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Illustrations: Actually, they are the reason for this edition. Our illustrator came up with a great version of the disgraced and outcast Gonzo after I jumped the gun and posted his letter of resignation, so here is the actual picture of him resigning. Also, he keeps updating the neo-con shooting gallery and I’ve posted that too. See how many of the “crazies” (as George Bush Sr. called them) are left standing and how many of the departed can you identify?
Meanwhile, Republic Senator Larry Craig, of Idaho, one of the Foley wing of the party, I guess, called a press conference and announced “I AM NOT GAY! I HAVE NEVER BEEN GAY!” I must agree that in the conference he looked morose, not gay.
Just in: Poison nerve gas was found at the United Nations in New York today. Nope, it was brought here in 1996 by the inspectors. Bad accounting was blamed for the incident. Well, then, we need an Anti-Bad-Accounting Act passed. Anyone suspected of bad accounting can be locked up without a warrant, lawyer, or trial.
Lest we forget, the Decided plans to ask for another 50 billion to continue in Iraq. This will bring the price to a billion dollars a week. We can’t afford Universal Health Care?
Below is an article by Robert Fisk, the most reliable correspondent of the subject of the mideast. He writes for the Independent, but they now charge for his articles, so we have to wait for them to be a week or so old. There is a woman columnist at the NY Times I used to read and they started charging for that as well. I wish I remembered her name. She is funny, Irish, and love to attack Bush.
*ZNet | Iraq*
*The Iraqis Don't Deserve Us, So We Betray Them*
*by Robert Fisk; Independent UK
Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The
French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN
victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals
before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the
Americans demanded democracy and, one by one -- after praising
the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns
and villages -- they destroyed the elected prime ministers
because they were not abiding by American orders.
Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our
sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing
what we want them to do.
Does that remind you of a Palestinian organization called Hamas?
First, the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated
for Washington the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty
bank fraud charge on his back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a
Vietnam-style spook who admitted working for 26 intelligence
organizations, including the CIA and MI6. Then came Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the Americans loved,
supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his act
together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans
wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government -- a
never-never land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone -- lay
next to the largest US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim.
Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do
business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and
the rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee -- and, be
sure, George W Bush -- decided he couldn't fulfill America's
wishes. He couldn't get the army together, couldn't pull the
police into shape, an odd demand when US military forces were
funding and arming some of the most brutal Sunni militias in
Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran.
There you have it. We overthrew Saddam's Sunni minority and the
Iraqis elected the Shias into power, and all those old Iranian
acolytes who had grown up under the Islamic Revolution in exile
from the Iraq-Iran war -- Jaafari was a senior member of the
Islamic Dawaa party which was enthusiastically seizing Western
hostages in Beirut in the 1980s and trying to blow up our friend
the Emir of Kuwait -- were voted into power. So blame the
Iranians for their "interference" in Iraq when Iran's own
creatures had been voted into power.
And now, get rid of Maliki. Chap doesn't know how to unify his
own people, for God's sake. No interference, of course. It's up
to the Iraqis, or at least, it's up to the Iraqis who live under
American protection in the green zone. The word in the Middle
East -- where the "plot" (al-moammarer) has the power of reality
-- is that Maliki's cozy trips to Tehran and Damascus these past
two weeks have been the final straw for the fantasists in
Washington. Because Iran and Syria are part of the axis of evil
or the cradle of evil or whatever nonsense Bush and his cohorts
and the Israelis dream up, take a look at the $30bn in arms
heading to Israel in the next decade in the cause of "peace."
Maliki's state visits to the crazed Ahmedinejad and the much
more serious Bashar al-Assad appear to be, in Henry VIII's
words, "treachery, treachery, treachery." But Maliki is showing
loyalty to his former Iranian masters and their Syrian Alawite
allies (the Alawites being an interesting satellite of the Shias).
These creatures -- let us use the right word -- belong to us and
thus we can step on them when we wish. We will not learn -- we
will never learn, it seems -- the key to Iraq. The majority of
the people are Muslim Shias. The majority of their leaders,
including the "fiery" Muqtada al-Sadr were trained, nurtured,
weaned, loved, taught in Iran. And now, suddenly, we hate them.
The Iraqis do not deserve us. This is to be the grit on the sand
that will give our tanks traction to leave Iraq. Bring on the
clowns! Maybe they can help us too.
