p(resident) bush actually admits that someone within his inner staff leaked valerie plame's name to the press. and no one is fired. remember when he said at the outset of this investigation that if anyone working for him did this they would be fired? huh? huh? anyone? bueller? and then he defends his commutation of scooter libby's prison sentence.
a workmate of mine asked me today if i had any "ethical conundrums" for his philosophy class. i gave him our outcry now concerning the genocide in rwanda. i told him that we, as a country, had turned a blind eye to it for a long time while hundreds of thousands died and many more became refugees. i contrasted that with the hundreds of thousands now accepted to have died at coalition force hands and the over 2 million refugees fleeing from iraq. but now it is okay for our administration to look to rwanda and condemn it even as we commit as many or more atrocities in iraq. and the question was: where do we, as american citizens, stand on condemning the one, but ignoring the other?
but now i have a another good one: where do we, as american citizens, stand on a president promising he will fire the person responsible for a security breach only to commute the sentence of one of the very people involved in that breach and not being willing to delve deeper into who the ultimate responsible person is? when do we demand that ethical lines be drawn and those we voted into power stand by them?
in my next post i will answer the question by a commenter who asked in resignation what any one of us can do to change government? i won't be able to answer on a national level, but i will on a local one.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
How Many HAve Died?
ahem. not that i don't like rwandans. hell, some of my best friends are sort of look like rwandans without the accent or the skin color. mostly because of meth. but when it comes to genocide i have to give it up to (drumroll, please) US!!!
most independent studies are coming to the same conclusion: somewhere between 300,000 and 650,000 iraqis have been killed since our dirty little "war on terror" began. and most of those deaths have come at the hands of our coalition forces. we hear almost daily of the sectarian suicide bombings, but almost nothing of the daily aerial bombings and artillery barrages happening at the behest of our president (or whoever signs his name and pours his drink for him).
not that i have anything against a man who likes a stiff shot once in a while. hell, if i had a war to run i'd pound a few myself. but i wouldn't claim not to.
and, hell, if i had this war to run i'd throw up a prayer or two each morning, asking some deity or another to forgive me for the massive sins i was about to commit. and to forgive me for not believing in them. but i wouldn't shout it to the country as the only way in which to proceed.
and, if i had any war to run, i most assuredly would want to fire a few of my minions when they came back to me at the end of a day and said that my ideas were full of crap and i just got another 500 people killed to no avail.
poor president bush. he may actually be that dumb (and i've posited this from the beginning), he may actually be that dim and idolatrous to believe that we as a nation and an idea are so superior to all other forms of civilization that we have a moral obligation to spread ourselves across the globe and over all other people like napalm jelly in order to obtain global harmony.
however, his righthand men- karl rove and dick cheney - are not that dumb or dim. they are smart. they understand the short term goals are worthier than the long term, because short can be achieved for the few. short term can make the worthy wealthy. long term makes the unwashed masses restless. so, they have george at the front making his pontifications about fighting them there instead of fighting them here. and iraq is the reason we are over there. and al qaeda is iraq. and karl and dick continue to line the pockets of their friends who have wanted this war since the early 80's.
so much better to be a smart billionaire than a dumb president. no hindsight will prove you wrong when you've got the dim son to smoke your tracks for you.
and all the while, we are making dafur look like another day in new york in comparison.
most independent studies are coming to the same conclusion: somewhere between 300,000 and 650,000 iraqis have been killed since our dirty little "war on terror" began. and most of those deaths have come at the hands of our coalition forces. we hear almost daily of the sectarian suicide bombings, but almost nothing of the daily aerial bombings and artillery barrages happening at the behest of our president (or whoever signs his name and pours his drink for him).
not that i have anything against a man who likes a stiff shot once in a while. hell, if i had a war to run i'd pound a few myself. but i wouldn't claim not to.
and, hell, if i had this war to run i'd throw up a prayer or two each morning, asking some deity or another to forgive me for the massive sins i was about to commit. and to forgive me for not believing in them. but i wouldn't shout it to the country as the only way in which to proceed.
and, if i had any war to run, i most assuredly would want to fire a few of my minions when they came back to me at the end of a day and said that my ideas were full of crap and i just got another 500 people killed to no avail.
poor president bush. he may actually be that dumb (and i've posited this from the beginning), he may actually be that dim and idolatrous to believe that we as a nation and an idea are so superior to all other forms of civilization that we have a moral obligation to spread ourselves across the globe and over all other people like napalm jelly in order to obtain global harmony.
however, his righthand men- karl rove and dick cheney - are not that dumb or dim. they are smart. they understand the short term goals are worthier than the long term, because short can be achieved for the few. short term can make the worthy wealthy. long term makes the unwashed masses restless. so, they have george at the front making his pontifications about fighting them there instead of fighting them here. and iraq is the reason we are over there. and al qaeda is iraq. and karl and dick continue to line the pockets of their friends who have wanted this war since the early 80's.
so much better to be a smart billionaire than a dumb president. no hindsight will prove you wrong when you've got the dim son to smoke your tracks for you.
and all the while, we are making dafur look like another day in new york in comparison.
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