Arthur:

Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead. Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.

Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side....read on"

Power of the Narrative:

Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war. In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed -- an average of more than 100 a day...read on

Iraq's population is roughly one-tenth that of the United States. Can you imagine the state of all-encompassing hysteria that would have descended on this country (to say nothing of martial law) if more than 1,000 Americans were being killed every single day -- or if 31,490 Americans had been killed last month alone?

And still Bush says, "stay the course." And still Republicans cling to the same utterly failed notions and mouth the same nauseating slogans, even as they are forced to acknowledge at least part of this incomprehensibly grim reality...read on

I've talked about both these men at length. Arthur has two posts that explain a lot about how they behave today, It's very interesting that they have so much influence over the Republican party. Does it all into the authoritarian mode that John Dean has written about?

Arthur:

For Dobson, there is no difference at all between dachshunds and children. They are both to be beaten with belts as necessary, they are both to be crushed using whatever means are required no matter how brutal and monstrous, and they are both to be made to obey above all...read on

Arthur:

There were times that Dad's pranks bordered on cruelty. One of his oil-company workers, a one-legged man he nicknamed "Crip" Smith, complained about everything. Dad and Crip's co-workers got tired of the old man's bellyaching and decided to take revenge. One morning Crip called in sick and Dad volunteered to send by lunch to his grateful but suspicious employee. Dad and his chums caught Crip's old black tomcat, killed it, skinned it, and cooked it in the kitchen of one of Dad's little restaurants...read on

The blood sucking neocon vampire that he is-Bill Kristol will not let his fantasies go. Once again he calls for the US to attack Iran to trigger a regime change. Iraq was his model which speaks for itself and in so doing he's inflaming many Americans in the process who don't fully understand what is behind this. Even the usually obnoxious Christopher Hitchens sees the folly in this....read on

Bill Kristol writes his typical neocon column and says "It's Our War," What's happening in the Middle East right now is exactly what men like Kristol have dreamed about. Kristol has contributed to the chaos our world is in today and for anyone to take anything he says seriously having to do with issues of foreign policy have not witnessed what has happened in Iraq.

William the Bloody:

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Healthy repercussions? What the hell is he talking about?

Arthur Silber says it better than I can...

Another excellent piece by Arthur:

"War kills people; the culture of war does not, but the culture of war kills something precious and indispensable in a civilized society: freedom of utterance, freedom of curiosity, freedom of knowledge. Recently, an official of the Pentagon explained why the military had censored some TV footage depicting Iraqi soldiers cut in half by automatic fire from U.S. helicopters. He explained, "If we let people see that kind of thing there would never again be any war." ... It is obvious that censorship of that type is a necessity in any modern war. It is usually rationalized by the need to keep the enemy in the dark about our plans; it is also valuable to conceal military blunders and war crimes from a public that, in the absence of censorship, might learn to be critical of the military's actions...read on

Pleas read this important piece by Arthur Silber:

All of this is of the greatest importance and, as I indicate above, it is entirely neglected in most of our discussions about how much longer to continue the utterly futile, horrifyingly bloody occupation of Iraq, or which country to attack next. But Fussell makes several other, broader points of equal significance.

He further analyzes the divide between those "serious survivors of war" who know what war is actually like and the "optimistic onlookers" (our armchair warriors of today), and he then notes how the sanitized, cleaned-up version of war must always be the version offered to the general public...read on

Arthur:

Drudge is now hawking this latest story:

Israel has information that Lebanese guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Spokesman Mark Regev did not disclose the source of his information.

One more time: They want a wider war. They've already decided to attack Iran...read on

Arthur on Andrew Sullivan looking to start another war:

I suppose I could confine my commentary about this unrepentant warmonger's latest lunacy to a Shorter Andrew Sullivan...

Arthur comes to realize what I've been posting about for a long time. He's a propaganda machine.

Here's a news flash for you, O'Reilly: if the administration should ever decide to utilize its claimed powers to their fullest extent, and if they should decide you're no longer useful to them, you'll realize that they've been keeping very careful watch over you -- as they haul you off to prison or to a detention camp in the middle of the night. I'm sure you will howl in indignation and terror, but your protests will do you no good then. But you might realize that perhaps, just perhaps, you ought to have paid closer attention to the many warnings provided by all those "leftists" who "undermined" the government's unending, entirely noble efforts to "protect" us....read on