Sanity Pills

Martin van Creveld is a military historian. He is considered by many to be one of the best in the world. Several of his books have influenced modern military theory and he is the only non-American author on the US Army’s list of required reading for officers.

From wikipedia:

van Creveld has lectured or taught at virtually every strategic institute, military or civilian, in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College, most recently in December, 1999 and January, 2000. Some people consider his 1991 book, The Transformation of War, among the most important treatises on military theory ever written.

What does Martin van Creveld think of the War in Iraq? Lets have a look-see.

Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from — and more competent than — the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president’s men. If convicted, they’ll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

Oh dear.

Read his reasons why here.

More analysis here.

Well a little anyway.
Lets start with the following:
- We had no right to invade Iraq. Iraq posed no threat to the US and had no links to Al Qaeda. That much is as clear as day no matter what anyone else says.
- We invaded Iraq for the following reasons: OIL, He tried to kill my daddy, OIL, Haliburton, OIL, having an american base of operations in the middle east, OIL, Oedipus, and for the bunnies
- Iraq is not better off now. Yes Saddam is gone and he is/was a bad man but Iraqis were united in hating him as opposed to the west. There was an infrastructure in place(utilities, govt etc… no matter how corrupt) and there weren’t bombings taking place every day killing dozens.
- Women had more rights under Saddam than it looks like they will once a theocratic islamist regime/govt comes into power soon.
- 2000+ and counting US deaths and at least 100k Iraqis killed by US military. This is the blood on our conscience that will not wash away much like Vietnam.
- The US is most definitely not safer now than we were before we invaded. This has not only created a great recruiting tool for “the terrorists” but also caused a general feeling of ill will with the Muslim world and absolutely wasted the political cache and sympathy we had following 9/11

Now where do I agree with Bush: We cannot pull out now or anytime soon.
- Just because we invaded for the wrong/no reason and have destroyed the country doesn’t mean we can “cut and run” now. We have to fix or at least make a good faith effort to fix the mess that we have caused. Those 100K+ deaths and the many more to come are on the US’s hands now.
- The leaders of the resistance are definitely aligned or associated with Al Qaeda now and they are more organised than any other group in Iraq. If we leave, they will take over and that is bad.

What we should do:
- Apologize. Not to the american people but to the Iraqi people. Engage in diplomacy and use Imam Al Sastani (sp) one ofthe more respected people in Iraq to calm tensions. Explain US intentions clearly without double talk.
- Stop torturing people. Pass laws. Prosecute Rumsfeld and Cheney (realistically at least a slap on the wrists). Make the 10% or so of the military in Iraq who are complete idiots take some “How to behave like a decent human being” classes.
- Insist on a true democracy. Model it after the former Pakistani govt(an Islamic republic where women had at least quasi-equal rights) or a democracy that works in a majority muslim nation(indonesia?Bangladesh?).
-Send more soldiers if necessary. Thats what the generals want. Hire actually qualified people to implement the occupation!
- Impeach Bush

I just saw a kid wearing a STOP Snitchin’ t-shirt. I ordered one a few minutes ago. The smallest size is L and they go to 6XL—-which is weak, btw.

Hillary Clinton is a Republican.

There are two new places in the Boston area that you might want to try (or not) because they’ll be gone soon. One is 28 Degrees (nice website), the buzzing bar/restaurant in the South End. Went there, it’s cool, but not that cool. The drinks are pretty standard, which is to say uninspired, and the prices are generally too high to pay to get drunk. All in all the place is just slightly above average, but it’s in an ever-so-slightly out of the way corner of the South End. When the buzz dies, so will this place—which should be in a few months.

The other place, Rendezvous in Central Square, probably won’t last a year. Opened less than two weeks ago by the former chef of the very good Blue Room, Rendezvous is totally lackluster. The restaurant occupies the former site of the Central Square Burger King, unfortunately Rendezvous’s designer didn’t advance the decor too much. The food is very good, but not nearly as creative as the neighborhood it’s in. The place straddles the line between fine dining and neighborhood hangout, but the food isn’t good enough to be the former and the prices are too high for the latter. Ultimately, the restaurant fails in idea and execution. They need to get a local artist to throw up some art in the space, lower their prices a tad, and make the cuisine fit the people in the neighborhood—which is a good thing for the chef, because he can just go nuts. It could succeed, but only with drastic changes.

Bill O’Reilly is still on his anti-Holidays witch hunt. (Hastert joins.) I have day-dreams of being on the show with O’Reilly and calling him a modern-day McCarthy or even a Nazi, although McCarthy had more guts and Nazis had better style. If only the guests would be as outrageous as he is, he would look foolish.

I do agree with O’Reilly somewhat, I hate the progressive secular movement and want to revert back to a traditional culture of condoned wife-beating, slavery, and verbiage like “fisticuffs” or “guttersnipe.” Tolerance is for fags.

I hate when people say, “in my humble opinion.” I’m working on some new t-shirt designs, which in my humble opinion, will start lots of fights.

Catholics are gay.

Can someone tell me if the producers of Aeon Flux aren’t giving critics advanced screenings? I hope that isn’t the case.

I love and hate this. I really hate this, especially Kristin Powers—go to a real school, bitch.

Maybe the Joe-mentum can keep going for Mr. Lieberman and take him to the nomination in ‘08. The Republican nomination that is.

Pucker up.

According to douche on the radio, we should change the 14th Amendment so that children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants are also illegal, not U.S. citizens.

Fuck that. And fuck this too: A poll of Massachusetts voters shows narrow support (54% to 43%) for allowing children of illegals who “have lived in Massachusetts for the last three years, have graduated from a state high school, and have signed a sworn affidavit that they are applying for U.S. citizenship” to receive instate tuition rates and Massachusetts public colleges. (Good news about the same poll: Romney trails Reilly 52% to 36% and barely edges out Deval Patrick 42% to 40%—nobody knows who the fuck that is, btw.)

Repugs get away with the bullshit argument over national security and immigration—we need a fence to protect against terrorism—when what they really care about is keeping goddamned wetbacks, with their large-assed women and car whistles, out of the neighborhood. Woo Woo.

The Right did finaly get something right: kissing does kill.

I came acrossed an article that I find very interesting. It talks about a presidential daily briefing on September 21, 2001 where Bush was told point blank that there’s no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Details of this briefing are not widely known due to its classified nature, but what makes it so intriguing is an additional juicy morsel of information: Saddam found Al Qaeda as a threat, and was actually planning potential action against them.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner
workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Indeed, the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004, according to congressional sources. Both Republicans and Democrats requested then that it be turned over. The administration has refused to provide it, even on a classified basis, and won’t say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

The mysteeeeeerious briefing… what else could have been disclosed? Maybe W had a temper tantrum. Poor muffin.

Rewriting history? Piss off Cheney, you’re a deceitful, treasonous, sack of turd.

In arguing their case for war with Iraq, the president and vice president said after the September 11 attacks that Al Qaeda and Iraq had significant ties, and they cited the possibility that Iraq might share chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons with Al Qaeda for a terrorist attack against the United States.

Man this is getting so damn old… we just keep seeing the same words in different forms all day long, but until these idiots own up to it, we can just keep repeating their words back to them as they trip over their responses.

But a comparison of public statements by the president, the vice president, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld show that in the days just before a congressional vote authorizing war, they professed to have been given information from U.S. intelligence assessments showing evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.

“You can’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,” President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

I guess not.

More here.

cunt (kŭnt)
n. Vulgar Slang.

1. The female genital organs.
2. Sexual intercourse with a woman.
3. a. Offensive. Used as a disparaging term for a woman.
b. Used as a disparaging term for a person one dislikes or finds extremely disagreeable.

Here’s why.

Side note: My Rep., John Tierney, kicks ass at the beginning.

FINALLY!!!

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. I hope he’s not one of the few Democrats that has balls (and common sense). We have to get out of there as soon as possible.

Considering I’ve never heard of Murtha, and that he appears to be an old-timer, I doubt he’s making these statements to gain some notoriety for a personal political gain. He’s just doing the right thing, which is a lot more than can be said for the Presidential hopefuls: Hillary “Cunt” Clinton and Joe “Senator MBNA” Biden.

you just lost your legacy, how do you feel?

It’s clear that Woodward is a Bush Administration shill. Not only was he involved with the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name, he’s now claiming that the investigation is a farce and Fitzgerald is shameful. Maybe this will serve as a lesson to all budding journalists: if you get too close to evil and corruption, it rubs off.

I’ll be taking bets on whether Cheney goes to jail or dies first… both just seem so close! Or perhaps the stress and shame of an indictment hearing will give him a fatal heart attack. Well the stress might. If he dies at the indictment hearing, bets are off.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/14526/277