CrimQuips
CrimQuips 7/25/03 Friday, July 25, 2003
Commentary by Barry Crimmins
http://www.barrycrimmins.com "If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, demonstrating absolutely no sense of the ironic foreshadowing he was providing for the 2004 presidential race.
***
If Uday and Qusay Hussein really were slain by American forces:
1- Good riddance.
2- However, they were not killed with magic bullets that will make us forget all of the deceit and arrogance that the Court-appointed Bush administration employed to justify the attack on Iraq.
3- Their deaths are likely to galvanize radical Muslim resolve to step up its support and participation in the growing Iraqi guerilla war that is costing so many lives. Particularly if the Bushists continue to tell us that the killings are the beginning of the end of resistance to the occupation.
***
Considering how the Republican Party is so cavalier about deploying state and federal officers to hound Democratic legislators, it seems imprudent for Bush to use the term "henchmen" as a pejorative when he speaks of Saddam's slain sons.
But then I suppose hunting down and massacring two corrupt, malicious and politically active sons of a former head of state represent an even more dangerous precedent for W. than does the use of the term "henchmen." I'm not saying that Uday and Qusay weren't the guys in those pictures; I'm just saying that I could have just as easily believed that those photos were lifted from Vince McMahon's rogues gallery of wrestlers.
The killing of the Hussein boys violated the US government's ban on political assassinations as well as its nix on displaying photographs or video of war dead. A Pentagon spokesperson said, "We would have liked to have broken some other rules but things happened so quickly we had to settle for shattering those two. "
The New York Times said that the deaths of the Hussein boys "could be important step in the campaign to control and end the guerrilla-style insurgency." This comes as great solace to the families and friends of the American soldiers who have been killed since the Hussein killings.
The long-term result of Bush's lies about al Qaeda activity in Iraq is that many elements of the terrorist organization have been attracted to participate in guerilla warfare in the now-occupied nation. Had Uday and Qusay Hussein been taken alive they could have answered a lot of questions --which probably explains why they weren't taken alive.
Bringing the Hussein boys to trial would have required some semblance of a working government in Iraq -- thereby pointing up yet another area in which Bush had no contingency plans for post-invasion Iraq.
Of course the Iraqi people aren't that worried about justice --at least not until they get enough water, food, health care and electricity to allow them time to contemplate such luxuries.
Bush can't even get OIL to the Iraqi people. Before this occupation is over we should fully expect a SAND shortage as well. Many Iraqis are upset with the United States over the moribund state of the occupied nation's economy. If they keep griping Bush may send them to Detroit.
It was pretty patriotic of W to cough up $30 mil for the bounty on Saddam's boys at a time when he really needed the money for his own legal defense fund. Why do I suspect that at least a portion of the bounty is already in Karl Rove's safe?
Darrell Issa, the congressman/ car thief/ car alarm manufacturer, who has financed the recall campaign against California Governor Gray Davis, admits he has an IQ of around 100. If this hokey charlatan is able to reverse Davis' lopsided electoral victory last November, it will mean that he is smarter than most Californians.
If Davis is smart he'll turn the vote into ballot initiative on noise pollution. Everyone who likes car alarms should vote for Darrell Issa's recall. Everyone who hates being awakened by SUV's that electronically announce each falling leaf should vote to retain the governor.
Perhaps if he succeeds in stealing the democratic will of California voters, Issa will once again switch sides (as he did when he went from car thief to car alarm salesman) and employ his criminal background to develop a poll alarm.
Here's how the poll alarm would work: Just the slightest jiggle of a ballot box and an eardrum piercing alarm will commence, occasionally augmented with a recorded announcement that blares, "Please step away from the will of the people, Mr Republican! " The American military is too damned provocative a presence to send to somewhere like Monrovia. Instead, America should send massive amounts of humanitarian aid as well as contribute greatly to the funds necessary to provide an international peacekeeping force to stabilize Liberia.
Face the facts -- Bush has made the term "American peacekeepers" oxymoronic anyway.
Israeli police shot two unarmed Arabs on Tuesday, killing one and wounding the other. As a show of its newly liberalized policies the Israeli government promised to release the cadaver after only the very briefest of interrogations.
I particularly enjoyed reading about how how one great American patriot sold Confederate flags at the parade in Jessica Lynch's honor. Lynch is America's first soldier to be awarded a bronze star for getting injured in a motor vehicle accident. I just hope the flag hawker doesn't get into trouble with Kaiser Ashcroft who considers West Virginia as part of his exclusive territory for pro-Slave State paraphernalia .
Clearly the Confederate flag hawker didn't realize why WEST Virginia came into existence in the first place.
Imagine that! An ignoramus with a Confederate flag! (And please spare me e-mails about the difference between the battle flag and regular flag for the Slave States. The Stars and Bars have become the de facto banner of that hateful and losing cause.) The shifting Iraq/Niger nuke fib is like that movie where the alien takes over various people's bodies and when that guy gets cornered it leaves its husk behind and occupies another entity.
Even though the Court-appointed Bush administration assiduously maintained that the inclusion of the nuclear lie in W's State of the Union address was due to a CIA editing snafu, we have now been tossed the first sacrificial lamb from within the White House. If last week's alibi was truthful, why throw us Condi Rice's assistant to take the blame this week?
Judging by how this thing is progressing, Ms. Rice might be well advised to refrain from signing any long-term leases in greater Washington D.C.
It's unfortunate for Bush that so many people remember the State of the Union lie because it was indelibly etched into their memories by his continued inability to properly pronounce the word "nuclear."
It's not really a quagmire in Iraq. It's just that the Court-appointed Bush Administration enjoys reenacting the Vietnam War in its spare time. Let's hope the Bushists have fun reenacting Watergate as well.
What the Democrats need to reenact is the 1992 presidential election.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, it would appear that Hillary does have designs on the 2008 Dem nomination or why would the last elected president defend Bush over the obvious lies W told to foment war in Iraq?
With all due respect, Bill, the current Democratic field should discard your advice and NOT burn their trump card. A Congressional report says the 9/11 attacks were preventable but happened anyway because of communications lapses between the F.B.I. and C.I.A. Unfortunately, right when the organizations should have been sharing crucial terrorist information all of the best people at the CIA were busy writing the first draft of Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, while all the top agents at the FBI were tied up developing a list potential scapegoats in case any of a myriad of Bush failures came to light.
In an effort to convince investors that Lucent Technologies isn't really in a death spiral, CEO Patricia Russo said the company's continued losses are only a "speed bump" on the path back to profitability. She neglected to mention how most of the thousands of speed bumps surrounding Lucent headquarters are actually the unmarked graves of former employees.
Wouldn't "Sun Microprofits" be a better name for that company?
Now that attorney Lynne Stewart has been cleared of "providing material support to terrorists," (ostensibly because she represented an accused terrorist) let's hope the government focuses on more obvious national security dangers -- like the ties between the Bin Laden and Bush families. W has disregarded intelligence reports that North Korea may have begun producing plutonium at a second secret nuclear site because the court-appointed prez only trusts evidence when he has had a chance to fabricate it himself. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz returned exhausted from a Mideast fact-finding trip saying, "I'm used to manufacturing myths but actually finding facts is a lot of work. " The AmeriCorps Program that Bush talks so much about but his party refuses to fund, is being replaced by a new plan: The Americorpse Program. Upon completion, Americorpse will have raped the environment, torched the safety net, shredded the Bill of Rights and bankrupted our nation by attempting to enslave many others. Here's what I think about the Kobe Bryant case: it belongs in a courtroom. Everyone should shut up-- particularly with speculation about the alleged victim's motives. Bryant just bought his wife a $4 million diamond; he can afford a good defense without every sports fan in the world offering ill-informed amicus briefs to anyone who will listen.
And by the way, I could care less about how this case might impair Bryant's ability to foist overpriced sneakers upon kids nearly as poor as the sweatshop laborers that produce the footwear.
No Joke
A few months ago the issue of gay marriage seemed like a minefield for progressive candidates. That's changed now that vile bigots like Pat Robertson are publicly praying for the death and/or ill health of Supreme Court justices over the justices' recent support for the sane idea that consenting adults should be allowed to behave in any sexual manner they choose in the privacy of their own homes. This ludicrous outburst is just the latest intolerant expression from Republican morality zealots. They have pushed this issue and so the moment has arrived for candidates for public office to take a stand. These homophobes are people who have no moral qualms about bombing innocent men, women and children but become aghast at the idea of two adults expressing physical attraction for one another in private. Well the hell with them.
To me, marriage has always been like the military-- something that gays were spared of, if only due to prejudice. Considering all the torment and insults the gay community has suffered, I saw no need to fight to bring them into either of these questionable institutions. But with idiots like Rick Santorum and Bill Frist using their public offices to promote homophobic views at a time when we have so many serious problems confronting our nation, I say it's time that we bring this issue out of the closet once and for all. Gays and lesbians deserve equal rights and protections under the law and anyone who doesn't believe this should be forced to tell us otherwise. The more the issue is brought to a boil, the more impurities in the bigots' arguments will float to the top. Everyone who wants to sign on with scum like Pat Robertson should be forced to do so in a very public fashion. They should quote Robertson at a 2004 presidential debate and then ask the candidates if they are with him or against him. If nothing else this should succeed in burning down the Republican "Log Cabin Club" once and for all.
It will also do something else very important. It will make an electronic record of a savage bigotry that still engulfs our nation in the year 2003. Just as we look back in shock at the comments of segregationist politicians from just a few decades back, so will we look at the comments of the Robertsons, Santorums and Frists in the future. The time has come to force the issue and make the record. And that's no joke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please click to sign up for the e-mail version of :CrimQuips List. © 2003 Barry Crimmins ***
http://www.barrycrimmins.com "If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, demonstrating absolutely no sense of the ironic foreshadowing he was providing for the 2004 presidential race.
***
If Uday and Qusay Hussein really were slain by American forces:
1- Good riddance.
2- However, they were not killed with magic bullets that will make us forget all of the deceit and arrogance that the Court-appointed Bush administration employed to justify the attack on Iraq.
3- Their deaths are likely to galvanize radical Muslim resolve to step up its support and participation in the growing Iraqi guerilla war that is costing so many lives. Particularly if the Bushists continue to tell us that the killings are the beginning of the end of resistance to the occupation.
***
Considering how the Republican Party is so cavalier about deploying state and federal officers to hound Democratic legislators, it seems imprudent for Bush to use the term "henchmen" as a pejorative when he speaks of Saddam's slain sons.
But then I suppose hunting down and massacring two corrupt, malicious and politically active sons of a former head of state represent an even more dangerous precedent for W. than does the use of the term "henchmen." I'm not saying that Uday and Qusay weren't the guys in those pictures; I'm just saying that I could have just as easily believed that those photos were lifted from Vince McMahon's rogues gallery of wrestlers.
The killing of the Hussein boys violated the US government's ban on political assassinations as well as its nix on displaying photographs or video of war dead. A Pentagon spokesperson said, "We would have liked to have broken some other rules but things happened so quickly we had to settle for shattering those two. "
The New York Times said that the deaths of the Hussein boys "could be important step in the campaign to control and end the guerrilla-style insurgency." This comes as great solace to the families and friends of the American soldiers who have been killed since the Hussein killings.
The long-term result of Bush's lies about al Qaeda activity in Iraq is that many elements of the terrorist organization have been attracted to participate in guerilla warfare in the now-occupied nation. Had Uday and Qusay Hussein been taken alive they could have answered a lot of questions --which probably explains why they weren't taken alive.
Bringing the Hussein boys to trial would have required some semblance of a working government in Iraq -- thereby pointing up yet another area in which Bush had no contingency plans for post-invasion Iraq.
Of course the Iraqi people aren't that worried about justice --at least not until they get enough water, food, health care and electricity to allow them time to contemplate such luxuries.
Bush can't even get OIL to the Iraqi people. Before this occupation is over we should fully expect a SAND shortage as well. Many Iraqis are upset with the United States over the moribund state of the occupied nation's economy. If they keep griping Bush may send them to Detroit.
It was pretty patriotic of W to cough up $30 mil for the bounty on Saddam's boys at a time when he really needed the money for his own legal defense fund. Why do I suspect that at least a portion of the bounty is already in Karl Rove's safe?
Darrell Issa, the congressman/ car thief/ car alarm manufacturer, who has financed the recall campaign against California Governor Gray Davis, admits he has an IQ of around 100. If this hokey charlatan is able to reverse Davis' lopsided electoral victory last November, it will mean that he is smarter than most Californians.
If Davis is smart he'll turn the vote into ballot initiative on noise pollution. Everyone who likes car alarms should vote for Darrell Issa's recall. Everyone who hates being awakened by SUV's that electronically announce each falling leaf should vote to retain the governor.
Perhaps if he succeeds in stealing the democratic will of California voters, Issa will once again switch sides (as he did when he went from car thief to car alarm salesman) and employ his criminal background to develop a poll alarm.
Here's how the poll alarm would work: Just the slightest jiggle of a ballot box and an eardrum piercing alarm will commence, occasionally augmented with a recorded announcement that blares, "Please step away from the will of the people, Mr Republican! " The American military is too damned provocative a presence to send to somewhere like Monrovia. Instead, America should send massive amounts of humanitarian aid as well as contribute greatly to the funds necessary to provide an international peacekeeping force to stabilize Liberia.
Face the facts -- Bush has made the term "American peacekeepers" oxymoronic anyway.
Israeli police shot two unarmed Arabs on Tuesday, killing one and wounding the other. As a show of its newly liberalized policies the Israeli government promised to release the cadaver after only the very briefest of interrogations.
I particularly enjoyed reading about how how one great American patriot sold Confederate flags at the parade in Jessica Lynch's honor. Lynch is America's first soldier to be awarded a bronze star for getting injured in a motor vehicle accident. I just hope the flag hawker doesn't get into trouble with Kaiser Ashcroft who considers West Virginia as part of his exclusive territory for pro-Slave State paraphernalia .
Clearly the Confederate flag hawker didn't realize why WEST Virginia came into existence in the first place.
Imagine that! An ignoramus with a Confederate flag! (And please spare me e-mails about the difference between the battle flag and regular flag for the Slave States. The Stars and Bars have become the de facto banner of that hateful and losing cause.) The shifting Iraq/Niger nuke fib is like that movie where the alien takes over various people's bodies and when that guy gets cornered it leaves its husk behind and occupies another entity.
Even though the Court-appointed Bush administration assiduously maintained that the inclusion of the nuclear lie in W's State of the Union address was due to a CIA editing snafu, we have now been tossed the first sacrificial lamb from within the White House. If last week's alibi was truthful, why throw us Condi Rice's assistant to take the blame this week?
Judging by how this thing is progressing, Ms. Rice might be well advised to refrain from signing any long-term leases in greater Washington D.C.
It's unfortunate for Bush that so many people remember the State of the Union lie because it was indelibly etched into their memories by his continued inability to properly pronounce the word "nuclear."
It's not really a quagmire in Iraq. It's just that the Court-appointed Bush Administration enjoys reenacting the Vietnam War in its spare time. Let's hope the Bushists have fun reenacting Watergate as well.
What the Democrats need to reenact is the 1992 presidential election.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, it would appear that Hillary does have designs on the 2008 Dem nomination or why would the last elected president defend Bush over the obvious lies W told to foment war in Iraq?
With all due respect, Bill, the current Democratic field should discard your advice and NOT burn their trump card. A Congressional report says the 9/11 attacks were preventable but happened anyway because of communications lapses between the F.B.I. and C.I.A. Unfortunately, right when the organizations should have been sharing crucial terrorist information all of the best people at the CIA were busy writing the first draft of Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, while all the top agents at the FBI were tied up developing a list potential scapegoats in case any of a myriad of Bush failures came to light.
In an effort to convince investors that Lucent Technologies isn't really in a death spiral, CEO Patricia Russo said the company's continued losses are only a "speed bump" on the path back to profitability. She neglected to mention how most of the thousands of speed bumps surrounding Lucent headquarters are actually the unmarked graves of former employees.
Wouldn't "Sun Microprofits" be a better name for that company?
Now that attorney Lynne Stewart has been cleared of "providing material support to terrorists," (ostensibly because she represented an accused terrorist) let's hope the government focuses on more obvious national security dangers -- like the ties between the Bin Laden and Bush families. W has disregarded intelligence reports that North Korea may have begun producing plutonium at a second secret nuclear site because the court-appointed prez only trusts evidence when he has had a chance to fabricate it himself. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz returned exhausted from a Mideast fact-finding trip saying, "I'm used to manufacturing myths but actually finding facts is a lot of work. " The AmeriCorps Program that Bush talks so much about but his party refuses to fund, is being replaced by a new plan: The Americorpse Program. Upon completion, Americorpse will have raped the environment, torched the safety net, shredded the Bill of Rights and bankrupted our nation by attempting to enslave many others. Here's what I think about the Kobe Bryant case: it belongs in a courtroom. Everyone should shut up-- particularly with speculation about the alleged victim's motives. Bryant just bought his wife a $4 million diamond; he can afford a good defense without every sports fan in the world offering ill-informed amicus briefs to anyone who will listen.
And by the way, I could care less about how this case might impair Bryant's ability to foist overpriced sneakers upon kids nearly as poor as the sweatshop laborers that produce the footwear.
No Joke
A few months ago the issue of gay marriage seemed like a minefield for progressive candidates. That's changed now that vile bigots like Pat Robertson are publicly praying for the death and/or ill health of Supreme Court justices over the justices' recent support for the sane idea that consenting adults should be allowed to behave in any sexual manner they choose in the privacy of their own homes. This ludicrous outburst is just the latest intolerant expression from Republican morality zealots. They have pushed this issue and so the moment has arrived for candidates for public office to take a stand. These homophobes are people who have no moral qualms about bombing innocent men, women and children but become aghast at the idea of two adults expressing physical attraction for one another in private. Well the hell with them.
To me, marriage has always been like the military-- something that gays were spared of, if only due to prejudice. Considering all the torment and insults the gay community has suffered, I saw no need to fight to bring them into either of these questionable institutions. But with idiots like Rick Santorum and Bill Frist using their public offices to promote homophobic views at a time when we have so many serious problems confronting our nation, I say it's time that we bring this issue out of the closet once and for all. Gays and lesbians deserve equal rights and protections under the law and anyone who doesn't believe this should be forced to tell us otherwise. The more the issue is brought to a boil, the more impurities in the bigots' arguments will float to the top. Everyone who wants to sign on with scum like Pat Robertson should be forced to do so in a very public fashion. They should quote Robertson at a 2004 presidential debate and then ask the candidates if they are with him or against him. If nothing else this should succeed in burning down the Republican "Log Cabin Club" once and for all.
It will also do something else very important. It will make an electronic record of a savage bigotry that still engulfs our nation in the year 2003. Just as we look back in shock at the comments of segregationist politicians from just a few decades back, so will we look at the comments of the Robertsons, Santorums and Frists in the future. The time has come to force the issue and make the record. And that's no joke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please click to sign up for the e-mail version of :CrimQuips List. © 2003 Barry Crimmins ***