Donle’s Daily Dispatches

Volume 1 Issue 174           Today’s News and Views     Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Sign My Guest Book

View My Guest Book

Get Your Free Guest Book

Donle's Daily Dispatches RSS News Feeds

Latest news and opinion headlines from NPR, BBC, NY Times, etc.

See the cost in your community

Update of US Casualties in Iraq: 2504

Update of US Casualties in Afghanistan: 306

Figures provided by

the Iraq Coalition Causality website

Support Our Troops

IMPEACH Bush/Cheney

Hoosiers for Peace requests the honor of your presence…

What: Share Sunday Gravy with Local Progressives at Pasta for Peace. Good Food, Stimulating Conversation, Inspirational Music, Film, and Art and a Silent Auction. Did we mention the pasta was shaped like peace signs? To reserve your seat, call 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org. Seats are limited and going fast.

When: June 25, 2006 from 1 to 4 p.m. (with dinner at 2 p.m.)

Where: Indianapolis Peace and Learning Center (6040 DeLong Rd.) in Eagle Creek Park.

Why:  Now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace. Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. To find out more visit www.hoosiersforpeace.org

Cost: Adults $20, Children 5-12 $7, Children under 5 eat free. All proceeds will go towards the advertising campaign. Seats are limited, contact Heather for tickets today: 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. 
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

May 7, 2006

Dear Peacemakers,

Will you help to spread and encourage peace? With a record number of American soldiers dying in April 2006 and possible military action against Iran becoming daily news, now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace.

Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. We are contacting dozens of organizations to make a proposal to form a coalition to raise funds and send a collaborative message to Hoosiers to Call for Peace. The message is: Call your friends, your family, and your representatives and ask them to support the Call for Peace.

Like most Americans, we oppose war based on the following, which will be reflected in the advertisement:

A.    War Kills. More than 2,400 American Soldiers have died and nearly 1,000 Hoosier soldiers are in harms way.

B.    War depletes our resources. Billions of dollars are going to sustain war efforts while ordinary citizens struggle for social services.

C.    War will not make us secure. Studies have shown that the U.S. is no more secure today than it was before 911.

Hoosiers for Peace, a website sponsored by Progressive Indiana, requests your support to make this advertisement a success. We will use the advertisement to call for peace. Each group in the coalition  working on this project will be listed in the ad. Each group will be asked to raise $1000 by October 1, 2006. Below are some suggestions for fundraising:

1.                Letter Writing Campaign: Contact your family and friends and ask them to support this call for peace. Tell them how many people we can reach and ask them to make a generous donation and spread the word. You may collect the money through your organization or you may refer them to Progressive Indiana. Donations may be sent through our secure online giving by going to www.progressiveindiana.org and click on donate now or log onto www.hoosiersforpeace and click on donate now. Checks may also be made payable to Progressive Indiana and mailed to:

                Progressive Indiana

                P.O. Box 55253

                Indianapolis, Indiana 46205-0253

2.                Host a house party. Go grassroots and organize a pasta dinner or backyard barbecue and ask for a donation from each guest. Play poker and donate half of each pot to the campaign for peace. Have a bake sale through your church or place of employment.

3.                Plan a small event.  Invite your community to an event and ask for donations for the ad. Small concerts, speakers, and socials are some ideas for these events. Get creative and network!

We need at least 14 groups to join the coalition and many more people to join the campaign to help fill in possible gaps. If we join together we can make this happen and we can bring Hoosiers together through this ad. As we Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, and call for an End to the War we can stand united for peace. We can make a difference by showing ordinary Hoosiers that there are many people like them working for peace. Please contact us as soon as possible if you would like to participate in this campaign. With a little work and collaboration we can make a large impact on our community.

In Peace,

Heather Allen-Garde

Director, Hoosiers For Peace

heather@hooisersforpeace.org

heatherreneeallen@yahoo.com

317/202-9302

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it – Eleanor Roosevelt

David Korten

Butler University

June 26, 2006

7pm

Reilley Room

Atherton Hall

Suggested Donation is $5.00

For more information

Click here

Listen to Air America Radio while reading today's news and views

Today's News and Views

Recently, in Newsweek, I read a comment from an American soldier in Iraq who mentioned that one of his buddies had run over a family with his tank. Personally, I don't want to live in a society with that in our magazines, but as long as it's happening, I want it printed on the front page, and I want photos with it.

Flashpoint: For country’s sake, fight through your outrage fatigue

Special to the Tribune-Star

—    Just checking in on you folks to see how you’re faring during this … well, what would you call this odd period of time in our country? I guess how you personally define it would determine how well you’re actually doing, or vice versa.
If you’re extremely wealthy you probably think everything is just dandy.
And if you’re reverently just sitting there waiting to be snatched up in a twinkling of an eye, it must be difficult for you to contain your gleeful elation as we spiral downward toward those glorious “end times.”
But if neither of these two categories fit, you just might be one of those getting a little frustrated and confused right now, and feeling a bit overwhelmed.
If so, I want to caution you about something called “outrage fatigue,” or “OF Syndrome”.
OF Syndrome is caused by an overloading of the outrage senses to the point of fatigue and subsequent shutdown.
Outbreaks of this malady have occurred throughout human history, a result of a variety of varying circumstances, but it’s only been relatively recently that it’s usefulness in controlling the masses was discovered by those seeking that control.
It was in fact OF Syndrome that ultimately allowed 1930’s Germany to decay into that nationalistic dark void. The German people were intentionally and systematically subjected to an ever-increasing series of outrages, all rationalized by the “Big Lie” technique, until they could no longer maintain any sense of indignation or moral clarity, and numbly succumbed.
And though you may wince at the comparison, the infliction of OF Syndrome on the people of the United States is part of the Bush Cabal plan right now. They are, and have been, attempting to overwhelm the average citizen to the point of shutdown.
For example: much of the nuclear sabre rattling about Iran, skyrocketing oil and gas prices, the entire Iraq fiasco, Katrina, the decimation of environmental rules and regulations, the torture of detainees, electronic voting scandals, an out-of-control (and soon-to-be-devastating) national debt, illegal wiretapping and spying, and the sneeringly dismissive “so what do you mere peons think you’re going to do about it anyway” attitude of this administration and its operatives … all of it is designed to generate a certain amount of OF Syndrome, inducing the majority of us to simply give up and accept whatever the Cabal is determined to do.
Can’t you feel it gnawing at you, that sense of mental exhaustion creeping in? The desire to focus what energy you have elsewhere and block it all out? I know I do. I fight it every single day, sometimes several times a day.
But we can’t succumb and zone out simply because it would be more expedient to do so. That would be exactly what they want you to do. Staying somewhat focused is the “price of admission” we all must pay to participate in this democratic drama.
So don’t allow yourself to suppress the outrage, or even any minor irritation you might experience. Howl, scream, stomp about in a huff; go outside and tear through the woods like a banshee; break something you don’t need anymore; take turns ranting to a friend or spouse — do whatever you can to exercise/exorcise that resentment and frustration, and to recoup your psychological and emotional balance.
Then calmly return to doing what a responsible citizen is supposed to do — paying attention to what they’re really up to (as best you can) and demanding accountability (when and where you can).
Trust me, you’ll feel much better in the long run if you do.

—    Kerry Tomasi

Montezuma

Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc,

Iraq War May Add Stress for Past Vets
Trauma Disorder Claims at New High

By Donna St. George
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006; A01

More than 30 years after their war ended, thousands of Vietnam veterans are seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder, and experts say one reason appears to be harrowing images of combat in Iraq.

Figures from the Department of Veterans Affairs show that PTSD disability-compensation cases have nearly doubled since 2000, to an all-time high of more than 260,000. The biggest bulge has come since 2003, when war started in Iraq.

Experts say that, although several factors may be at work in the burgeoning caseload, many veterans of past wars reexperience their own trauma as they watch televised images of U.S. troops in combat and read each new accounting of the dead.

"It so directly parallels what happened to Vietnam veterans," said Raymond M. Scurfield of the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast campus, who worked with the disorder at VA for more than 20 years and has written two books on the subject. "The war has to be triggering their issues. They're almost the same issues."

At VA, officials said the Iraq war is probably a contributing factor in the rise in cases, although they said they have conducted no formal studies.

PTSD researcher John P. Wilson, who oversaw a small recent survey of 70 veterans -- nearly all from Vietnam -- at Cleveland State University, said 57 percent reported flashbacks after watching reports about the war on television, and almost 46 percent said their sleep was disrupted. Nearly 44 percent said they had fallen into a depression since the war began, and nearly 30 percent said they had sought counseling since combat started in Iraq.

"Clearly the current Iraq war, and their exposure to it, created significantly increased distress for them," said Wilson, who has done extensive research on Vietnam veterans since the 1970s. "We found very high levels of intensification of their symptoms. . . . It's like a fever that has gone from 99 to 104."

Vietnam veterans are the vast majority of VA's PTSD disability cases -- more than 73 percent. Veterans of more recent wars -- Iraq, Afghanistan and the 1991 Persian Gulf War -- together made up less than 8 percent in 2005.

VA officials said other reasons for the surge in cases may include a lessening of the stigma associated with PTSD and the aging of the Vietnam generation -- explanations that veterans groups also suggest.

PTSD is better understood than it once was, said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for the group Veterans for America. "The veterans are more willing to accept a diagnosis of PTSD," he said, "and the VA is more willing to make it."

In addition, as Vietnam veterans near retirement age, "they have more time to think, instead of focusing on making a living all the time, and for some this is not necessarily a good thing," said Rick Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs at Vietnam Veterans of America.

Max Cleland, a former U.S. senator from Georgia and onetime head of the VA who was left a triple amputee by the Vietnam War, said the convergence of age and the Iraq war has created problems for many of his fellow veterans -- as well as for himself.

"As we Vietnam veterans get older, we are more vulnerable," he said. When the war started in 2003, he said, "it was like going back in time -- it was like 1968 again."

Now he goes for therapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and is wary of news from Iraq. "I don't read a newspaper," he said. "I don't watch television. It's all a trigger. . . . This war has triggered me, and it has triggered Vietnam veterans all over America."

PTSD has become a volatile topic lately, with some skeptics questioning whether the rise in claims is driven by overdiagnosis or by financial motives. A report last week from the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, concluded that "PTSD is a well characterized medical disorder" for which "all veterans deployed to a war zone are at risk."

VA's growing PTSD caseload became an issue last August, when the agency announced a new review of 72,000 PTSD compensation cases, expressing concerns about errors and a lack of evidence. That probe was dropped after a sample of 2,100 cases turned up no instances of fraud.

Still, some experts are not convinced that the Iraq war has driven up the caseload. "I'm skeptical that it accounts for a broad swath of this phenomenon," said psychiatrist Sally Satel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "These men have had deaths in their families, they had all kinds of tragedies over 30 years that surely affected them emotionally but they coped with."

Although a small percentage of veterans might be deeply affected, she said, she doubts "they have become chronically disabled because of it."

Around the country, many veterans dwell on the similarities between the wars in Vietnam and Iraq: guerrilla tactics, deadly explosives, fallen comrades, divisive politics. The way they see it, "Iraq is Vietnam without water," Weidman said.

"We have people who have symptoms that they haven't had in a long time," said Randy Barnes, 65, who works in the Kansas City offices of Vietnam Veterans of America. For some, "the nightmares and flashbacks have been very hard to deal with," he said. Group therapy sessions are "much more crowded," he said, "with Vietnam veterans particularly, but now also with the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans."

Barnes served as a combat medic in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and went into treatment only in the late 1990s. By the time the Iraq war started, he said, he felt steadier -- but then his symptoms ramped up again.

"Depending on what I saw or heard that day or read, I would have night problems -- nightmares, night sweats," he said. Sometimes, he said, he would roll out of bed and wake up crawling on the floor, "seeking safety, I guess."

A study published in February by VA experts showed that veterans under VA care experienced notable mental distress after the war started and as it intensified. While younger veterans, ages 18 to 44, showed the greatest reactions to the war, "Vietnam era VA patients reported particularly high levels" of distress consistently, the study reported.

Powerful images of war have revived combat trauma in the past. "Traumatized people overreact to things that remind them of their original trauma," said Scurfield, the PTSD expert in Mississippi.

When the movie "Saving Private Ryan" was released, World War II veterans sought mental health help in great numbers, said Wilson of Cleveland State. "It rekindled it all," he said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Craig Crawford: Opinion-Proof Policy

By Craig Crawford   |   7:31 PM; Jun. 16, 2006

If we learned anything about George W. Bush when he was in the Rose Garden last week, it was just how much he sees himself as utterly impervious to the obvious will of a majority of the American people.

A buoyant and at times defiant president met with reporters just a few hours after proving that Air Force One can indeed fly to Baghdad and back without incident. Energized by this technological feat, along with the killing the week before of al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Bush proceeded to explain why he simply does not care about the persistent parade of opinion polls showing that most Americans are as unhappy as ever with his policies in Iraq. “Don’t bet on American politics forcing my hand, because it’s not going to happen,” Bush said.

There you have it, naysayers. The president has no intention of listening to you.

What now? Voters will not see this Bush on a presidential ballot ever again, so he is out of reach in that respect. The upcoming congressional elections offer little prospect for becoming a referendum on Bush’s course in Iraq, so long as the Democrats continue to present no clear or unified alternative to his policy.

Even if Democrats gain control on Capitol Hill, their prospective Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, has made it clear that she would not pursue impeachment, the last resort for a nation fed up with a second-term president. That leaves Bush in the driver’s seat, free to do whatever he wants in Iraq. And that is precisely what he intends to do.

The situation facing dissenters reminds me of what Marion Barry said after securing re-election as Washington’s mayor a dozen years ago. Asked by a reporter what his message was for the majority of white citizens who voted against him, his reply was simple: “Get over it.”

For those who want the United States to ease off the throttle in Iraq, you have Bush’s answer: Get over it. Indeed, if stubbornness is strength, then he is Superman.

On Course

“Stay the course” was George Bush the elder’s campaign mantra when he ran to succeed Ronald Reagan in 1988. For his son it’s much more than a rhetorical device, especially when it comes to keeping troops in harm’s way with no end in sight. It is a policy unto itself — even if no one, including Bush himself, has any clue where the course is actually taking us.

Thelma and Louise stayed the course. And they sailed off a cliff to presumed death in the 1991 film. Thousands stayed the course in New Orleans as Katrina bore down on the city, and many drowned. To most Americans, Bush’s flat refusal to alter his course invokes Einstein’s immortal definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

Never mind that this administration’s course in Iraq has changed many times during the past 40 months on the battlefield. It has veered in all directions, from chasing the illusion of massively destructive weapons to the off-and-on-again attitude toward seeking the help of experienced Iraqi military personnel. Add to that the unrealized predictions of thankful Iraqis greeting U.S. troops as liberators — and the initial failure of having an American civilian, L. Paul Bremer, run things — and you have a policy that has never stayed any particular course other than keeping troops on the ground indefinitely.

To this president, “stay the course” really means that the nation must unquestioningly follow whatever path he chooses, no matter how many times his team changes its mind. Even if you buy Bush’s preferred impression that he has followed the same course from day one, his logic fails because the results have only produced a quagmire that is hostage to events not always in U.S. control.

The president has the country over a barrel. Having short-circuited a national debate when there was time to avoid these consequences — before the 2003 invasion — Bush now dismisses a disgruntled country that is finally debating the wisdom of war at a time when pulling out probably leads to nothing but more chaos that could pose an even greater threat to national security.

One wonders what would happen if the president made a wrong turn on a road trip. Is there a chance he’d double back to the right path? I think not. Instead, he gives the impression of someone who would circle the globe before admitting he was lost. He is the stereotypical belligerent male that women often complain about, preferring to stay lost rather than stop and ask someone for directions.

Watching Bush slam the pedal to the metal in the Rose Garden last week seemed like what Thelma says to her pal before Louise slams the car in gear and drives off the cliff: “Hit it!” And as in the film, you could hear the words of the B.B. King song in the background: “Better not look down, if you want to keep on flying.”

Craig Crawford is a news analyst for MSNBC, CNBC and “The Early Show” on CBS. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com. His column originally appears in CQ Weekly. For more information about CQ Weekly, please visit CQ.com.

© 2006 •

Good men have done nothing. For all the good they've done, the Democrats might as well bend over —or go home.

Democrats must unite in opposition to the war —else they become a part of the quagmire itself. The question is: will the Democrats be a part of the solution or will they continue to "enable" the very worst, most evil and incompetent "president" in American history? Democrats had better answer that question —and quick! They've blown a chance. When Bush was on the ropes, they let him off. But because Bush is hostage to his own failed strategy, Democrats may get a second chance but only if they storm the moral high ground and hold it.

Bush can lose on every other issue, but if he is seen to be winning the war —however immoral it may be —the GOP will retain control of both houses of Congress and thus enable the Bush power grab and dictatorship. Iraq will bring down Bush's Presidency but only if the Democrats are seen to be a viable alternative on this issue. As Buzzflash put it in their recent editorial:

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid just released a Democratic Party agenda for America. Most of its social and economic goals were commendable.

But they won't win either branch of Congess on these issues.

Bush is stuck with Iraq but he will lose on Iraq only if the Democrats get unstuck. If the war is seen to be either unwinnable or lost, Bush is finished —but only if the Democrats are seen to be an alternative. Clearly, the Democrats have not done this.

Why?

The GOP can win by not losing. Democrats don't have that luxury. Bush succeeded in spreading the guilt around, sticking Democrats with the Iraq tar baby. Hillary Clinton, for example, is stuck. If she fails to get her party's nomination — or if she fails to win after getting it —it will be because her position seems to be Bushco-lite.

Despite all the GOP tricks (and they are now reaching down into the bottom of their dirty tricks bag), the overriding facts are these:

• The war itself is wrong, immoral, and has already bankrupted the US
• "Saying the course" is just another way of saying: "If we can just kill a few more then we can stop killing —eventually!" ...or "Let's keep on doing whatever it is that's making us sick!"

Rep. John Murtha gave it a shot [See: Crooks and Liars: "Murtha to Rove: He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big- fat backside- saying stay the course!"] —but Democrats must be as ruthless in defense of what's right as GOPPERS are ruthless in the perpetration of evil. Iraq will take Bush down but Democrats will not benefit unless they position themselves in opposition to a failed and morally bankrupt administration.

I am posting the following article —excerpted in blockquotes —with my refutations:

Half a President With Half a Vision

Written by Robert Klein Engler, Sunday, June 18, 2006

President Bush's recent trip to Baghdad established that the Iraq war will be the defining foreign policy decision of his administration.

In the vernacular, Bush, having lost every other big issue, is rolling the dice with Iraq. What are the odds he will win? Bush can't win straight up; he's betting the Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot.

As a result of that war, a new constitution and a new government is in place in Iraq.

Was it worth the American Constitution? I don't think so. Polls of Iraqis clearly want us out! Now! What are we doing in Iraq if not securing the oil fields for Halliburton?

The Iraqi people are now able to take charge of their own country.

Then we can withdraw our troops immediately, right? See: Mayhem in Baghdad puts lie to Bush's claims of increasing Iraqi security

The United States still must have a presence in Iraq, but no one, except for some disenchanted Democrats yearning for political power, will say that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a bad thing.

The Iraqi people are worse off under Bush than Saddam. Bush had boasted that under the US occupation...

"Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers."

—President Bush, remarks to 2003 Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Oct. 8, 2003"

That turned out to have been another lie. Saddam tortured his political enemies at Abu Ghraib and so did Bush. If I were an Iraqi, what difference does it make to me if I am tortured by Saddam or by Bush? Lately, the US military is revealed to have been involved in mass murder. If I were an Iraqi, what difference does it make to me whether I am murdered by Saddam or by Bush?

Just for good measure, here is another absurd lie told by a Bushy:

"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over."

—Paul Bremer, Administrator, [Iraq] Coalition Provisional Authority, Sept. 2, 2003

Bremer was lying. There's proof: Salon published an extensive archive of photos of US perpetrated torture at Abu Ghraib on March 14, 2006. That archive is available here.

There is, therefore, no moral difference between Saddam and Bush. Bush's body count approaches or may have surpassed Saddam's by now and America has probably tortured and/or murdered as many civilians has did Saddam.

The idea that the Iraqi people are better off because the United States bombed them, killed tens of thousands of civilians, and later, attacked and invaded them is just patently absurd and intellectually dishonest. The average Iraqi is clearly worse off under Bush.

If the president's plan continues to work in Iraq, then historians will no doubt record this as a major foreign policy achievement.

The "President's" plan has never worked in Iraq. More accurately, it is doubtful that Bush ever had a plan beyond bomb and invade and hope that everything works out. That plan —if plan it is —has already failed. History will judge Bush as it has judged every other aggressor despot.

Having a successful foreign policy is a boost for the president, but it is only half of his responsibility to protect the American people. The president's vision for Iraq and victory in the so-called war on terror is only half a vision. The other half is to have a successful domestic policy and vision as well.

When has Bush ever had a successful foreign policy? A foreign policy based upon an ongoing war crime is not a recipe for restoring America's lost moral authority. Subverting democracy and the rule of law at law is not a method by which those principles are credibly extolled to the world. By what perverted standard is anything done by Bush called "successful"? An even better standard by which to measure Bush foreign policy is the timeline of attrition in the so-called "coalition of the willing". The people of the United States, however, are, because of Bush's incompetence in this area, left holding the bag and the bill.

Many believe that the most dangerous threat at the moment to the United States abroad is Al-Qaeda. We seem to be doing well in defeating that threat.

Al Qaeda was a creation of the CIA operating in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's equally illegal, equally disastrous invasion of that country in the 1970's. I would like to know at what point in time Al Qaeda stopped acting on behalf of the CIA. Moreover, no one —not even the Bush administration —has said that Al Qaeda operated openly inside Iraq under Saddam's regime. If Al Qaeda is operating in Iraq now, it is Bush's failure —not Saddam's! At last —if Bush had been interested in attacking Al Qaeda, he would have not have attacked Iraq where Al Qaeada most certainly wasn't. Al Qaeda is smoke and mirrors, a distraction which masks Bush's real agenda, his real motive.

In short, Engler's article misses the point, misstates facts, ignores others, and, in general, paraphrases a tired and failed strategy: stay the course! Staying the course is the GOP way: keep on doing whatever it is that's making you sick; beat your head against the wall until it stops hurting; keep on killing until you don't have to kill anymore. Sadly, that day never comes.

At last someone in the MSM gets it. Andy Rooney dares to ask the question that spooks many Democrats and the corporate MSM and that question is best phrased in the title of a song from the early '70's: War! What is it good for?

Ike Was Right About War Machine

October 5, 2005

Andy Rooney / Sixty Minutes, CBS

Commentary: The US is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

CBS News

NEW YORK (October 2, 2005) — I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into.

We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today.

Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what?

Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China.

Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students.

Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment.

We're paying for weapons we'll never use.

No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion.

We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon.

We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons — enough to destroy all of mankind.

We're spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice.

We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do.

We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals.

We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this:

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …"

Well, Ike was right. That's just what's happened.

More graphic support for Andy Rooney's thesis:

And Rob Kall gets it:

Trusting in Blind Stupidity

by Rob KallThat's the Rove/Republican game plan. They trust that the remaining members of their base will automatically, stupidly, continue to produce the knee jerk reactions to phrases like hold the course, cut and run, and suggestions that to fail to go the distance with the war is an act of cowardice.

And there are millions of "stupid white men" as Michael Moore so aptly described them in his book, who will embrace these right wing echo chamber spins. These are the men who use talk of war and talk of superiority over anti war democrats as a kind of Viagra that makes them feel more manly, tougher.

I call them the dumbest, dupes in the world. Since this is a kind of sexual thing, with the war talk as Viagra, that sort of makes them cuckolds-- men who are made fools of by other men.

The fact is, the Republicans are trying to justify staying in a war that should never nave been started. They're trying to legitimize keeping on engaging in what amounts to a horrible crime. Bush lied to get us into this war. He knowingly used false information. His fraudulent claims were used to justify starting a war. It's hard to think of a worse crime. He and his cronies deserve to go to jail. And what do you call some one who aids and abets criminals? I call them accomplices. That's what the Republicans in congress are. They are attempting to keep the like going. This is a war that should be stopped dead in its tracks. ...

An essential resource:

Rape Rooms: A Chronology

In the meantime, Bush will serve up delusions because spin won't make reality go away. From David Usborne in New York:

Mayhem in Baghdad puts lie to Bush's claims of increasing Iraqi security

Baghdad blasts mock US claims of Iraqi progress

Following death of Zarqawi and visit by Bush, leaders fail to bring end to cycle of violence

A series of explosions ripped through Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 23 people and dealing a shattering blow to the new Iraqi government's attempts to impose a security blanket on the capital.

The seven separate blasts at locations across the city are likely similarly to frustrate the efforts of the White House to demonstrate a degree of progress in Iraq since the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi earlier this month, and the surprise visit to Baghdad last Monday by President George Bush.

In the meantime, a new Pentagon investigation revealed details of abusive treatment of detainees in Iraq early in 2004 by members of US special forces. The report said the soldiers were continuing to use interrogation techniques that had been ruled unacceptable several months earlier by the Pentagon because they were too harsh, including feeding one inmate on bread and water only for 17 days. ...

And the question is understandable and it bears on today because even those of us who are involved, even those of us who are active in the political process and in civic life, there are times where all of us feel discouraged sometimes, where we get cynical about the prospects for politics because it seems as if sometimes that politics is treated as a business and not a mission, and that power is always trumping principle, and that we have leaders that are sometimes long on rhetoric but short on substance, and so we get discouraged. And every two years or fours years maybe we do our bit and we knock on doors or pass our literature, or we go into the polling place and hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils, but we don't feel in our gut sometimes that politics and government is going to improve our lives. At most, we hope it does us no harm.

And I am not immune to those feelings. But, you know, when I get in that funk, I think about a person I met the day before I was elected to the United States Senate ...[M]y staff comes up to me and says, senator, before you go up, there's this woman who wants to meet you. And she's driven a long way and she's a big supporter and she just wants to take a picture with you and shake your hand. And I say, well, that's not a problem. And so I go offstage to a back room and I meet this woman. She explains that she has supported me since I announced my race. She shakes my hand, we take a picture, she tells me that she's proud of me. And she had already cast her ballot at that point absentee, and she was really appr