Monday, December 25, 2006

I'M THE DECIDER


A poem from the wonderfully talented Roddy McCorley...


I'm The Decider

By Roddy McCorley

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"*
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away

Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
'cause I'm the Decider -
Like Jesus decreed.

*This is an exact Bush quote!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Will Stinky Cut The Big One?


By Sheila Samples

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~~McBeth, Act V, Scene V


It's almost painful to watch the disintegration of George W. Bush and what's left of his murderous administration. Those who haven't fled are racing blindly through the halls of power, lurching into one another in a desperate attempt to distance themselves from Bush and to escape reaping what they have sown.

Even cutting a bit of slack, it's still inconceivable that any thinking person could spend more than five minutes in the presence of Bush without the shock of recognizing what a total idiot this country has as its president. Other than breaking stuff, killing anything in his path, refusing to admit mistakes, and making an obscene mess of anything he touches, apparently the only thing Bush can do with any success is break wind --pass gas -- fart.

First Fart Boy

In his Aug. 20 U.S. New & World Report "Washington Whispers" under the heading "Animal House in the West Wing," Paul Bedard wrote that Bush not only loves to cuss, but "... the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes...can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides..."

Bedard also told the Boston Herald's Margery Eagan that he’s heard about Bush’s full-salute “Austin Greeting” when new aides arrive. "He likes to gas a couple, and then bring the aide in and see what the kid’s face looks like.” Eagan, who admitted she was grossed out, commented, "Naturally, the aide can’t accuse the President or grimace or hold his nose. This dilemma apparently drives the presidential funny bone wild."

Most of us stopped laughing at Bush's coarse antics long ago. The boastful sound and fury of hot air blasting from both ends of this crude, immature thug as he rips one windy flatulent speech after another while saying absolutely nothing is not only vulgar, but is indescribably evil. The stench of Bush's lies mingles with, and hovers over the growing mounds of mangled and broken bodies of innocent men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan -- swirls around coffins laden with American service members sneaked back in-country with no fanfare.

CNN -- The Most Twisted Name in News

Each day, more and more soldiers and marines are blown to bits. Each morning the streets of Iraq's cities are strewn with hundreds of shackled, tortured, beheaded Sunni and Shiite civilians. Yet, for the past year, the hypocritical Congress, corporate media and crusty retired military "experts" sat around gleefully playing politics and fiercely debating whether the Iraqi quagmire was a civil war. It was a rabid debate -- with all participants forced by Bush and Cheney's claims of success to argue but one side with no pretense of delving into the reality of Bush's mad adventure.

Until Nov. 26 when Michael Ware, CNN's Baghdad correspondent, startled the world and brought the civil-war debate to a screeching halt. Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, asked Ware, "The Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad keep saying it's not a civil war -- what are you seeing?"

Ware, a seasoned war correspondent who is no stranger to civil wars and has covered the war in Iraq for both Time Magazine and CNN since it began, responded intensely, "Well, it's easier to deny it's a civil war when you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country -- the Green Zone -- and that's where the prime minister, the national security advisor and the top military commanders live. However," Ware continued, "as for the people living on the streets, or Iraqis in their homes -- if this is not a civil war, then they do not want to see what one looks like."

Ware went on to describe the stark inhumanity of neighbor against neighbor, family on family, ethnic cleansing, "institutionalized" Shiia death squads in legal police uniforms who roam the streets, dragging Sunni families from their homes never to be seen again -- Sunnis plunging car bombs into marketplaces...Ware said the recent surge in violence was a result of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr boycotting the Nouri al-Maliki puppet government and parliament as a result of Maliki meeting with "the criminal Bush."

A national dead silence followed Ware's outburst of truth. The next evening, Wolf Blitzer gave Ware a second chance to join the "best political team in journalism" by reigniting the debate. After sternly warning Ware that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq was "almost -- almost" in a civil war, and that the White House, Bush administration and PM Maliki flatly deny it, Blitzer asked, "Is it a civil war?"

Again, without hesitation, Ware reiterated that the horrors exploding around him were nothing if not a civil war. He said, "the debate about whether there is a civil war is fueled either by the luxury of distance -- those who aren't here on the ground -- or by the spin of those with a political agenda to deny its existance."

A week later, Annan set Blitzer straight. He not only said Iraq was indeed in a civil war, but that Iraqis were "better off when a brutal dictator ruled their land."

Michael Ware is no longer in Iraq.

Decisions...Decisions...

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report was a swat across Bush's rump, and a confirmation that this nation's foreign policy is run by corporate committee. Some thought Poppy Bush and Uncle Jim (James Baker, III) were stepping in yet again to pull Stinky's cajones out of the fire by helping him to save face for the mess he had made. However, those familiar with the Group's Iran-Contra power-brokers know why they stepped out of the shadows now, after three years of bloody violence. The report basically said -- You screwed up again, Junior -- big time. Iraq is so broke, you can't own it, you can't fix it and you can't leave it. You're stuck there, which is fine, because you can't leave until you get the oil, which is why we put you in office and sent you over there in the first place. Get that oil law finalized so we can get the oil contracts before China, India and Russia get there.

Bush is overtaken with strategies and plans from those who sense his confusion and assume he is weakening. Anyone who thinks Bush will admit his mistakes and support the troops by rescinding their death sentences doesn't know Jack about George. During the nine-month gestation period (Mar-Nov) of the ISG Report, 633 coalition troops were blown to bits -- 592 of them Americans. In the month since the ISG strategy died aborning, 80 troops have been slaughtered -- all of them Americans -- three of them today, Christmas Eve. Tonight, 12 families will kneel and pray for their childrens' lives, unaware that they are already dead.

And so we wait while Bush struts and frets on the world stage and rips one brain fart after another, all signifying nothing. He's gonna weigh the options -- listen to the voices...take the generals' advice...surge up briefly before pulling out...double-punch 'em with a double down and keep on truckin' -- before he announces his decision to stay the course, or achieve the objective or accomplish the mission -- whatever.

The Big One

Bush reminds us often that he's The Decider. Nobody has the right to question his decisions -- not even him -- because history has called him to action, and he is delivering God's gift of freedom to every individual on earth whether they want it or not.

Who can forget the profound deliberation that preceeded Bush's decision to invade Iraq? On 9-11, he announced, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass." And, in March 2002, a full year before invading Iraq, his decision was, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out!"

When asked during a press conference last week if he questioned his own decisions, Bush replied confidently, "No, I haven't questioned whether or not it was right to take Saddam Hussein out, nor have I questioned the necessity for the American people -- I mean, I've questioned it; I've come to the conclusion it's the right decision. But I also know it's the right decision for America to stay engaged, and to take the lead, and to deal with these radicals and extremists, and to help support young democracies. It's the calling of our time .... And I firmly believe it is necessary."

We're losing in Iraq, but Bush says that doesn't bother him -- it just means we're going to win if we expand the armed forces, put more and more troops on the streets of Baghdad, and stay the course.

Bush is a brutal, pathological liar -- arguably a homicidal maniac. After losing two wars against helpless, unarmed nations, he's bored. The Decider is moving on to greater things, and those who know how to listen to him know the decision to nuke Iran has already been made. Before he leaves office, Bush plans to spread the same freedoms throughout Iran that Iraq is presently enjoying, only this time he has decided to attack a huge, oil-rich, armed-to-the-teeth nation which has the capacity not only to defend itself, but to wreak death and destruction upon its attackers.

Will Stinky cut the big one on his way out? Or is he just whistling past the graveyard -- yodeling past the skull orchard -- as he goes mano-a-mano with Poppy?

Where's Michael Ware when you need him?

Saturday, December 02, 2006

LIARS -- OR FOOLS?


Never one to go along with the crowd, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has moved beyond the chatter about what to call the tangled mess in Iraq. Civil war? Get serious. Friedman says in his Nov. 29 column we've moved way beyond that. Friedman says the "central truth" about Iraq is that it is "so broken it can't even have a proper civil war."

According to Friedman, those guys can't seem to do anything right. There's nothing civil about this war. Everybody's killing everybody, he says -- "warlords, foreign terrorists, gangs, militias, parties, the police and the army..." And that's just the Iraqis. Friedman fails to mention the occupiers who are running around with their helmets on fire, or the honchos hunkered down in the Green Zone, frantically repeating over and over -- "Everything's gonna be fine...it's getting better day by day..."

Luckily for us, Friedman has it all figured out. Phase out in 10 months, he says, or reinvade with a shock-and-awe force of an additional 150,000 troops and smash everything and everybody -- Sunni, Shiite -- it doesn't matter because, like the incoming Senate minority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss) says, "They all look alike anyway." Then Friedman says we should plan to stay 10 years to rebuild the Iraqi "culture" from scratch.

Sound like a plan? Ten months or ten years, Friedman says. That's our only choice -- and he maintains that anyone who thinks we can train these bozos to be Iraqi troops or police officers and then slip out in two or three years "is either lying or a fool."

The message Friedman appears to be sending to James Baker and Lee Hamilton's Iraq Study Group is, "If your plan isn't ten months or ten years, you're all either liars or fools."

Well, Friedman may know ten times more than we do about what's going on in Iraq, but there's one thing for sure -- the ten members of the highly touted study group, most of whom are bloody Iran-Contra war criminals who got us into this mess in the first place -- are not fools.