Making our own nightmares come true

It occurs to me, as I'm sure it must have to many people, that if the Western democracies would walk the walk instead of just talking the talk and really supported efforts at democracy in North Africa and the Middle East instead of bankrolling dictators because they provide "stability" we would have a lot less to fear from a democratic North Africa and Middle East.
Given that virtually every gun, club, tear gas bomb and armored car being deployed against the huddled masses yearning to breath free in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region comes from the "arsenal of democracy" and given that we have been helping thugs like Mubarak maintain his stranglehold on power, is it any wonder that when the chickens come home to roost, our governments are terrified of the results? What cause to love the West have we given the people of Egypt or Tunisia or Jordan or Syria? Why shouldn't they hate us?
When Castro was still hiding in the hills of Cuba and people were still robbing banks to fund the revolution, Castro approached the United States for help. The U.S. decided to keep propping up the dictator there for the good of the fruit, sugar, rum and organized crime lobbies and so Castro turned to the Russians for help. We know how that one turned out.
The Sandinistas in Nicaragua reached out to the Ford and Carter Administrations for help getting rid of the Somoza dictatorship. Both refused, citing the Roosevelt/Truman doctrine of "He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard." Central America spends 30 years plagued by right wing death squads  trained at the School of the Americas and proxy wars between "leftists" and military-backed plutocrats.
We backed the Shah's bloody kleptocracy, until Iranians finally got fed up and took to the streets and invited the Ayatollah back just to provide some leadership to the angry mob. Then, to fight the Ayatollah, the west decided to cultivate a rival power - a military strongman just next door, who did just what we wanted as long as we kept giving him arms and didn't ask too many questions about what he was doing to his own people. Of course, once Saddam Hussien slipped the leash, things got ugly for him fast.  
Now, the realpolitik braintrust in Foggy Bottom and by extention, Whitehall and Ottawa, is worried that if Mubarak falls, the wrong people might end up running Eygpt and that might be bad for Israel and U.S. interests in the region. Maybe they should have thought of that 20 or 30 years ago.
Mubarak and the other despots of the Middle East and North Africa may be "our bastards" instead of "their bastards," but the bottom line is that they are bastards and we are helping them stay in power and teaching their oppressed people to hate us. The longer we prop up dictators to keep the Islamic world in line, the bigger the potential shitrain we are going to face when those dictators inevitably fall to popular uprisings we've helped them try to suppress.

Crossposted from the Woodshed

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First they came for KAIROS ...

Gerald Caplan, G&M:

The Harper government, women’s rights and the cost of speaking out

The Tories are playing punishment politics with Canada’s progressive NGOs – and eroding civil society in the process

"Despite the chill on speaking out, this week the Canadian Council for International Co-operation announced its fear that its funding is likely to be cut. CCIC is Canada's preeminent coalition to end global poverty. Some 90 Canadian non-profit organizations, including most of the well-known ones, come together under the CCIC umbrella to monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade and peace-building."

"Monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade, and peace-building"?

Well there's your problem right there.

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Betty Plewes, the former CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, was not afraid of speaking out in Embassy Mag in May :

"At Foreign Affairs, the past year has seen the entire division focused on women's rights and gender equality eliminated.

In Pakistan and Kenya, two countries where women's rights violations and violence against women are profound and systemic, CIDA has cut funds that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In Canada, Match International, the only international development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has lost its funding.

Within CIDA, there is a noticeable retreat from gender equality work. Staff have recommended to NGOs that they remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding."

This is what Senator Nancy Ruth was warning about when she recently advised NGO's to "Shut the fuck up" about abortion funding overseas. "If you push it, there will be more backlash," said Nancy Ruth.
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Antonia Zerbisias covered much of this ground recently in Is Ottawa leaving women behind?, with a great quote that "the women's movement is the canary in the coal mine" :

"Canadians are snoozing while they are losing their country,” says [Liberal SWC critic Anita] Neville.“I don’t think people know or understand what’s going on.
I don’t think they will realize it until it hits them personally."

Yeah, that's how it usually is - women and children always go first.

M & M's, Anyone ? ? ? ? (Moyers and Maher)

This post by Glenn Greenwald summarizing Bill Moyers' appearance on the Bill Maher show last night says it all regarding the current state of affairs in the USAofexpensivehealthcare.

Go.

Read.

Get angry.

Think Progressive Party not tied to the dems or repugs . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Child detainee going home after four years in Gitmo

A child detained in Guantanamo Bay for seven years for allegedly throwing a hand grenade at US soldiers in Afghanistan when he was 14 years old is on his way home after a US Federal Court ruled the government was holding him illegally. His initial confession, obtained under duress, was thrown out by the judge.
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"We are so pleased that this nightmare of abuse and injustice has finally come to an end," said his attorney. "While he can never get back the nearly seven years he was illegally detained and tortured, now he can finally return home to his family, friends and country, and begin to build a normal life."
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The child detainee in question is Mohammed Jawad, now returned to his native Afghanistan thanks to a US Federal Court decision this month. [Yeah, mean trick, I know]
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Gosh, another kid accused of throwing a grenade. Is the US military generally in the habit of accusing the survivors of their raids of throwing grenades, or only when there are US casualties and the possibility of friendly fire?
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Meanwhile back in Canada, our child soldier detained in Guantanamo for seven years for allegedly throwing a grenade at US soldiers in Afghanistan when he was 15 - that's Omar Khadr pictured above in the middle the year before his father dumped him in Afghanistan - has not been so lucky because Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the last leader on the planet Earth to support the detaining and abuse of children in Gitmo.
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On August 14, our Federal Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that Ottawa is required to press the US for Khadr's repatriation because CSIS and Department of Foreign Affairs officials had violated his Charter rights by being complicit in his mistreatment at Gitmo.
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Yesterday Harper's federal government disgraced itself by announcing it will go to the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn that ruling.
They do not want to risk asking the US for Khadr's return, perhaps because the Obama Administration urged a federal judge to order the release of Mohammed Jawad, and even George W. Bush granted requests by other countries for the repatriation of their citizens from Gitmo.
Harper is going to the wall in hopes that a sufficient number of Canadians believe in tiered citizenship and a four-tiered passport system and will applaud his stand against so-called 'activist' judges. He's wrong about that.

Gog and Magog. Good Grief, george . . . .

According to this month's edition of the Council for Secular Humanism's "Free Inquiry", g.w.bush felt "that Iraq must be














invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse."

This is not a joke - no doubt to Bill Maher's chagrin - and James A. Haught details the story in his article "A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush."

Check out the whole article, but here are some of the highlights:

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

James A. Haught

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

_______________

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

_______________

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.” Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

_______________

It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

Truth really is stranger than fiction at times . . . .

H/T Joylene

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

CSIS agents secretly interrogated Abdelrazik

in a Sudanese prison in October of 2003 after he was jailed "at the request of mysterious 'Canadian' authorities", newly released government documents show.

A February 2008 Foreign Affairs briefing note to Maxime Bernier confirms :

"We were not informed of his arrest until November 2003, when Sudanese authorities advised us he was detained at the request of the government of Canada (please see attached memo for more detail)."

Unfortunately we don't know which mysterious Canadian authority because that attached eight page memo obtained by NDP MP Paul Dewar has "every single word, including the page numbers, blacked out."

Not us, says CSIS, insisting CSIS "does not, and has not, arranged for the arrest of Canadian citizens overseas."

So how did you know he was there then? Paul Koring at the G&M reasonably asks - especially as Foreign Affairs claims not to have known he'd been arrested until a month later in November.

Later today Dewar will attempt to force a motion asking for Abdelrazik to be brought before the foreign affairs committee. The motion will fail because the Cons have shown they will go to extraordinary lengths to keep him from coming home, presumably at least in part to protect "mysterious Canadian authorities".

5pm Update : In comments, Skdadl and Frank point out that my link to Koring's G&M article is a rewrite from last night's original, which contained these two now missing additional paragraphs :

"Although the most recently obtained documents confirm another glaring discrepancy in the claims made by various government agencies involved with Mr. Abdelrazik, a review of thousands of pages of document in The Globe's possession shows that not everyone in the Foreign Affairs ministry was unaware of Mr. Abdelrazik's imprisonment.

In an Oct., 16, 2003, e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” "

Skdadl is reminded of Arar. Yes.

In 2002 at Bagram prison, a 15 year old Omar Khadr was shown photographs of Arar.

On January 2009 at a military commission hearing in Guantanamo Bay: "[FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar."

He looked familiar. On such evidence hangs the lives of men.

Afghan marital rape law being ... revised

CBC : "Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said he was informed Sunday by his counterpart in Afghanistan that a new family law, which critics say legalizes marital rape, has been halted and will be revised."

You can just imagine how that conversation went ...

~Look, what you people do behind closed doors is your business but we've got an occupation to run here and it's supposedly based on our soldiers dying so little schoolgirls can go to classes. It's bad enough 75% of them get forced into marriage between the ages of 5 and 15 to old geezers to pay off family debts but you can't be passing laws saying it's ok to rape 'em as well ....

No word yet on whether the revision will also rescind the bit about women having to obtain their husband's permission to go outside.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Canada-US Project : A Blueprint for SPP on Steroids

But first : a quiz !
Can you spot the main difference between the two pictures below?
Take your time ... don't rush it ...






[The answer is in comments.]

In the top picture, Harper is holding the latest Canadian foray into deep integration : From Correct to Inspired : A Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement from the Canada-US Project.

Appearing with him are Canada-US Project luminaries (L to R) Colin Robertson, on loan from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to Carleton University to direct the project; Fen Osler Hampson, Canada-US Project co-chair and director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University; and Derek Burney, former Canadian ambassador to the US and co-chair of the Canada-US Project at Carleton. Burney and Robertson are also SPP and NAFTA alumni.

Contributors to the "blueprint" include Thomas D'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives; Perrin Beatty of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; three former American ambassadors to Canada : David Wilkins, James Blanchard, and Gordon Giffin; and serial Canada-basher Michael "Canada blew it!" Hart.

"Blueprint" authors Fen Hampson and Michael "Canada blew it!" Hart appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on Feb 23 to complain that the Canada - US relationship has :

"an awful lot of informal, below-the-radar relationships," Mr. Hart said.
"I mean hundreds of relationships among officials and so on, but none of that is provided with a kind of from-the-top political guidance as to what the objectives are."
The two professors went on to say Canada must redefine its relationship with the U.S. in a way that will strengthen security but also enhance trade.
Ideally, they recommended broadening, among other things, NORAD to create a secure land, sea and air perimeter around North America, while dropping the national border to create a Schengen-type arrangement.

The Schengen Area is a group of twenty-five European countries which have abolished all border controls between each other.

Two days later Thomas d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives told the Commons' Foreign Affairs committee on Feb. 25 that the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership "is probably dead." However something else will inevitably replace it, he said.

The Canada-US Project is certainly making a good run at it.

Here's some not altogether random quotes from their above-mentioned "Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement" :

• The two governments should re-examine the benefits of a perimeter approach to the border.
• The two governments should also take a blowtorch to regulatory differentiation and overlap that serve no useful purpose other than to preserve some government jobs and to perpetuate a preference for differentiation for its own sake.
  
• On Afghanistan : Canada certainly has earned the right in blood and treasure to influence stronger US leadership and to spur a more substantive, more cohesive international effort.
• Domestically, the enthusiasm that greeted the election of Obama will fade in the face of the persistent unease of Canadians about getting too close to Canada’s giant neighbour.
  Crisis, a convergence of national interests, and the need for economic recovery should help to bring us together. Canadians are ready ... They accept that the border has become dysfunctional and that minor regulatory differences make little sense.
  Obstacles to achieving this agenda are chronic indifference in Washington and wariness or narcissism in Canada.
• Redefining the way the two governments manage the interoperability of Canadian and US forces is an important next step. Putting NORAD on a permanent footing was a start, but there is a need for appropriate institutions for land and maritime forces as well.
• Canada’s role in Afghanistan is proving critical to re-establishing its credentials as a credible security partner. The government will need to be prepared to offer help in other trouble spots.
• As Obama takes office, he will pursue a faster drawdown in Iraq with compensatory emphasis on Afghanistan. This may put pressure on the prime minister’s vow to take Canadian combat troops out of Afghanistan by 2011. Cutting Canada’s losses on a costly and unpopular mission may prove popular at home but will at the same time reduce Canadian influence and visibility with a new administration.
• The most pressing bilateral issue is the need to re-think the architecture for managing North America’s common economic space.
  Re-imagining the border. ... the border has become an instrument to address yesterday’s problems. It may be time to resurrect the “perimeter” concept and find a better balance between security and economics. Integrating national regulatory regimes into one that applies on both sides of the border. But to make this work, the two governments must also develop joint rules and procedures to coordinate regulatory policy on an ongoing basis.
• Building an enhanced capacity for joint rule making. The two governments may need to establish a few institutions that are capable of providing political leadership as well as political oversight.
• Part of the solution may lie in making better use of the “hidden wiring” in the relationship. Over many years, relations have grown and deepened at many levels – from the state-provincial and business-to-business to nongovernmental, and legislative levels.
• [I]t is not in Canada’s best interests to restrict energy exports to the United States at this time – a situation that will remain unchanged for quite a number of years.
• The third major challenge is to bring the rules governing the cross-border movement of goods and services into line with the reality of deep integration. Border security has become economic protectionism in a new guise.
  Additionally, it is critical that the two governments find a joint approach to border management in the event of a major terrorist attack in either the United States or Canada. There is no agreed contingency plan to deal with such a crisis.
• Finally, the smooth operation of the integrated Canada-US economy requires that the two countries come to grips with what some have called the narcissism of small differences in the regulatory structures of the two countries. Health Canada spends an enormous amount of time and money testing drugs that have already been tested and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
  North American economic integration has grown and an enhanced Canada-US trading relationship needs to reflect that reality. Canada can speed the process of convergence by making a concerted effort to align a wide range of regulatory requirements with those in place in the United States.
• [O]nly Canada’s inveterate anti-Americans can take satisfaction in seeing their neighbours in such trouble. The over-hyped talk among the pundits about the death of the American market economy model is nonsense.

Apparently their polls that show that "Canadians are close to unanimous (95 per cent) in their desire to see the federal government strengthen the relationship with the United States", hindered only by "the chattering classes" - a rather odd reference given that co-author Derek Burney is Chairman of the Board of Canwest Global Communications Corp. - but doesn't all this sound like a blueprint for SPP on steroids to you?

OK, on to the exciting quiz answer in comments ...

Cross-posted at Creekside

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to War We Go!" . . . .

Per Reuters today:

Up to 30,000 new U.S. troops in Afghanistan by summer
Sat Dec 20, 2008 - By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - The United States is aiming to send 20,000 to 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan by the beginning of next summer, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday.

Washington is already sending some 3,000 extra troops in January and another 2,800 by spring, but officials previously have said the number would be made up to 20,000 in the next 12 to 18 months, once approved by the U.S. administration.

"Some 20 to 30,000 is the window of overall increase from where we are right now. I don't have an exact number," Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters in Kabul.

_______________


U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged a renewed focus on Afghanistan, where U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks.

The United States now has some 31,000 troops in Afghanistan.

______________


Mullen said beefing up U.S. forces in Afghanistan was linked to winding down in Iraq.

"Available forces are directly tied to forces in Iraq. As we look to the possibility of reducing forces in Iraq over the course of the next year, the availability of forces to come here in Afghanistan will increase," Mullen said.

INDIA-PAKISTAN

Mullen said the attacks by Islamist militants in Mumbai last month showed the need to reduce Indian tensions with Pakistan and that would help bring stability to Afghanistan.

"That's another big piece of the strategy, what I would call regional focus to include Pakistan, Afghanistan and India ... leadership in all three of those countries to figure out a way to decrease tensions, not increase tensions," Mullen said.

Well, yes, that's perfectly clear.

We'll just pump MORE troops into a volatile area. THAT should "decrease tensions", huh?

Is there an end to this lunacy in sight ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Spreading the "Joy" . . . .

It appears that bushco is attempting to SPP-ize the international financial markets.

Courtesy of Reuters:

Paulson to discuss G7 financial coordination
Wed Oct 8, 2008

by David Lawder and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at a news conference on Wednesday will discuss coordinated actions by wealthy industrialized countries to ease financial system stress.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Paulson may discuss a plan floated by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for concerted action to guarantee inter-bank lending.

_______________















She declined to provide any more details about the Brown plan, which was disclosed by a G7 source who said the British leader sent a letter to G7 counterparts urging them to issue a set of similar national guarantees aimed at restoring trust in the global market for bank funding.

_______________


Perino said Paulson also will focus on the Treasury's coordinated actions with other federal regulators to tackle "the four key challenges in our financial markets today: confidence, capital, systemic risk, and liquidity."

The Treasury will host the finance ministers and central bank governors of Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Friday ahead of semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Well, I feel better now . . . .


UPDATE: Now the party's getting even bigger! What shall we wear, what shall we wear ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

The Truth Shall Set You Free . . . .

Looks like there's a bit of financial friction between Germany and the US.

Just in from Reuters:

Era of U.S. financial dominance at an end: Germany
Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:16pm EDT
By Noah Barkin and Kerstin Gehmlich

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany blamed the United States on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis with a blind drive for higher profits and said it must now accept more market regulation and a loss of its financial superpower status.

In some of the harshest criticism of the United States since the crisis threw Wall Street banks into financial disarray this month, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the turmoil would leave "deep marks" on both sides of the Atlantic, but called it primarily an American problem.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament. "The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.

_______________


Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, a partnership of her conservatives and Steinbrueck's Social Democrats (SPD), pushed the G8 to agree measures to boost financial market transparency during Germany's presidency of the club last year.

But their drive collapsed amid opposition from Washington and London. Merkel's party and the SPD are keen to claim credit for Germany's G8 push ahead of a federal election next year.

U.S. ON DEFENSIVE

German criticisms of Washington were echoed by leaders of governments from around the world meeting this week at the United Nations in New York. Many criticized the financial record of President George W. Bush's administration and warned that U.S. financial mistakes now threatened the global economy.

The crisis has put the Bush White House, which has long advocated a hands-off approach to markets, on the defensive and forced it to rethink its financial policy.

At the same time it has emboldened voices in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, who are uncomfortable with American-style capitalism and who want tighter regulation of markets.

It appears the groping/massage georgie gave Angela didn't work out quite as he had planned . . . .







(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Hugo's Revenge . . . .

This evening's Toronto Star reports:

Venezuela's Chavez revels in Lehman collapsear.com - World - Venezuela's Chavez revels in Lehman collapse

September 16, 2008 - Reuters

CARACAS– Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took a swipe at Lehman Brothers Tuesday, chuckling over the firm's collapse and dismissing its past criticism of the Venezuelan economy.

"They were always producing negative reports about Venezuela," Chavez told reporters. "They forgot about themselves ... and 'boom!' they were bankrupt."

_______________

Chavez's comments echo recent criticism of Lehman by his ally, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez.

Earlier this month, she said the firm should "worry more about their own books" after it raised questions about Argentina's economy.

Lehman filed for bankruptcy Monday.

Payback is a hell of a thing, huh ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

psssst . . . Do Something!

Robert Greenwald's latest stars condescending rice.

An Academy Award nomination is sure to follow.





Love this guy's work - very powerful.

Go sign the petition . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Turkey See, Turkey Doo Doo . . . .

No offense, but what a bunch of Turkeys:
(Courtesy of McClatchy, Washington Bureau)

U.S. voices support as Turkey seeks to 'eliminate' Kurdish rebels
Nancy A. Youssef and Steve Lannen | McClatchy Newspapers - Posted on Mon, Feb. 25, 2008


WASHINGTON — As the Iraqi government watched in anguish Monday, Turkey's ambassador to the United States set an ambitious goal for his country's incursion into the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq: "to eliminate" a Kurdish rebel force of at least 4,000 fighters.

In Washington, the Bush administration left no doubt of its overall support for the Turkish operation to deal with the Kurdistan Worker's Party, commonly known as the PKK, which both the Bush administration and Europe consider to be a terrorist organization.

The Turkish incursion, which began last Thursday, involves a U.S.-equipped army invading a U.S. ally in the most stable and most pro-American region in Iraq.

"It's obviously not an ideal situation," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We hope that this is a short-term incursion so that they (Turkey) can help deal with the threat." (Emphasis mine.)

Well, no shit, Sherlock, re: "Not an ideal situation."

This whole this whole clusterf_ck sounds like an Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" sketch.

Will someone please take charge of the asylum ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Yup. The Bastard is Back . . . .

We warned ya'.

CNN reports:

Wolfowitz to head State Department arms control panel
January 24 - 6:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Ousted World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has been appointed to head a State Department advisory panel on arms control, the department said Thursday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has named Wolfowitz chairman of her International Security Advisory Board, an 18-member panel that makes recommendations to the State Department on arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation and other issues related to international security.

The board meets quarterly to provide independent advice to Rice and her deputy, John Negroponte, on some of the most urgent foreign policy issues of the day, based on classified intelligence. The board has access to “the resources of all the department’s bureaus and offices at its direction,” the State Department charter says.

There is not even the appearance of doing what is right with this crowd.

They obviously delight in rubbing our face in their sh_t . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Dear David Wilkins:

If you feel so strongly about it, why don't you just go home... and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

When asked about the list, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins was indignant. "We ought to be removed ... I just think it's absurd... and quite offensive."

Fuck you... y'all.

POGGE provides just a short list of why you, Mr. Wilkins, have fuck all to say about anything being offensive.