Repatriation Loans?!

I bet you thought that, should you and many others find yourselves trapped in the middle of a sudden war, you’d be evacuated without the government asking for reimbursement.

Surprise! Only if you’re British, Italian, German, Canadian, or – well, pretty much anything except American.

From the US Embassy’s Beirut webpage:

This information is current as of today, Sat Jul 15 12:20:12 2006. [Apparently, keeping citizens informed isn’t a priority.]

A message to the American citizens in Lebanon:

The Department of State continues to work with the Department of Defense on a plan to help American citizens depart Lebanon. As of the morning of July 15, we are looking at how we might transport Americans to Cyprus. Once in Cyprus, Americans can then board commercial aircraft for onward travel. Commercial airlines provide the safest and most efficient repatriation options to final destinations.

The Department of State reminds American citizens that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need. For the portion of your trip directly handled by the U.S. Government we will ask you to sign a promissory note and we will bill you at a later date. In a subsequent message, when we have specific details about the transporation arrangments, we will inform you about the costs you will incur. We will also work with commercial aircraft to ensure that they have adequate flights to help you depart Cyprus and connect to your final destination. [emphasis mine]

From the British Embassy:

Message to British Citizens and Nationals in Lebanon
Following the latest security developments in Lebanon, we have amended our Travel Advice and are advising against all travel to Lebanon. A Call Centre to provide information for British nationals has been setup in London.

Beirut airport is currently closed following Israeli air strikes. There is also a naval blockade of all ports and the main Beirut-Damascus highway is closed. Other roads out of Lebanon are also closed, or are unsafe for travel.

We are deeply concerned about the safety of British nationals who are currently in Lebanon. We are not currently advising people to leave – we are advising them to stay put, keep a low profile, exercise caution, keep in touch with the Embassy and heed local advice.

[snip]

A Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, has arrived in Beirut to assist British Nationals. A military reconnaissance team has also arrived to carry out detailed planning for a possible evacuation.

We were able to make use this morning of the UK helicopters, that brought in the UK teams and EU High Representative Solana, to help approximately 40 very vulnerable British nationals leave Lebanon.

From the Canadian Embassy:

Advice for Canadians in Lebanon: (July 17, 2006 – 1:30 p.m. EST)

In the absence of viable and secure commercial means, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada is working closely with the Canadian Embassy in Beirut and other Canadian missions in the region to develop departure options to assist Canadian citizens who wish to leave Lebanon.
Upon arrival at a safe haven destination (possibly Cyprus), Canadians would then be assisted in making arrangements to their final destination. We will be advising Canadians further on departure details within the next 24 hours.

Now, Americans in Lebanon, for all that they’re going to have to give Uncle Sam some IOUs in return for safe passage home, are still doing better than the Australians whose government cannot (or will not) mount a rescue operation.

From Australia’s ABC News:

Italy has begun evacuating Europeans from Lebanon, despite the Australian Government saying it cannot help the 2,800 Australian tourists and at least 20,000 members of Australia’s Lebanese community living there.

[snip]

The US, Sweden, France and Britain are also planning a voluntary evacuation of their citizens, by land to neighbouring Syria or by ferry to Cyprus.

But the Federal Government says there is no way for Australians stranded in Lebanon to safely leave.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Minister, Theresa Gambaro, says the sea ports are dangerous, overland routes are congested and damaged, and the airport has been attacked.

She has urged Australians in Lebanon to stay where they are and register with the Australian embassy in Beirut.

The Department of Foreign Affairs says the Federal Government is looking at possible evacuation methods if the security situation allows.

I suppose, if the worst were to happen, and Australians and/or Americans are taken hostage (unlikely, but certainly not unheard of) then their governments would be willing to take every action and spare no expense to retrieve them?

Well, maybe the Australians. I don’t hold much hope for Bush being able to comprehend such an event, much less be able to deal with it in any way that doesn’t involve bombing the sh*t out of something.

Sweet Saint Helena! They’re sending Condi?! To do what…show off her shoes??

No…it’s worse than I thought – she’s going to try to “calm the region.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intends to travel to the Middle East to seek to calm the region where Israel has bombarded Lebanon for days and the militant group Hezbollah has fired rockets into the Jewish state.

“At some point in the future, the secretary intends to travel to the region,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

[snip]

“The first opportunity she can come and make a positive effect in the region I think she will be very well received.”

Right….she’ll be received just like the US troops who are called liberators and are greeted daily with chocolates and flowers… Oh, oops…. Sorry – my fault. That was on the History Channel’s WWII remembrance special.

As Wolcott says:

“The ETA for the Apocalypse has been moved up accordingly.”

Jenn’s Sunday Sermon

The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza is escalating, with threats from and against Syria and Iran.

I have no doubt that US forces will be involved in this nightmare before long. In a sick way, I can see this as being GeorgieBoy’s “Great Escape” from Iraq. He’ll simply say the troops are needed. Of course, insurgents in Iraq are vowing to show their solidarity with Hezbollah and Hamas, so either way, our troops are going to be caught up.

Right now, the US military is planning an air evacuation of Americans from Lebanon, roughly 25,000 people, including students holed up at the American University in Beirut. Last night, on a comment thread at Crooks and Liars, someone mentioned a rumor circulating that 2200 Marines are going to be put into Beirut to help quell the attacks by Hezbollah.

Whether that’s true or not, the mere thought of Marines in Beirut again makes me ill. I was 14, almost 15, when the Marine Barracks were blown up by a suicide bomber. 241 American soldiers killed – 220 Marines, 18 seamen from the Navy, 3 soldiers from the Army.

I remember the somber look on Dan Rather’s face, the pictures of the destroyed Barracks, my grandmother calling, my mother trying to find out it such-and-such relative was there, somber parade of flag-draped coffins returning to the US, the memorial service broadcast live on televison, Reagan’s speech, the rain falling…as if God was crying for his fallen warriors.

I remember crying watching it. I was 14, that wonderfully romantic age, when you think everything is wonderful (except your parents) and I had discovered a great fascination for Marines a year earlier, while studying a compressed history of the Marine Corps in school. Now, these men, heroes (though they didn’t know it) in my wildest dreams of weddings and dress blues, had been attacked. Without second thought, I immediately began hating anything to do with Lebanon, with Muslims.

It took a long time to get over, to grow up and recognize that my feelings were bigotry, plain and simple. It took a long time, because there was no alternative story. We didn’t know what the people of Lebanon were feeling, so they weren’t real. They were just nameless, faceless beings – barely human.

My daughter will be 14 in just over two weeks, and she’s fairly used to – but embarrassed by – Mom’s continuing love and fascination with Marines. But, through the magic of the Internet, she is not hearing only one side of a story.

She has met girls her own age in Iraq who are enduring suicide bombings, kidnappings and disappearances of relatives, lack of electricity for most of the day, lack of potable water, and she isn’t blinded to the good that exists in all people, even those our leaders call enemies. She also isn’t blinded to the bad that exists in all people, even Americans.

One day last week, she announced she wanted to try to imagine living as her friends in Iraq do. She asked me to help. We cleared her room of all electronic gadgets – CD player, radio, blow dryer, curling iron, air conditioner, etc. She would only be able to use “pluggable” items for two hours a day…but always a different two hours. Showers would be limited to one every other day, and only for five minutes.

The first day, she got into the plan. She read, she took walks, she played on the trampoline. She even learned to live with conditioner in her hair when her time ran out before she finished showering. The second day, she managed to get her ablutions completed in the time available, started a 1000-piece puzzle, wrote a letter to a cousin in Indiana, and went to her cousin’s softball championship game.

On the third day, she came to me and said it was time to quit.

I was surprised and asked why. Because, she said, everything she was doing was “just camping”. She would never be able to live like her friends because there weren’t suicide bombers, there wasn’t anyone coming to take her family members away, there were no gunshots or raids in the night. Without that, all she was doing was making fun of the suffering of her friends. She didn’t live in fear, and that fear is what makes life unlivable in Iraq. People can adjust to not having electricity, to only having a certain amount of water to shower in, or a certain amount of time to spend on the computer. What they cannot adjust to is the fear that this day, this minute could be their last.

Wow. Pretty grown-up thoughts, huh?

People all over the world are living with that fear, not just in Israel, in Lebanon, in Gaza. Not just Iraq. So, today, for my sons and my daughter – for all the sons and daughters – I pray for peace, that all people may live without fear.

From Visions of Unity:

Wiccan Prayer for Peace
Dona Nobis Pacem

Lady of Peace who hears the cries of the world
Extend your power through me and with me;
Bless those in harms way.
Bless those who are suffering.
Bless those who are dying.
Bless the lost unknowing dead.
Bless those who love.
Bless those who are helping.
Bless those who are scared.
Bless those who can do nothing but wait.
Bless those who are falsely suspected.
Bless those of limited understanding.
Bless those upholding civil liberties.
Bless those who, though well intentioned, do wrong.
Bless the Ancestors
who love and hold us dear;
may we feel their comfort, too.
Bless those who work and pray for peace
throughout the good, green Mother Earth.
Bless us all, hold us safe within your embrace.

 

So Mote It Be!

BushCo – still selling snake oil on Iraq

Heckova job, Chimpy! Way to go, Rummy! What a plan, Cheney! It’s all succeeding past your wildest dreams.

Really – there’s just too much focus on the bad news. The media really wants to portray Iraq as a battleground in civil war because they hate you…or something.

Or – just maybe – it’s because the f*cking country’s gone straight down the tubes since you got rid of the non existent WMDs…removed Saddam…..installed a new government…..got Iraqis to hold democratic elections (three of them!)….um….

From Reuters:

Gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms abducted about 50 people, including the head of Iraq’s national Olympic committee, while they were holding a meeting in Baghdad on Saturday, police sources said.

[snip]

Police sources said the well-known Olympic Committee chief Ahmed al-Hadjiya and 21 bodyguards had been taken, along with some 30 athletes, by gunmen in blue camouflage uniforms who were driving official-looking four-wheel drive vehicles.

A Reuters journalist saw a convoy of such vehicles with a large number of young people apparently under arrest driving at speed through the Karrada neighborhood close to the conference hall around 1.30 p.m. (5:30 a.m. ET). It was not clear if the incidents were related.

From the Associated Press:

Bombs and mortars struck Shiite and Sunni mosques in the Baghdad area Friday, the latest in a week of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks that have killed more than 250 people.

The deadliest explosion came as worshippers left services at a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding five, police said.

[snip]

Shiite clerics, meanwhile, denounced Israel’s attacks on Lebanon during Friday prayers, and hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated to show solidarity with the Lebanese. Israel began its assault after guerrillas from the Shiite group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a raid inside Israel.

Thousands of Iraqis also demonstrated in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad and the southeastern cities of Kut and Amarah, praising the leader of Hezbollah and denouncing Israel and the United States. Some protesters said they were ready to fight the Israelis.

“No, no to Israel! No, no to America!” demonstrators chanted in Sadr City.

“Let everyone understand that we will not stand idle,” read one of the banners carried by the demonstrators. “Iraq and Lebanon are calling. Enough silence, Arabs,” read another.

[snip]

Also Friday, Iraq’s national wrestling team pulled out of a tournament in the United Arab Emirates after its coach was killed in an attack in Baghdad, sports reporter Sagban al-Rubaie said, acting as a spokesman for the team.

The Sunni coach, Mohammed Karim Abid Sahib, was seized with one of his wrestlers as they left the sports center to buy some sweets in the northern neighborhood of Kazamiyah, where the team was preparing for the tournament.

Civil war, you say? “Oh, heck no!” says the idiot at DoD.

From the Assoicated Press:

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites is as important as the military effort in establishing security in Iraq, where thousands more U.S. troops have been summoned to Baghdad to quell an upsurge in violence.

The U.S. may have to send still more troops to the capital city, said the top U.S. general in the country, while Rumsfeld said it was too early to estimate when overall levels of U.S. forces in Iraq might begin to fall.

Gen. George Casey, the senior U.S. commander, said al-Qaida has increased its killings in Baghdad to show it remains a force to be reckoned with after the June 7 killing of its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

[snip]

Rumsfeld said U.S. forces remain committed to helping stabilize the country, but he stressed that the key concern now is political rather than military.

“It’s as much a political task as anything,” he told reporters who were accompanying him on his 12th visit to Iraq since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and his Sunni Arab power base. “They’re going to have to engage in a reconciliation process” between Sunnis and Shiites, including the Shiite militias that are engaging in acts of intimidation and violence in the Baghdad area, Rumsfeld said.

“Engage in a reconciliation process”?!

Of course! After all, we’ve seen how well that’s worked in Lebanon… and Somalia… and Afghanistan….

Sweet Jeebus in the Manger!

You can literally feel the insanity oozing out of their pores over at Rapture Ready:

Is it time to get excited? I can’t help the way I feel. For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete. For those of us who await his arrival know, somehow we just know it won’t be long now, the Bridegroom cometh rather man is ready are not.

Crazed Talibangelicals hootin’ and hollerin’ and working themselves into a tizzy over the death and destruction in the Middle East. Woo-hoo! Yay, God!

Because after all, Jesus told his disciples that the greatest Commandment was “Kill, kill, kill!” and the second greatest was, “Laugh and point as people die who aren’t pure-ass super-Christians like yourself.”

Honest to Flyin’ Spaghetti Monster, I hope the Rapture does come and Jesus does take these nutcases. That way the rest of us can have a nice little place to roam around in that isn’t constantly soiled by their maniacal ravings.

Here’s a thought for you Rapture-Ready folks: Go put plastic bags over your heads, and seal ’em with some duct tape. The Rapture will be there within 6 minutes. No waiting!

*

PS. It’s a little hard to get worked up over the Revelation prophecy, when most of it centers on war and death in the Middle East. Can anyone name a single time period when there wasn’t wars, death, and destruction in the Middle East? Was it before Noah? Moses? Eden?

Sh*t? Meet Fan…

Things in the Middle East are goin’ straight to hell. Bombings by Israel. Rocket launches by Hezbollah. Threats from Iran. Threats from Syria. Jordan and Egypt having a little confab.

From MSNBC News Services:

An Israeli air strike destroyed a main Hezbollah office in Beirut’s southern suburb as Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon Friday.

The Israeli army blasted the Lebanon’s air and road links to the outside world and bringing its offensive to the capital to punish Hezbollah — and with it, the country — for the capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Warplanes again smashed runways at Beirut’s airport with hours of airstrikes, trying to render it unusable, and destroyed mountain bridges on the main highway to Syria. Warships blockaded Lebanon’s ports for a second day.

[snip]

Lebanese guerrillas responded by firing a barrage of at least 50 Katyusha rockets throughout the day, hitting more than a dozen communities across northern Israel.

The death toll in three days of fighting rose to 73 killed in Lebanon — almost all civilians, including five killed in strikes Friday — and 12 in Israel, including a mother and daughter killed in a rocket attack. The violence sent shock waves through a region already traumatized by the ongoing battles in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.

[snip]

Fears mounted among Arab and European governments that violence in Lebanon could spiral out of control.

“We consider the situation to be very bad and there is the continuing possibility that it could worsen; that the conflict could expand, especially to Syria,” said Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja of Finland, whose country now holds the EU presidency.

[snip]

Also Friday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a hastily-called meeting to discuss the escalating violence.

[snip]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said any Israeli attack against Syria would be an aggression on the whole Islamic world and warned of a harsh reaction, the official Iranian news agency reported Friday.

You figure President Bush – being President of the world’s only remaining superpower – would be working hard, trying to arrange talks between the parties. Trying to work this out, right? *snort*

The real Nitwit…Puddles in Pants….George Bush? He’s worrying about a pig roast.

Yeah – the world is poised on the edge of a very big cliff….and he’s talking about a pig roast. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel looked a bit stunned. As were the reporters. (Well – not the ones from the US; they’re used to it.)

From the Chicago Tribune, via Tennessee Guerilla Women:

After German Chancellor Angela Merkel made some opening remarks at their joint news conference staged in the 13th Century town hall of Stralsund, Bush said: “Thanks for having me… I’m looking forward to that pig tonight.”

A German reporter had a question for Bush: “And apart from the pig, Mr. President, what sort of insights have you been able to gain as regards East Germany?”

“I haven’t seen the pig yet,” said Bush, sidestepping the question about insights gained from the two-day visit to this region of Germany that Merkel calls home and once rested within East Germany.

And when an American reporter asked Bush if he is concerned about the Israeli bombing of the airport in Beirut and about Iran’s failure to respond to an offer for negotiations that the U.S. and European allies have made, Bush replied with more pig banter before delving into the substance of the questions.

“I thought you were going to ask about the pig,” Bush said. “The pig? I’ll tell you tomorrow after I eat it.”

Thankfully, there are Foreign Service people a whole lot smarter than The Decidererer….Chimpy McFlightSuit….George Bush, who are actually dealing with the situation. The US military’s already making contingency plans to evacuate some 25,000 American citizens.

From NBC News (sidebar):

Military officials are discussing contingency plans for what appears now to be the inevitable evacuation of U.S. citizens.

[snip]

The most likely candidate from the MEU would be the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima. It resembles a small aircraft carrier, complete with helicopters and light attack aircraft.

One official says that the military is working on the assumption that they would have to evacuate nearly 25,000 people.

Oh – and by the way, a little prediction: Gas prices. Double within one month unless Israel pulls back before the oil-producing nations have to choose sides.

Let’s all look back on history, shall we?

From Wikipedia:

The 1973 oil crisis began in earnest on October 17, 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries and (OAPEC, consisting of the Arab members of OPEC plus EgyptSyria) announced, as a result of the ongoing Yom Kippur War, that they would no longer ship petroleum to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt (i.e., to the United States and its allies in Western Europe).

About the same time, OPEC members agreed to use their leverage over the world price-setting mechanism for oil in order to quadruple world oil prices, after attempts at negotiation with the “Seven Sisters” earlier in the month failed.

Due to the dependence of the industrialized world on OPEC oil, these price increases were dramatically inflationary to the economies of the targeted countries, while at the same time suppressive of economic activity. The targeted countries responded with a wide variety of new, and mostly permanent, initiatives to contain their further dependency.

Friday Anti-War Song

Call to Heaven — Patty Smyth

Cannons roared, in the valley they thundered
While the guns lit up the night
Then it rained and both sides wondered
Who is wrong and who is right

On the wire like a ragged old scarecrow
Bloody hands and broken back
When they fire see him pirouette solo
Jump in time to the rat-a-tat

What a night though it’s one of seven
What a night for the dancing dead
What a night to be called to heaven
What a picture to fill your head

By the wall in silhouette standing
Through a flash of sudden light
Cigarette from his mouth just hanging
Paper square to his heart pinned tight

Gather ’round reluctant marksmen
One of them to take his life
With a smile he gives them pardon
Leaves the dark and takes the light

They dispatch their precious cargo
Knock him back right off his feet
And they pray may no one follow
Better still to face the beast

When the field has become a garden
And the wall has stood the test
Children play and the dogs run barking
Who would think or who would guess

*

 

Photos from Jesus’ General (1, 3-6), The Memory Hole (2), and Information Clearing House (7).

 

Warning: Extremely Graphic photos at TMH and at ICH.

 

Israel attacks Lebanon

Lots of worries on my mind today:

Israel is bombing the sh*t out of Lebanon in retaliation for two of its soldiers being kidnapped by Hezbollah. They’ve been attacking Gaza in retaliation for the kidnapping of another soldier.

The Middle East is about to flare like drought-dry timber in the West when an idiot tosses a cigarette butt out the window rather than stubbing it out in the ashtray.

While everyone else is telling Israel they’re overreating just a little, Nitwit….The Decidererer…President Bush says Israel “has the right to defend itself.” Uh, hello?? If there were actually air and rocket attacks on Israel, I could see this as being a defense. (UPDATE: Seems I read the report at MSNBC wrong. Hezbollah did fire rockets into Israel.) But Israel’s response is still more like someone pulling an Uzi and shooting up the neighborhood just because someone put a dent in their car – and the Army telling the victims that it was done in self-defense.

Not to mention that Bush immediately blows right past the people actually responsible and threatens Iran and Syria. More at The Left Coaster.

Also making me worry: Unemployment rolls increased by 19,000 last week. Oil went over $76/barrel, before lowering slightly, but it wasn’t enough to calm Wall Street. White House staffers (not the ones on the low end of the totem pole, naturally) got a $4200 cost-of-living increase in their salaries. Meanwhile, wages for actual working Americans remain stagnant, prices have increased on everything – most especially gasoline – so we’re working harder but buying less.

As a result, working Americans struggle to provide the basics while the bottom line for the richest and their corporations is increasing exponentially.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), via The Left Coaster:

From 2003 to 2004, the average incomes of the bottom 99 percent of households grew by less than 3 percent, after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, the average incomes of the top one percent of households experienced a jump of almost 17 percent, after adjusting for inflation. (Census data show that real median income fell between 2003 and 2004. Average income is pulled up by gains at the top of the income spectrum; the 3 percent rise among the bottom 99 percent seems to largely reflect gains by households in the top quintile of the income spectrum. In contrast, trends in median income capture the experience of households in the middle of the income spectrum.)

[snip]

[snip]

Income gains were even more pronounced among those with the very highest incomes. The incomes of the top one-tenth of one percent of households grew more rapidly than the incomes of the top one percent of households. The share of the national income received by the top one tenth of one percent of households increased by 1.3 percentage points from 2003 to 2004; in other words, more than half of the increased share of income going to the top one percent of households actually went to the top one-tenth of one percent of households.

[snip]

It should be noted that wage and salary growth has been unusually weak during this recovery, while the growth of corporate profits has been exceptionally strong. This contributes to growing income inequality, since high-income households own a highly disproportionate share of corporate assets and derive significant income from those assets. With weaker-than-normal wage growth and stronger-than-normal growth in corporate profits having continued into the first part of 2006, it is likely that the increase in income inequality that Piketty and Saez have documented through 2004 has continued since that time and that the nation’s already-large disparities in income are growing yet wider.

As you can see from the chart above, the last time we saw income share disparity like this, we were heading into the Great Depression.

At this point, and considering the Imbecile-in-Chief and his band of Merry Minions who are in charge, I don’t know what to fear more: a second Great Depression, or a third World War.

NARAL and Planned Parenthood Endorse Lieberman?!

What in the hell is wrong with these people??

Like others, I begin to suspect an addiction to cocktail weenies among the national organization’s Powers-That-Be that blinds them to reality.

Nothing else could explain the dissonance between their stated goals and the actions of Joe Lieberman.

From FireDogLake, I learned that Ned Lamont wasn’t even included in the process. WTF?

What process could result in something this stupid? National must be smoking something good if they’re incapable of looking at these two particular candidates and seeing which one firmly supports their cause of women’s reproductive freedom, and which one who barely pays lip service to the cause.

I sent NARAL a little note from their feedback page and asked if they plan to endorse Rick Santorum next? At this point they’ve done so much damage to their own organization, a little more isn’t even going to be noticed.

I also told them that I’m hoping their chapters throughout Connecticut break with the nationa organization l and encourage their members to vote for Lamont.

Three cheers for NOW which is supporting the right candidate.

Send NARAL a message here.

Support Ned Lamont.

Support the National Organization of Women.

*
Much more (and better) on this topic at: FireDogLake, MyDD, and Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Didn’t we already do this?

Call me silly, but I thought we’d already accomplished this. Oh, that’s right! We did do it, but then a certain band of idiots pulled our forces out of Afghanistan in order to create the current quagmire in Iraq.
From the Associated Press:

The Taliban will be defeated in Afghanistan although cross-border movement of militants is continuing, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

Rumsfeld also called on Europe to provide a “master plan” to Afghanistan to help curb its massive drug trade, which has seen heroin flood Europe and Russia.

Yeah, let’s not forget that. Now that a democratic government is in place, the people of Afghanistan have again turned to a real cash crop to support themselves. 90% of the heroin/opium trade comes labelled, “Made by Osama & Friends”

At a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Rumsfeld said militants “don’t want to see a country like Afghanistan have a successful democracy. They won’t succeed.”

It seems I’ve heard this before…. I bet the “militants” are “in their last throes.”

Rumsfeld’s remarks at a news conference came hours after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the rise of Taliban resistance in southern Afghanistan reflects the weakness of the government more than a strengthening of the fundamentalist movement that once sheltered Osama bin Laden.

“The areas that the Taliban is operating in are areas that the government of Afghanistan has not heretofore had the strength and had the presence,” Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told reporters before boarding a plane to fly here with Rumsfeld from Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Well, this guy’s in trouble. Nothing like correcting the boss to get your ass handed to you.

Rumsfeld had said previously that he is concerned that the large-scale drug trafficking in Afghanistan is helping fuel the Taliban’s comeback, but has also has expressed confidence that NATO, with U.S. participation, is capable of handling the violence while mainly U.S. troops hunt down al-Qaida fighters and look for bin Laden.

And NATO is asking, “What the f*ck do you mean by that? You bat-sh*t crazy bastards invaded a non-aggressive country pretty much because you felt like it, and completely gave up looking for Osama Bin Forgotten to tackle a tin-pot dictator on your own. But, you want our help to fix the country while your soldiers take on a guy you’ve ignored the last three years?!”

In remarks to reporters in Tajikistan before flying here, Rumsfeld welcomed an expanded role by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Afghanistan, but also expressed worry about drug trafficking.

In coming weeks, NATO is set to take over command of the international security forces in the south from the U.S.-led coalition, although U.S. troops will remain. Canadian, British and Dutch troops are deploying in the region.

Before arriving in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld had told reporters that “Western Europe ought to have an enormous interest in the success in Afghanistan, and it’s going to take a lot more effort on their part for the Karzai government to be successful.”

How does Rummy do it? How does he say sh*t like that and keep a straight face?? Nothing like telling Western Europe to f*ck off when the sh*t was hitting the fan in regard to Iraq, but, now that they need help because our troops in Iraq are caught right smack in the middle in a CIVIL WAR, well, then….

We just shame and cajole them into taking over where we f*cked up.

Foreign policy? We don’t need no stinkin’ foreign policy! 

Humorous Headlines

Not being in much of a mood to write a Sunday Sermon today, I was checking out MSNBC.com and came across a couple funny headlines:

Associated Press:

Then all at once, a country song broke out…

A Des Moines man was arrested on suspicion of operating while intoxicated Saturday after allegedly crashing into six parked cars, running over his dog and hitting his own house.

Reuters:

Man finds light bulb where sun doesn’t shine
Prisoner has surgery for removal; unknown how many it took to screw it in

MULTAN, Pakistan – Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus.

On Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad’s misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.

On new resume: Plays well with others

LONDON – A British government worker has been fired and another demoted following allegations they were involved in serious misconduct, including leaping naked from filing cabinets and having sex in office lavatories.

Russian police mistake rugby match for brawl

MOSCOW – Russians playing a game of amateur rugby were arrested by police who mistook the match for a mass brawl, local media reported on Monday.

“We got a call to our control room saying there was a fight involving a lot of people on some waste ground just outside town,” RIA news agency quoted a police official in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don as saying.

And God said: Try staying out of the lion’s den

KIEV, Ukraine – A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in the Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal’s enclosure, a zoo official said Monday.

“The man shouted, ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”