BunkBlog

A little story about a raid based on the USA PATRIOT Act. It’s an enlightening (I just can’t stop using that word today) piece about where the Fourth Amendment is today.

CNN lists the Middle East road map highlights for us. It sounds an awful lot like every previous agreement, framework, or accord. Oslo, anyone?

Meanwhile, in the real world, things are less rosy.

This article spills the beans from some anonymous administration insiders. They fess up that we were never all that sure of the WMD in Iraq, but wanted to make an example of someone to show that we were tough on terrorism. I picture Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor doing the, “We bad, that’s right” schtick. Here are some excerpts from the article:
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Anyone who has children has naked pictures of their kids. They tend to tear off their clothing for no apparent reason when they are young, and they are cute as heck, right? So, if you were to get these pictures developed, would you expect to be arrested? Neither did Jacqueline Mercado.
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Howard Dean is not a man I necessarily endorse politically, but his article in Common Dreams, Bush: It’s Not Just His Doctrine That’s Wrong, is a good look at how Bush’s administration is a bit off. Unlike much of political debate the past two years, it’s a well-written and calm essay. Not once does he claim that Bush is not the president, unlike the bombastic Michael Moore. He focuses entirely on the policy decisions, foreign and domestic, that Bush and his cabinet have made.

Apparently the Taliban are immortal, since some of that ousted and thoroughly destroyed regime are out there killing Italian tourists in Afghanistan. But I’m sure it’s an error since we all know that we completely destroyed that organization.

President bush says that Syria ‘needs to cooperate’. Great, just what we need – escalation.

We never really finished the job in Afghanistan (leaving the majority of the country in a near-anarchy of warlord leadership is not a good finish to a war). We haven’t even stopped fighting in Iraq. And now, Bush starts threatening Syria?

Meanwhile, the DPRK wants to talk and nobody will listen to them. The North Koreans definitely have chemical and bio weapons, and are bragging about how they want to join the Nuclear Club. Won’t someone please give Kim Jong Il a little attention?

Only available in the UK, Purring Kitty makes your phone extra personal.

Proving, if anyone was unsure, that the military has a twisted sense of humor, we have Iraqi Personality Identification Playing Cards, sponsored by DOD.

I think it would be hard to find a less clued-in politician than Tom Watson. He uses the phrase “l33t hax0rs” on his site, and he’s a British Member of Parliament. Yeah, very authentic. He won’t harsh your buzz, if you drop him a line on the Interwebnet, though. Ouch, brain hurts.

Thanks to BoingBoing.

Halliburton awarded Iraqi firefighting contract – I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that VP Cheney used to work there.

Something that Gringo may find especially interesting: Mixed Feelings: San Diego / Tijuana, a documentary on PBS. The site says it airs “March 26th” but then all the reviews are from last year, so maybe it’s not news after all. Wish they’d put a year on there somewhere.

Time says it better than I could: Shame on You, Mr. Moore! Shame on You!

It’s not so much the message as the delivery, if you want to sway anyone to your point of view. Sure, plenty of people cheer Michael Moore’s antics. Those people already agreed with him. If he intended to influence anyone who was ambivalent, he just added some fuel to the “anti-war protestors are nuts” fire. It’s too bad, because you could make a pretty solid guess that most of the members of the audience agreed with him, just based on the stunned silence that greeted him. Scared of blacklists, much?

Arab League ‘salutes Iraqis’ yet sends no military support of any kind. With friends like these…

UN to ask for help in Iraq – Iraqi people need food, medicine, clothing, and all the other things we take for granted. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is goingt to ask for up to 2 billion USD to help alleviate the suffering in Iraq. If we, as Americans, want to be consistent and honest about the motivations for invading Iraq, we should be the most generous in donating to the various Non-Governmental Organizations (Red Cross and others) which will assist in that region.
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How many people actually believe that the current conflict is really all about oil? How many believe that it’s all about human rights? How many believe that it’s all about wounded pride? How many believe that it’s because we know where Saddam is and we can’t find Bin Laden so we have to shoot someone?
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I know how the military will react to the POW issues in Iraq – greater resolve, less mercy, more firepower.

How does the average civilian feel though? Will the faces of our servicemembers, scared and confused on international television, make them more sure that war is just, or will it make them waver? I can see it either way. If you see these men, who are obviously out of their depth as POWs, who have recently watched their compatriots executed in the streets, who know that Iraq cares not one whit for the Geneva Convention, do you (as a viewer at home) feel that we really are doing the right thing? Does it make it more clear who is the bad guy and who is the good guy? Or, does it make you queasy and make you want to give in to any demands Iraq may make, just to get our soldiers back safely?

I’m sure this piece will amuse Buff quite a bit, but it certainly does illustrate one of the things I’ve been repeating quite a bit lately. That is, “get informed before shooting off your mouth.”

I have no doubt that the human shield volunteers were earnest in their desire to stop an unjust war. They just didn’t bother to find out whether the Iraqis wanted to be liberated or not. It increasingly sounds like they do.

Michael Tomasky writes, in the American Prospect, very clearly and concisely what so many of us (maybe the majority?) are thinking and saying. I hope that good comes of the current war, and that is not an unreasonably optimistic belief. But, we’ve sure stepped on a lot of toes getting there.
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The answer, apparently, is ratings. All my coworkers are crowded around the lone TV in the office, watching CNN’s live coverage of the death and destruction.

Some things that cheer me, to some degree – the targets so far have all been military, not infrastructure. Also, we’ve only lost two US servicemembers to hostile fire and less than a dozen total so far.

Let’s get this over with and then follow through on our promise of humanitarian aid and infrastructure construction.