Per cnn.com -- Bob Barr has announced his candidacy for Preznit.

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Ron Paul's forces quietly plot GOP convention revolt against McCain.

Dr. Acula @ 1:

Per cnn.com -- Bob Barr has announced his candidacy for Preznit.

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Just heard that too. Kinda made my day in a silly sort of way.

Good job by The Opinion Mill of pointing out the falseness of George Will's claim in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review, while reviewing Rick Pearlstein's book Nixonland, that the South Vietnamese army was not, to use Pearlstein's word, a joke. As The Opinion Mill noted, the ARVN could not function as a fighting force without the help of the U.S. military. I was going to write to the Book Review about this but for some reason they neglected to publish their email address.

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

And of course . . . . .

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coal mining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

He also believes the world is flat and man walked with dinosaurs and the earth is only 6000 yrs old.

MargeAggedon @ 10:

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

And of course . . . . .

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coal mining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Well yes and you never know he might be a wizard too!! LOL!! Seriously is there something in the water? Or do people really pride themselves on being this assbackward and stupid?

Its the American way. Right, proud and stupid.

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

And of course . . . . .

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coal mining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Well we certainly couldn't have anybody near the levers of power who doesn't believe in magical, supernatural, incorporeal alien intelligences. That would be nuts.

Justin Raimando at
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12827

May 12, 2008
The Prime Directive
U.S. war plans targeting Iran are all about "protecting" Israel
by Justin Raimondo
It looks like the War Party is victorious, at least according to Philip Giraldi writing on The American Conservative blog:

"There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Quds-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action."

Alarm bells ought to be going off across the nation."

"ALARM BELL OUGHT TO BE GOING OFF ACROSS THE NATION" In the MSM and the so-called "progressive" blogosphere.

Read Justin's article

#### Another important read

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/2004/07/seymou...

Thursday, July 01, 2004
Seymour Hersh interview on Israelis Operating in Iraq, Iran and Syria

Seymour Hersh gave an interview with Democracy Now about his New Yorker article on Israeli agents working in Kurdistan, which I wrote about two days ago. Much of this information is in his article, but he takes it a step further here Democracy Now! | Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq, Iran and Syria

AMY GOODMAN: The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh joins us on the phone. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SEYMOUR HERSH: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you tell us in full what you found in yet another one of your ground-breaking pieces today?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it's simply, as you said, Israel did very much support the war and I'm sure some of the people in the audience know there's even internal investigations going on now inside Israel into whether there had been falsification of evidence on weapons of mass destruction and some of the falsification had been give ton the United States before the war. Obviously as an Israeli once told me, it's wonderful to wake up in the morning and see America in the east, you know, in Iraq to the east of Israel. And so for Israel obviously getting the United States into the Middle East was very important. But once we got there, we did it so badly that by last summer, there was a lot of concern. One of the concerns being we were ignoring the fact that Iranian -- Iranians were coming across the border and helping the resistance to organize. No Iranian was taking any offensive action against America. They were simply helping their allies who were against us, to organize as I said. And eventually what happened is they moved into the Kurdistan. The Israelis have had long standing ties to the Talibani and Marzani clans Kurdistan and there are many Kurdish Jews that emigrated to Israel and there are still a lot of connection. But at some time before the end of the year, and I'm not clear exactly when, certainly I would say a good six, eight months ago, Israel began to work with some trained Kurdish command does, obstensively the idea was the Israelis -- some of the Israeli elite commander units, counter-terror or terror units, depending on your point of view, began training -- getting the Kurds up to speed. I think the initial goal was to help the United States fight the insurgency. We were doing very badly. Our special forces were not able to find the opposition, despite all the value our Delta Force and SEALS simply weren't able to accomplish the mission that we thought they could. That is through interrogation and house-to-house searching, find the people that were running the opposition against us, the growing opposition. I think, of course, there was a lot of miss judgment. One of the big ones being that last fall we concluded there was a finite number of 5,000 people or so who were involved in leading the insurgency. Remember those statistics that were given to us by Abizaid and Sanchez, the American army commanders there. It seems clear now that was a huge mistake that was as a widespread disaffection, probably inspired by our actions as much as anything else. In any case, once there, Israel got into terrific trouble with turkey. Turkey is Israel's -- the whole point of Israel's survival mechanism is to final non-Arabs and like them, like Kurds. In fact case of turkey, they establish add very good relationship with a largely Islamic country, a very progressive country. And in terms of being Islamic, not fundamentalist. Israel, I think something like 300,000 Israelis vacation every year in turkey. It is a great place to go. Good shopping, etc. And Israel's jeopardizing that long-standing relationship now. Because the Turks have gone batty about Israeli's support for Kurdistan simply because that also suggests that the Kurds will do, as they're threat tong do, go independent. And also move to seek the oil. Therefore, the Kurdish borders are about 40 miles or so from Kirkuk, the large oil field in Northern Iraq. And all of this is very dangerous. It would spark another great conflict up there if Kurdistan goes independent. The Turks would not tolerate. That is not acceptable. There is huge Turkish minorities inside -- Kurdish minors inside Turkey, inside Syria, inside Iraq, inside Iran and all those countries would feel very shaky. For example, two million Kurds live in Syria. They would feel very shaky by an independent Kurdistan. It is a destabilizing move by Israel. A move that they see in their good interest. As you said, the Israelis are actually helping to -- are involved on the ground, I understand, inside Iran. They're not inside Syria. But Israeli agents are working to collect intelligence on Iran because Israel sees Iran as its great menace. Not only because of its potential nuclear weaponry, Iran, we don't know exactly what Iran is doing with nuclear weapons. But also because Iran, as everybody agrees, if there is a winner in this mess in the former Iraq or whatever we want to call it now, it is going to be Iran. They are going to emerge as the strongest country. They have the -- they have a large population. They're going to emerge as the winner politically of the whole mess.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about the Iran-Syria-Turkey relationship increasingly close relationships?

###Anyone else remember when Seymour Hersh wrote about special U.S. and Israeli forces moving into Iran just after the invasion of Iraq? In the Iran Plan

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact

"Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups."

Re-reading this article by Seymour Hersh. Can Not believe he just said this "American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons."

This is is pure horseshit. The Iaea's El Baradei has never agree that "Iran is intent on develping the capability to produce nuclear weapons" Hey Seymour when and where..this is horseshit

Who leaked the details of a CIA-Mossad plot against Iran?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961337.html

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

And of course . . . . .

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coal mining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

While an myth "Obama a Muslim" like this could be repeated in L.A., the hills of West Virginia, the suburbs of Dayton Ohio or upstate New York...anywhere. The myth that the people in West Virginia are backward is a myth that is being fed by the Clinton Campaign. West Virginia is made up of a diverse mix of people. Miners, out-door enthusiast, farmers, etc etc. But most of all it is made up of hard working Americans who have often been willing (or forced by a lack of choices) to join the military to serve their country.

Many of these families in West Virginia have two adults working in low paying jobs and often have a family member serving in Iraq. Many know they have been used by this administration as fodder for their oil and Israel cannons in the middle east.

Do not underestimate the intelligence and fortitude of these salt of the earth and independent West Virginians.

Also the fear of "Muslims" is being perpetrated through this also. The Israeli Lobby loves that

Erroll @ 7:

Good job by The Opinion Mill of pointing out the falseness of George Will's claim in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review, while reviewing Rick Pearlstein's book Nixonland, that the South Vietnamese army was not, to use Pearlstein's word, a joke. As The Opinion Mill noted, the ARVN could not function as a fighting force without the help of the U.S. military. I was going to write to the Book Review about this but for some reason they neglected to publish their email address.

Iraqi "Security" Forces = today's ARVN!

Thanks for that Cranky Cindy link.

If there is a God it looks like Helen Thomas. She has been one of my heroes for a very long time. I love it when she is allowed to sit in the front row and she rips through the Bush administrations horseshit.
Helens laser like one liners "how many Iraqi people have been killed" cuts through hogwash.

The picture at Cranky Cindy reminds me of the pictures of the

Iraqi dead at Robert Fisk website. The pictures that Americans would rather not see and the MSM is happy to oblige

http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page8.htm

The MSM and many in the socalled "progressive" blogosphere do not print pictures of the Iraqi dead. Helen asks questions about them.

A dead friend Peggy Gish who has been with the Christian Peace Maker Team four years in Iraq (she was there before the invasion) has shared that many of the Iraqi peope believe that "mission accomplished" means the death of Iraqi's and the destruction of Iraq. They believe that all of the alleged mistakes , too few troops, not protecting the historical Iraqi museums yet protecting the oil sites, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, millions of Iraqi refugees etc etc were not mistakes but done purposely.

Peggy (and CPT were one of the first groups to interview Abu Gharib family members and detainees just after the invasion of Iraq)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4066835.stm

That the architects of this war (Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney, etc) knew exactly what they were doing. And clearly understood the deep division between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, knowing that there would be a civil war especially if we did not send in enough troops to maintain a peaceful transition from Saddam's reign or terror. Something like a Sabra and Shatilla. massacre Provide the environment for the internal hatred to be set free.

The Bush administration should be taken to the Hague.
But most Americans are too busy with their pedals to the metal driving to the mall to care.

TomDispatch is a really great site, and it's nice to see a new edition of the Poor Man's Comix...

Dr. Acula @ 19:

Erroll @ 7:

Good job by The Opinion Mill of pointing out the falseness of George Will's claim in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review, while reviewing Rick Pearlstein's book Nixonland, that the South Vietnamese army was not, to use Pearlstein's word, a joke. As The Opinion Mill noted, the ARVN could not function as a fighting force without the help of the U.S. military. I was going to write to the Book Review about this but for some reason they neglected to publish their email address.

Iraqi "Security" Forces = today's ARVN!

Good point, as I was thinking the same thing myself. This should logically point holes in McCain's rationale for staying in Iraq for 100 years, as it would seem that the Iraqi forces are about as likely to stand on their own feet as the ARVN did those many years ago.

How Obama Will Cave On Florida And Michigan