Statecraft Informer

Sparxafire!

On second thought, no… don’t give me a break. I am as close as it gets to zilch on a stick, just taking up space. I am simply incensed with Congress today, filiblustering away any vote on the proposal that soldiers should have as much time at home from the war as they spend fighting.

Who is supporting the troops now? This is the most direct slap in the face to the troops I’ve seen to date. Your president, of course, naturally is AGAINST this humanitarian move to literally and directly support our troops. What a hypocrite.

Suppose you were “a troop,” (I LOVE it when newscasters and allegedly educated people try to use the word, “troop” to describe a single soldier. It’s equivalent to referring to more than one mouse as “mices!”) … OK. So you are a soldier, and you are maxt out, exhausted, stressed, and so homesick you could die. And you watch your government mince and priss and whine and blah blah blah about giving you a highly deserved, desperately needed break.

Do you feel supported or petrayed?

Do you appreciate yellow ribbons, and lip service and empty, attaboy speeches? Does this type of thing feel like “support” to you — when your family back home is on food stamps and you don’t have basic protective gear?

I absolutely spit on the Republican’t party’s shameful “opposite-of-support” for every single troop.

Sparxafire!

So what does OJ have to do with statecraft? OJ has a way of pointing a spotlight on the weaknesses of our legal system, that’s what.

If anyone recalls watching portions of the great OJ murder trial back in the ’90s, one recalls listening to a lot of ridiculous krap… I’ll tell you what I remember: That’s the scene of OJ, standing there with the gloves ON, showing ruefully that they “don’t fit.” The gloves were ON. They did, in fact FIT. But everyone saw the gloves ON him and agreed they did not fit. That was my number one astonishing moment.

OK, so who wants to take bets on the way our judicial system handles OJ this time? They’re gonna release him on $150,000 bail first of all. Flight risk, yes or no? OJ is supposed to be living on his modest NFL pension. How can he afford to fly his lawyer into Vegas from Florida, and scramble up $150,000? Legally, everything above his pension is owned by the family of Nichole Brown, his murdered wife.

Are we up for another OJ circus? His celebrity is somewhat different now than it was back in the mid-90s. But the circus is provided by our legal system, which I believe to be a gigantic, inefficient, inept, sluggish, broken down machine – as borne out by my personal experience with civil court. I will spare you the grisly details, but what a mess!

Sparxafire!

This Blackwater incident in Iraq is a Big Mess. We don’t even know the details yet, but Blackwater USA is a private security firm contracted by the U.S. government, I guess… to provide protection to U.S. people in Bagdad. An incident occurred where Blackwater personnel may have been firing at Iraqis, and what’s up with that anyway???

The Iraqi government is not pleased. It is “investigating” the event, which may be one reason why the reports of what actually happened are so foggy. In the course of this incident, as the spotlight swings around to shine on contract security forces in Iraq — forces not affiliated with the U.S. military — the questions do begin to tumble out…

Apparently there are 48,000 such contractors placed in Iraq by the U.S. government. What the hell? That’s another third of an army over there (if you consider 130,000 pre-surge troops). What are their rules of engagement? What happens when they skirmish with Iraqis or anyone else who might be there? Are they fighting a war or murdering Iraqis?

As mentioned, this is a Big Mess, and the Iraqi government seems poised to keep the spotlight on this situation with investigations and calls to “suspend licenses” for these contractor groups. There’s another question… the Iraqi government “licenses” non-military U.S. security forces?

I hated to post prematurely about this, because clearly, it’s some kind of snake’s nest with far more questions than answers, but holy soldier of fortune, Batman, this really smells bad right from the git-go! It may have the potential to blow bush’s whole war apart……….?

Sparxafire!

Well, god bless Sally Field. After two Oscars™ and three Emmys™, she now has produced two memorable thank you speeches. The first, after winning the Oscar for her performance in 1985’s “Places in the Heart,” when she did the, “You like me! You really like me!” thing.

And now, upon accepting the Emmy for “Brothers and Sisters,” she declares, “If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any god-damned wars in the first place.”

Now, don’t get your statecraft informer wrong, she is in NO way a booster or fan of mothers or motherhood… In fact, my true feelings would be closer to something like, “If mothers ruled the world, we would all be emotionally abused, as in fact, we are.” Or, “If mothers ruled the world, all audacity and creativity would be pounded out of us, as in fact, it is.”

No, I’m just grateful for an anti war statement of any kind, from anyone – even Sally Field. The fact that she threw in the “god damn” makes me proud of her audacity and creativity!

On the Sunday morning talk shows, someone – and I forget who – referred to your president’s speech last week as “his farewell address….” That’s just great! And SO true. Stick a fork in his fat ass; he’s done. If only. In this case, I’m not so sure we don’t have a “mother…” in charge, actually.

Sparxafire!

You know, as much gnashing of teeth and woe that we heap upon the abject failure of the Iraqi government to form itself into anything effective, I think the U.S. government is worse! Both governments took the month of August off for vacation and refreshment, while 77 U.S. troops were killed, 10 reported missing and 404 injured. Civilian deaths for August are estimated in the range of 1,500 or so.

Who is less competent? The group that says here’s a bunch of people who will die to give you time to get your act together, or the group that can’t get its act together?

By the way, how a surge in troops directly relates to giving the Iraqis breathing space to get their act together eludes me entirely as 100 percent nonsense. It’s a little like saying to a homemaker, “Here. We will bring more kids into your house to be under your feet while you bake a pie from scratch. Don’t thank us, we’re happy to do it.” How does this help or hurt, one way or another?

So, after the long hot summer of 2007, enduring the Bush/Petraeus/dog/pony show, we get the results we deserve: “Ta Da! The surge worked! It gave the vital breathing room we hoped it would! Unfortunately, the breathers squandered the time by apparently breathing through their mouths, but still! Ta Da! It’s the old pie in the face, except for the deaths.

Worse then is, “OK, America, as your reward, the troops who are required, and pre-scheduled to come home? We’re going to let them come home! Ta Da!

The other day, my 2-year-old grandson undertook the dangerous mission of climbing out of his high chair on his own. There were some tense moments, and a loss of balance, and some minor bumping… but somehow he nailed his landing on two feet. The little expression on his face changed from “Uh-oh…” to a brilliant grin, and a declaration of “Ta Da!” Clearly, the kid is presidential material!

Sparxafire!

This just in from Idaho Senator and Airport Restroom Naughty Boy, Larry Craig on the Petraeus/Crocker presentation:

“I believe their testimony told a positive story. Our soldiers are making progress on the ground to provide breathing room for the Iraqi government, and we have seen a significant decrease in violence across the country, and most importantly, in Baghdad. That being said, the Iraqi government must stand up and prove to their people that they can govern and secure their country from violence.”

How embarrassing this must be for the homosexuals of America — not that Craig does a good job at being gay. In fact, he is a downright krap gay what with all the shame and repression and lashing out against his own and whatnot. Gays must realize that Craig is a krap gay, not a good, upstanding gay, and therefore any reasoning he does must be krap. Like his assessment about Petraeus’s remarks.

The kernel of the report was this (I paraphrase):
Petraeus - We think some good things have happened since the surge. The best thing to happen, a settling down in Anbar province, had nothing to do with anything we did. However, we think we gave some breathing space to the Iraqi government to get their act together. And as far as anything the U.S. military might be doing to help keep Americans safe, I got nothin’.
Crocker - Well, doggone it, as soon as the Iraqi government got a whiff of that breathing space, they misunderstood and took a month off for vacation. Sorry, but as far as the Iraqi government getting its act together, I got nothin’.

And that’s what your statecraft informer heard!

The only thing I care about is stopping the increases in American deaths and the American debt. And I deeeeeeeeeeeeply resent that we are suffering all this loss out of 85% sheer stupidity and 15% filthy politics.

Sparxafire!

Welp, loyal masses of statecraft informer fans, as of today, all statecraft has died in the current administration. The Petraeus report was even more lame than we expected. The democrats are SO over… they have no choice but to give your president every single dollar and young soldiers’ lives he wants. Everybody wants the war to continue at this point (well, except the troops and the American people)… for political reasons. Your president is bound and determined to hand off his warturd to the next administration, and the democrats don’t want to take responsibility for ending it now.

I just wish I knew what r-e-a-ll-y motivates your president to kill an average of 70 or so of our soldiers every month. What motivation could there possibly beeeeee? I suppose it has something to do with money (oil). But how smarmy and disgusting is that? Why? Why does he continue in the face of overwhelming evidence that there is nothing, but nothing to gain… no victory at all. I hope there’s plenty of oil… or to put it another way, how many American casualties does it take to control Iraqi oil? Will it wind up being X soldiers per gallon, like some ghastly mileage calculation? Isn’t that gross?

From now on, your statecraft informer will try to confine herself to the arena of the presidential campaigns. Sigh. Because believe me, from now until January 2009, there is no craft in the state of bush.

Sparxafire!

Oh, for goodness sake! There’s too much going on, and I am all fogged up at the anniversary of 9/11. Every year, I force myself to revisit the Terrorist Attack of Sept. 11, 2001 and refresh my horror. I watch all the documentaries and retrospectives on television. And I make myself sick every time at the bumbling incompetence shown at every level… every single level… that allowed this thing to happen as it did.

Clinton admin paralyzed by Monica out of doing anything.
1998 missle strike MISSES! (Way incompetent)
Airport people who let the suicide pilots on the planes in the first place
Norad/FAA/air traffic control, total blundercluster

I cannot think of or name a single damn individual or entity that did its job regarding 9/11.

While I may not have wholeheartedly joined the conspiracists, I flutter around the edges. They do have valid questions, and raise intriguing concerns. For example, I am mystified as to why those twin towers disintegrated like they did. We are told they fell because the fire melted the steel… yet jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. But what made them turn to dust? The pulverization of the buildings makes no sense to me; does not sound right to me. And, some demolition experts have stated that the pancake descent and pulverization of the towers is precisely the way a planned demolition goes. The south tower was hit nearer one edge of the structure. How could that end up falling straight down? It should have tilted as the injured side collapsed. It didn’t tilt.

And, clearly, no one expected the towers to collapse. That was a big shock for everyone… except the people who wired it to fall. Professional firemen had no reason to expect the collapse, as proved by their race up the stairwells. Because buildings on fire just do not behave the way those towers did.

And, my resentment of Rudy Guiliani grows with each passing day. How dare he run for president on the basis that he was mayor of New York the day those planes hit? His city was SO not ready, in spite of the overt warning of the first WTC bombing! He had his fire and police departments using half-crap, half-toy radios that day… no plan in place for the two departments to work together. His failure to protect cleanup workers’ lungs in the face of obvious lethal atmospheric conditions. It was pathetic.

More pathetic? Six years later, we still have to listen to bin Laden tapes.

Sparxafire!

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, we are apparently treated to a video from Osama bin Laden himself. Although, right out of the box, let me say I believe those who doubt the veracity of the tape have a good point. In these times, one can make any video appear to be anything or anyone. The technology is there. So, I can only give a 50/50 endorsement that the video is authentic bin Laden.

Regardless, it is a message from the terrorists. And I am horrified to report that bin Laden makes as much sense as your president! He is as fully as accurate and as reasoned as bush — maybe more so. Boy, do I hate to say that! But, after all, they are both radical religious fundamentalists… both perfectly willing to engage in violence.

In his message, bin Laden accurately describes the status quo in the U.S. citing the frustration of the American people, the sodden inability of the Democrats in Congress to make any meaningful move… He even works in the destruction of our middle class and the failure of the subprime mortgage industry, for crying out loud!

His solution? Americans should convert to Islam and enjoy its 2.5 percent tax rate! I’m not so sure this is so much a 9/11 anniversary speech as it is a U.S. presidential campaign speech! Is he preparing to throw his little turban wrap thingy into the ring???

Need more proof? He’s dyed his beard black to cover the gray. OMG.

Your statecraft informer is very close to a meltdown over here!

Sparxafire!

This just in: When Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile asked your president how things are going in Iraq, your president replied, “We’re kickin’ ass.”

Woo Hoo! Kickin ass you say! So this is what a 3,400 U.S. casualty, $450 billion whupass looks like! That’s got to be one big dent in some big ass, right? So, um, whose ass exactly is bashed in? Well. I guess Saddam’s ass is well and truly kicked; he is dead and all. In fact, I bet the entire Hussein family’s ass is pretty rosy! And we have lost 3,400 of our own ass kicked (deceased) troops in the deal… That actually sucks.

Wait! I’ve got it! Your president must have been talking about your ass! And mine! And the ass of every other U.S. taxpayer! And their children’s… and grandchildren’s ass! That’s about the only sense I can extract from your president’s reductive, cowpoke, tuffguy remark. Sigh. There’s just something about a macho man who plays make believe with OPL (other people’s lives).

So, how many more billion do we have to spend to get Bin Laden’s ass kicked?

Sparxafire!

Today, someone called my cell phone by mistake. The caller sounded like he was riding a roller coaster at an amusement park, with wind noise and screaming in the background. I could not understand him, nor, apparently could he understand me, there being lots of general chaos involved. Finally, he made me understand the single word he kept repeating: Diamonds. I replied that I did not have any diamonds. He repeated, “Diamonds…” until I realized there was nothing to do but to just hang up.

Now that was a cool call, but not nearly as cool as the message Larry Craig left on some poor citizen’s phone about how he planned to play some angles, use cagey wording and launch a plan to get his confession to wide stance restroom hijinx withdrawn and somehow return triumphantly to the Senate.

Now that’s a wrong number!

Of course, then you have Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) trying to apologize through clenched teeth about threatening voice mail messages he left on the phone recorder of citizens who had written a critical letter to the editor about Lamborn.

Is this just nuts, or what? Don’t people have any sense at all about leaving recorded messages? Are modern phones’ buttons too small for people to hit the right numbers? Even your statecraft informer can dial a phone.

Sparxafire!

So now we have your president wandering around in Iraq, asking soldiers, “How’s morale?” This is useful stuff. What soldier or civilian worker would respond honestly to the boss? Magnificent waste of time. Then, curiously, your president went on to say, “…When we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from the position of fear and failure…”

What is he talking about? Does he think this comment elicits thoughts of victory? I think that’s how you define “success” in a war… victory. Exactly what is there to “win” in Iraq? What could the definition of success possibly be? As far as I can tell, “success” in Iraq is defined as “we get their oil.” That is why we are there… to make sure their oil is under our fingernails, and to tear things up for Haliburton to make a fortune fixing, right? There’s your victory.

As much as we hear about a diplomatic solution, I think the design is that we are not supposed to hear about the negotiations to get the oil, and we are apparently having a hard time wresting it from their grasp.

Sparxafire!

Bless the Republicants hearts… how sickening is it to be a Republicant this week? Rove leaves. Gonzalez leaves. Snow leaves. Craig blows… as it were. How do they do it? How to they put one foot in front of the other? Rove, a seedy, greedy little piglet spends his life flopping about in primordial political slime. Gonzales? Clueless puppet. The lying was really, really bad… and badly executed, but worse, the job itself was ever so badly done. I don’t recall. I can’t remember. Meeting? Was I there? For crying out loud, ya idjit! Tony Snow: it’s not the money, it’s the sleaze (see roveslime, above…). He has children of his own watching him for goodness sake! Craig? It’s all about the hypocrisy. It is his very own work over the past 30 years in the Senate that perpetuates a society where gay men have to solicit sex in restrooms. He hates who he is; self loathing does not make for good government.

Ten years since Lady Di was killed. That was nuts. She used the media as much as they used her. Probably Dodi, new on the scene, decided to be macho about the paparazzi and show his new lady friend he could protect her from her bread and butter… Tsk.

Katrina anniversary. OMG. The sum of the human suffering could break your back. Don’t think about it or you’ll die. Don’t ever, ever, ever be caught in a hurricane, flood, fire, tornado, coal mine, Interstate highway bridge… And now we learn that cow farts are killing us. What a world!

I have grandchildren for crying out loud.

Sparxafire!

Pretty much everyone has said what they’re going to say about the second anniversary of Katrina. And it is almost sickening, frankly, to stack up even more empty words about the absolutely abject failure of anyone to pitch in and help bring back the Gulf Coast. Myself included.

I’ve done absolutely nothing to help the recovery. Squat. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s because I don’t know what I can do. I’m an old lady. I would be worthless down there, trying to dismantle ruined houses. I can’t give money because, (a) I don’t have any and (b) I feel strongly that whatever I would give would be utterly wasted.

How a nation responds to a tragedy says a great deal about the character of that nation. If 9/11 and Katrina are any indication, our response suggests we have no brains, no compassion, no skills, no abilities, no hindsight, no foresight, no common sense. We have nothing to offer. Yes, we squeeze our eyes tight shut and throw some money (paper) at it, but we let the crooks and cheaters pick up the money and hold no one accountable for the fact that nothing can be done anymore.

We can’t save trapped miners. We can’t care for 9/11 rescue workers who suffered severe pulmonary damage cleaning up Ground Zero. We can’t figure out what to do in the Gulf Coast. We may be able to someday get a new bridge in Minneapolis. We may someday get some fancy new skyscraper built on the Ground Zero site, but It’s been six years already. Apply that pacing to the situation in the Gulf, and it is plain to see we will never bring it back.

I am so ashamed. How did we get this way? Now we must gather the strength to go through next week’s 9/11 anniversary. Sigh.

Sparxafire!

I don’t want to talk about Larry Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho and his “stance” on the “(t)issues.” Here is what is really wrong:

It is these pompous, holier-than-thou hypocrites who put themselves out there, preaching their pursed-lipped rules and regulations to the society… trying to make everyone feel inferior and unworthy and sleazy for being human. It’s essentially these old white men who think they make the rules of society, and put their wing-tips on the necks of mere mortals and squeeze the life out of regular folks. They pontificate about abortion. Black/white… as far as they are concerned. No gray areas… it’s murder, period. No extenuating circumstances. No special cases. They disgust me.

Now the poor gay people have to endure the outrage of the country because some human, who’d set himself up as an intolerant snot is caught with his stance wide. And perfectly innocent and decent gay people have to listen to the whole country go, “Euuuuwwww… that’s disGUSTing….” And feel bad about themselves to be associated with such a sleaze and whatnot.

I firmly believe that the only reason, for example, that Muslim women have to wear burkahs is because men are so ashamed of their own lust, and unable to control themselves when they see a pretty face or a shapely leg…. they force women to cover up. It’s all part of the same hypocrisy…

When the whole time, the problem is intolerance, snobbery and sheer hypocrisy. If these asshat politicians and religious idiots would avoid setting themselves up as paragons of virtue who somehow deserve, or have the right to tell others how to live, it wouldn’t be so bad.

It’s an outrage, and the cause of untold, immeasurable suffering for everyone involved… zall I’m saying.