”

Without high Ideals toward which we daily work, we humans remain tragically bereft of true meaning in life....We, ourselves, must tame our own wildness through striving mightily, conscientiously, and enthusiastically toward our Ideals.....

Strive On.

That son?  William Kristol, preeminent chickenhawk, war monger and one of the forces behind the “Project for the New American Century"(PNAC), the REAL roadmap being used in the ME, not for peace, but used to wage endless wars against Israel’s “existential” enemies.

A war fought by American kids, for the greater glory of Israel.

PNAC stated that American’s would not get behind endless wars, unless, there was some kind of event, like a new Pearl Harbor.

From Wikipedia, here’s that statement:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor” (51)

And that new Pearl Harbor came on September 11, 2001, giving chickenhawks and war mongers like Kristol the excuse they’d been dreaming of--if not planning for--to help shove the U.S. into fighting endless wars in the ME.

Kristol and his fellow travelers saw 9/11 not as a tragedy, but as an opportunity to push America into Israel’s conflicts.

Kristol and his fellow neoCONs hijacked 9/11 and used it to help Israel fight its wars.

An Israel that would eventually include all of Occupied Palestine and Lebanon, and large chunks of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
Plus, parts of Turkey and Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

That’s our war on terror.  A war in which Israel uses the armed might of the U.S. to terrorize those nations into becoming part and parcel of Israel.

Kristol and his deranged band of war mongers now want the U.S. to bomb and or invade another of Israel’s enemies, Iran.

This morning, there are news stories from London, to New York, to Tel Aviv, showing a purported Iranian launch site for long range ICBM’s. A site that was just recently found.

Recently found?

If you believe that, i’ve got some yellow cake to sell you.

That Kristol is a fifth columnist for a foreign power is evident in the way he spews his foreign intrigues and agitprop all over the media.

Listen to what this Brainiac had to say about invading Iraq on February 20, 2003, Mr. Kristol incredibly gushed:

“If we free the people of Iraq, we will be respected in the Arab world.”

WTF?

Here, i’ll leave you with an exchange Billy boy had with Stephen Colbert of the “Colbert Report” about PNAC:

Colbert shakes up Bill Kristol over PNAC ties

Crooks and Liars | April 29 2006

Bill Kristol, who is one of the major players in the group called PNAC, joined the set of the “Colbert Report,” and I think was taken off guard right at the outset of the show because he had to answer questions that our media never asks. PNAC envisioned America attacking the Middle East since the middle ‘90’s and for some inexplicable reason (that was a joke) the media never questions him or his members which have lined the walls of Bush’s cabinet about PNAC and how it influenced our foreign policy, which led us to attack Iraq.

Colbert immediately called him on it and Kristol was quite embarrassed talking about it.

Kristol (responds timidly): Well, we fought back after 9/11..

if it were not for that damned oil, we’d leave Iraq in a trice, or maybe even a twice (two thirds of a trice).

If we could take the oil with us, we’d be gone in a heartbeat or a Noo Yawk minute.

Still . . . we MIGHT JUST GET MAD at the Iraqis for behaving so badly, and go steal our oil someplace else like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait and the Emirates or all of the above . . .

I wouldn’t like that to happen to nice people like the Iraqis, I mean the USA burning and destroying their oil wells and blowing up their oilfields and taking its sojers out to some other country who has oil to steal.

As I have said elsewhere, this guy is on cloud 9 being the corporate whore that he is, which defines his reason for cooperating with the undefeatable w,dick & neocons prime time show. The match made in heaven. Can anyone believe that even with a change of parties in November election that the new occupiers of the white house and houses of congress will bring oversight and accountability to these criminals?  I would say ‘don’t hold your breath’.

I bet a million bucks that, if there were any interest in getting out of Iraq within a few months, we’d be out of there, with the Iraqis and al Qaida helping to load the trucks, planes and ships.

Who the hell do they think they’re kidding, yet again?

The neocons don’t want to get out; that’s why we’re being told that we can’t leave.  I’m on to those bastards.

It’s a fucking military/Bush pride thing.  How do you explain to the maimed and the families of killed that we’re turning tail?  You don’t.  You say, “Our best estimate is, if all goes according to well thought-out planning and barring any unforeseen hostilities over the next several months, provided we have the support of blah, blah, yada yada...” And then you stay there forever and get on with your imperialistic agenda. 

Does anyone think for one second that a new president is going to change the way America does business in the rest of the world? 

Even if Nader got elected, he’d be powerless.

The most significant issue in Asia currently is NOT eithr Iraq or Tibet but the price of FOOD!!! Rice, an Asia-wide staple, has more thn doubled in price recently. Wheat is the same and other foods are becoming expensive.........

World bank president Robet Zoellick and British PM Gordon Brown.... VIDEO

Lack of logic, or evan a little taste of reality, the whole Iraq shambles is nothing but bad decisions given strokes instead of a boot.  Now that withdrawal is off the table, the Democrats and the Republicans both should be booted out of office, at least the ones who voted to go to war.  Handing over the presidency to someone who voted to go to war makes about as much sense as presenting awards to Cronies on the Bush pay roll for doing a great job.

Even given the far fetched idea that Bush and Cheney did not know they were lying, The whole Iraq war or the so called War on Terror was so poorly planed and mishandled even some misanthropic company like Enron would fire them.  Given all the water that has gone under the bridge, the fact that we are still jacking around in this war of simple simon says, is beyond common sense.  Failures seem to be ignored and even rewarded in the palaces of the elite, we have seen this over and over again, it will not change.

Now the question why the mass media has turned a blind eye to the war, one only has to look at who owns the mass media, it is not the people. “so”

^ over this site.  I’ve PM’d you; check your private messages.  My rant thread disappeared very quickly and I had also responded there as well.

The Dem candidates are preparing the ground for telling the people who voted for them, “Well, actually...and i’m, um, sorry...we can’t withdraw from Iraq.”

And unfortunately, we can’t.  Our only hope is to use amounts of diplomacy that we haven’t seen since WW II, in order to get a large, and truly international, peacekeeping force on the ground.  In that case we could withdraw...and such a scenario may now be our only option for political stabilization.

I don’t see that happening…

This is why the initial authorization vote was so much more important than voting for continued funding.  Once you put yourself in a situation that is almost impossible to get out of, it’s, well, almost impossible to get out.  This very scenario should have been debated in the Senate at length; we invaded/occupied based on nothing but best case scenarios...that’s trouble in love and war.

Those of US who never wanted Boots on the Ground in Afghanistan want Immediate withdrawl. those of US who knew our Presence in the Region was the REASON for 9/11 want an Immediate Withdrawl. Those of US who realize our Nations guiding Doctrines and Principles have been Seized want our Military back immediately to help Protect & defend US against ‘Domestic Enemies’. Those of US who Demanded that we find alternative energy Sources in the ‘70’s want an immediate withdrawl.Thsoe of US who KNOW that this War is about Oil and the Profits it generates for the Elites of this Country and the oppressive Regimes in the ME want an immediate Withdrawl.Those of US who Know there are numerous better ways to handle ‘terroism’ want an immmediate withdrawl. those of US who know more harm has come to the poeple of those Countries since the invasion want an immediate withdrawl.Those of US who’ve been conscious (conscience) Want an immediate Withdrawl!

No surprise that the media supports the war, the same folks own the media that own the politicians, lobbyists, and ‘think tank experts’ that instigated the war.