BottleOfBlog

No Surprise Here

BAGHDAD — When President Bush convened a meeting of his National Security Council on May 22, 2003, his special envoy in Iraq made a statement that caught many of the participants by surprise. In a video presentation from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III informed the president and his aides that he was about to issue an order formally dissolving Iraq’s Army…

Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was never asked for advice, and was in Paris when the May 22 meeting was held.

Mr. Powell, who views the decree as a major blunder, later asked Condoleezza Rice, who was serving as Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, for an explanation.

“I talked to Rice and said, ‘Condi, what happened?’ ” he recalled. “And her reaction was: ‘I was surprised too, but it is a decision that has been made and the president is standing behind Jerry’s decision. Jerry is the guy on the ground.’ And there was no further debate about it.”

We'll just add that to the list of national security and diplomatic events our former National Security Advisor and current Secretary of State was surprised by.

And, as always, remember: this clownish, horribly, comically, tragically, incompetent moron is the rock star of this administration.

This Ought To Be Great! Or, At The Very Least, Surprising!

The world's longest, most expensive, least productive on-the-job training program goes on:

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Israeli soldiers returned to southern Gaza on Tuesday hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared in the West Bank calling for Israelis and Palestinians promptly to resume peace talks…

Speaking in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Rice said Israelis and Palestinians should renew the talks sidetracked by a recent wave of violence "as soon as possible."

She added, "We must all must keep our eye on what we are trying to achieve, and what we are trying to achieve is indeed not easy -- and that is to conclude an agreement that can lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, to conclude that agreement by the end of this year. I still believe that can be done."

Yes, we must all keep our eye on what we are trying to achieve. And what we are trying to achieve is not easy.

When you're an imbecile.

Dahlan says he warned his friends in the Bush administration that Fatah still wasn’t ready for elections in January. Decades of self-preservationist rule by Arafat had turned the party into a symbol of corruption and inefficiency—a perception Hamas found it easy to exploit. Splits within Fatah weakened its position further: in many places, a single Hamas candidate ran against several from Fatah.

“Everyone was against the elections,” Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. “Bush decided, ‘I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.’ Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, ‘The president wants elections.’ Fine. For what purpose?”

The elections went forward as scheduled. On January 25, Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council.

Few inside the U.S. administration had predicted the result, and there was no contingency plan to deal with it. “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Condoleezza Rice told reporters. “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing.”

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’_”

The World's Most Incompetent Woman didn't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing!

Apparently, Condi Rice, like Harriet Miers, only knows one person.

George W. Bush.

Here are some other things Condi Rice was caught off guard by:

That al Qaeda was a very serious threat to our national security, despite being briefed by her own counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, in January of 2001 that al Qaeda was a very serious threat to our national security.

That an attack by al Qaeda was imminent, despite a June 21, 2001 meeting with George Tenet, in which his hair was described as being "on fire" and during which he said, "Something is going to happen."

That bin Laden intended to attack the United States, despite an August 6, 2001 PDB entitled: "bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside The United States".

That terrorists might possibly use airplanes as suicide weapons, despite a 1999 report for the National Intelligence Council that terrorists were planning to do exactly that--a report, by the way, that Ari Fleisher said everyone in the Bush administration was aware of, except, apparently, our National Security Advisor.

That terrorists might possibly use airplanes as suicide weapons, despite being told by the CIA that terrorists were training to use airplanes as suicide weapons.

That terrorists might possibly use airplanes as suicide weapons, despite FAA warnings in the Spring of 2001 that terrorists intended to use planes as suicide weapons.

That there were problems with the WMD allegations in the NIE the Bush Administration presented to Congress despite the many footnotes stating that there were problems with the WMD allegations.

That the aluminum tubes Bush cited as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program in his State of the Union address were not suited for uranium centrifuges, despite being told by the nation's foremost nuclear experts nearly a year before the State of the Union that the tubes were not suited for nuclear weapons.

That the troops being sent to Iraq were insufficient to stabilize a post war Iraq, despite a report prepared by the National Security Council and presented to the National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, stating that at least 300,000 troops would be required to prevent a second war.

I could go on all night.

I mean, honestly, is this the stupidest woman on God's green Earth, or what?

When she gets dressed in the morning, is she "caught off guard" when her hand pops out of her shirt sleeve?

When she's late for work, does she say, "No one could have imagined that there would be traffic on a Monday morning...at rush hour..."???

When she mixes alcohol with prescription drugs and sleeps through intelligence briefings, does she explain that the label warnings were very general and not specifically related to her becoming drowsy during intelligence briefings?

And then, afterwards, does Condi Rice lecture everyone she knows about the uncertain outcome of hands entering sleeves, the impossibility of predicting the exact number of motorists on our dangerous roadways, the uncertainty of how each individual will react to alcohol and prescription drugs?

I'm sure she does.

It's like each and every new day is the first day she ever walked upon the earth. Everything is new and surprising! No one knows anything! All outcomes are wildly unpredictable!

And she can hardly wait until tomorrow so that she can condescendingly explain to the rest of us mindless cretins all the hard learned lessons from her first day on Earth.

She seems totally oblivious to the fact that the rest of us have resided here for all of our lives, while she, every day of the year, just got here at sun up.

She's like our national Drew Barrymore in "50 First Dates".

There's so much about the Bush administration that's wrong, and stupid, and appalling.

But, for my money, Condi Rice is top of the list.

I mean, honestly, she could not do clerical work for me. She's that bad. She's that incompetent.

If she didn't work for the Bush administration, if she weren't a Republican, can you imagine this woman succeeding at anything?

Blanks For Our Bucks

It's time for our annual game: How much is really in the U.S. military budget?

As usual, it's about $200 billion more than most news stories are reporting. For the proposed fiscal year 2009 budget, which President Bush released today, the real size is not, as many news stories have reported, $515.4 billion—itself a staggering sum—but, rather, $713.1 billion…

…It is (adjusting for inflation) larger than any U.S. military budget since World War II.

It’s astonishing, isn’t it?

In 1952, the United States had 180,000 American soldiers and Marines fighting in Korea, against like a million Chinese. We had the entire 7th Fleet plus a bunch of other ships in constant combat. We had air forces in Japan and Korea flying day and night. And, to top it off, we had about 300,000 Americans in Europe to keep the Red Army in check.

The defense budget in 1952, adjusted for inflation?

About $500 billion.

In 1968, with 500,000 Americans serving in Vietnam. 300,000 still in Europe. SAC flying twenty four hours a day, ready and just aching to drop the Big One.

The defense budget in 1968. adjusted for inflation?

About $450 billion.

Today, with 130,000 troops in Iraq and another—what?—10,000 in Afghanistan and about seventy thousand in Europe and our defense budget is seven hundred and thirteen billion dollars?

Where in the great big Red, White and Blue fuck is the other two hundred billion dollars going???

We’re spending at least two hundred billion dollars more than we spent during the hottest years of Korea and Vietnam because 19 fucking lunatics, whose last known addresses were caves, hijacked a couple of planes???

Are you shitting me???

Christ Almighty, we could do what the Saudis do and just pay bin Laden directly a couple hundred million a year to not attack the United States and we’d save two hundred billion dollars.

And if that encouraged every single homicidal maniac in the world to also come calling with their hands out, we could pay all of them too and still save one hundred and ninety nine billion dollars.

What is the sense of this War On Terrorism???

I mean, honestly, for two hundred billion dollars a year, we could just cut each and every Palestinian—all nine million of them--a check for $20,000 a year. I don’t think that’s a great idea, but I bet it would do a hell of a lot more to prevent mid-eastern terrorists from attacking the United States. And zero Americans would come home in body bags or wheel chairs or back braces with screws in their foreheads.

But then again, getting value for your tax payer dollar is something fiscally conservative, Republicans can’t even begin to understand.

That’s why most of them still think that lowering something like 40 million Americans’ tax payments by an “average” of $1500 a year, while doubling the national debt was a tax cut.

But even worse than the multibillion dollar rip off is the inescapable rip off that’s coming, but most of us don’t even know it yet:

("National Defense," by the way, does not include programs in the Department of Homeland Security; that's another story.)

Why is this so bad? Because Homeland Security will be just like the Department of Defense when it comes to handing out dollar bills. And how are dollar bills handed out to the Department of Defense now?

Congress exposes this budget to virtually no scrutiny, fearing that any major cuts—any serious questions—will incite charges of being "soft on terror" and "soft on defense." But $536 billion of this budget—the Pentagon's base line plus the discretionary items for the Department of Energy and other agencies—has nothing to do with the war on terror. And it's safe to assume that a fair amount has little to do with defense. How much it does and doesn't is a matter of debate. Right now, nobody's even debating.

We could probably have a bigger, meaner, more effective military machine for half of what we pay every year for our bloated defense budget.

The Pentagon is and has been for at least fifty years the world’s biggest shopping bazarr. And it’s a monstrously corrupt, almost comically inefficient machine—for just a taste, I’d highly recommend reading this book, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War.

(And we can thank our lasting monumental military waste on the Sainted Ronny Rotten and his Reagan Republicans, who, just at the moment the Church Committee and the Military Reform Caucus, and the Pentagon reformers were gaining a bit of traction, spent the next eight years hysterically citing Team B reports and throwing billions of unnecessary dollars at totally inexistent threats. Our military has never recovered. It probably never will.)

And it’s political suicide for any Congress man or woman to object to anything the Department of Defense wants. Beyond that, it may even be political suicide for a politician to agree to what the Department of Defense wants—you all remember the Bush/Cheney ’04 ads accusing John Kerry of depriving the military of the Abrams tanks and Apache helicopters and F-16s it needed to combat the terrorism of men with plane tickets and plastic knives?

Oh, on September 11th, if only we had had more tanks flying from Boston to California!

That aside, Kerry voted for Defense cuts proposed by Dick Cheney! And he still got murdered for it! By Dick Cheney!

It’s insane!

And now we have a second Department of Defense—the Department of Homeland Security. Which was appallingly stupid and unnecessary from its retarded inception in dumbass Joe Lieberman’s war fevered little brain.

In like seven years, I think the only thing I ever agreed with Bush about was how we did not need a creepy, Orwellian sounding Department of Homeland Security. It didn't eliminate any government agencies. It just added one more level to them. And nothing ever gets more efficient by adding a gigantic whole new level of administrators.

Seriously, I was a big Bush backer on his one good decision, in seven years, to oppose that stupid thing.

But, then, Bush, , waffling, irresolute flip flopper that he was, caved because of politics—because stupid ass Joe Lieberman had the votes—and created a bigger monster than even Lieberman had envisioned in his wildest, stupidest, twisted little bobble-headed retarded garden gnomed dreams.

And, gee, guess what? Though, the Department of Homeland Security now gets a relatively small amount of our federal budget. It won’t be long before it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

And it will face less and less scrutiny, as more and more Congress men and women become afraid of being called “weak on Homeland Security”. And more corporate Congressional lobbyists and donors, seek out those lucrative gubment Homeland Security contracts.

And soon, there won’t be any debate or scrutiny, or competitive bids on our brand new $700 billion Homeland Security budget.

And we’ll all get used to that.

Just like we’re used to spending outrageous and totally unjustified money for defense.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said recently that, quite apart from the wars, the nation should get used to spending 4 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. This isn't an unreasonable sum in terms of what the nation can afford. But the same could be said of many other functions of government. It has very little to do with what the nation needs. The $515.4 billion in the base line Defense Department budget amounts to 3.4 percent of GNP. Is that not enough? Should we throw in another $85 billion to boost it to 4 percent? The relevant question, in any case, should be not how much we spend, but what we buy.

Until the modern Gee Oh Pee hollows this country out like a gourd and totally bankrupts us, we will not have any intelligent discussion, with regard to defense or Homeland Security, about what we need.

If I believed in irony, I'd say it's ironic. The people who shout and scream the loudest about a strong military will, in the end, be the very people who wreck our American military.

Because when we finally do start talking about what we need, we’ll be so busted out and in debt, and hated and broke, we won’t have the money to pay for it.

Oh, Wow, Big Surprise

WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

What???

But, but, but I thought we could trust the government to conduct wiretaps without warrants!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Sunday defended his administration's use of wiretaps on U.S. citizens without a court order…

Bush on Sunday described his program as "necessary to win this war and to protect the American people," and added that the program has been reviewed "constantly" by Justice Department officials.

What kind of constant review?

We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

It was being so constantly and carefully reviewed to make sure that the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens weren't being violated and it was so necessary to our national security that no one noticed that they were listening to a bunch of dead phone lines? No one remembered to pay the fucking phone bill???

And the phone companies cut off FBI wiretaps of "suspected" al-Qaeda terrorists because the phone bill wasn't paid? Aren't these the same people who are now claiming they should get immunity for willfully and knowingly violating our Constitutional rights because they were being patriotic? They were doing their patriotic duty?

So these companies--these American companies--were willing to break the law and violate their fellow Americans' Constitutional rights for the sake of national security.

But only if they got paid on time.

Any fucking Congressman votes for immunity for these mutherfuckers needs to get run out of Washington by a berserk crowd of justifiably angry citizens, carrying torches, tar, and feathers.

If we ever find out truly what these incompetent imbeciles did with this unchecked, un-Constitutional power, we'll surely all be appalled.

Again.

Though this? This comical mix of incompetence and greed, and laughable dishonesty?

Unless you're a moron, this isn't even interesting.

Stoopid For Whatever Ails Ya

CHICAGO (AP) -- President Bush said Monday that economic indicators are "increasingly mixed," causing anxiety for many Americans. But he said the economy is resilient and the U.S. has dealt with anxiety before.

Bush said it was important, in a time of economic uncertainty, to send a signal that taxes will remain low.

Right! Nothing justifies Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans like deficits or recession.

Except...maybe a surplus!

(AP) President Bush said Saturday that the most important number in the budget he sends to Congress next week is the $5.6 trillion surplus it projects over the next 10 years.

That huge projected surplus provides the underpinning of all the administration's tax-cut and spending plans, Mr. Bush said in his recorded weekly radio address.

"A surplus in tax revenue, after all, means that taxpayers have been overcharged," the president said. "And usually when you've been overcharged, you expect to get something back." The surplus figure "counts more than any other" in the budget, he said.

If a guy’s got one answer, no matter what the question, that guy’s got no answer at all.

If a guy cites two entirely opposite set of circumstances to justify his position, then neither set of circumstances justifies his position.

He may have his reasons for wanting what he wants. And they may be right or they may be wrong. But he isn’t telling you what those reasons are.

Because he's a comfortable liar. And he thinks you are an idiot. And if you believe a man like this who holds you in such contempt, and you’ve passed the sixth grade, you are proving him correct.

"A lot of Americans are anxious about the economy," the president told business leaders in Chicago. "This frankly is not unprecedented," he said…

Thanks for not only being frank with us, but for also sharing sumthat histree they all alurned ya up at Yale.

It is not, frankly, unprecedented for Americans to be anxious about the economy?

He’s like Marcus Aurelius, isn’t he? He’s like a philosopher king!

It never ceases to amaze me that something like eighty percent of Republicans still approve of this guy. I mean, some kind of mindless, tribalism is one thing—but even so! Do four out of five Republicans really enjoy being talked to like they were retarded fourth graders???

I mean they’re constantly whining about smarty pants liberals who talk down to them about their NASCAR and their WalMarts and their magic cloud beings, and how angry and resentful it makes them.

But, yet, they enjoy some garble mouthed jackass lecturing them about how, frankly, it’s not unprecedented for it to get dark at night?

"In seven years we've had experience in dealing with anxiety," Bush said.

No, in seven years, you’ve had a great deal of experience in creating, magnifying, and exploiting anxiety.

Dealing? Not so much.

"Recent economic indications have become increasingly mixed," he said.

What an imbecile.

What does he mean? That previously, some economic indications were up and some were down, but, now, more are up and down? That’s how it’s increasing? Pretty soon so many indications will be up and down that the only answer will be…

He argued that this bolsters the need to make all the tax cuts passed during his presidency permanent.

Surplus, recession, or even an increasing mix--the answer is Bush's tax cuts!

They're awesome!

They haven't done jackshit for ninety percent of Americans. But they corrected an unjust surplus, which resulted in deficits, which they'll reduce by creating a surplus, all of which should lead to economic certainty, though, frankly, economic uncertainty is pretty much to be expected...and can be remedied with Bush's tax cuts.

I guess his presidentin' style of trouble shootin' harks back to his belligerent drunk days when the answer to any given situation was, likewise, always the same:

"Ah'm a gonna tell tha sumbitch to go on an' fuck hisself!"

Which is why, of course, his Kennebunkport, Maine parents kept arranging for Georgie to get jobs in places like Louisiana.

If you think it's tedious, and childish, and counterproductive in the White House, you ought to see what it's like in the living room.

Senior Democratic Aides Call For Punt On First And Goal From The One

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding.

The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.

Democrats admit such a move would be highly controversial within their own party. Coming just weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, vowed the White House would not get another dollar in war money this year, it would further antagonize the liberal base of the party, which has become frustrated with the congressional leadership's failure to push back on Bush's Iraq policy.

"The base will not be happy," said one senior Democratic aide, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss budget negotiations that have not been completed.

Christ, Allmighty, has there ever been a bigger, stupider blight on America than "senior Democratic aides"?

Okay, fine, you're right--Republican presidents have been. Also, I know, Republican House and Senate leaders. And, I grant you, Republican minority leaders. "Values voters" are pretty bad, too. And probably any Democrat who wins Iowa.

Your point is well taken.

But you have to admit: senior Democratic aides are up there.

The base won't be happy?

We're not your base, douchebag. We're not like the trained seals on the extreme fanatical right. We don't listen for code words in your speeches, or pop dangerous four hour long boners when you throw some blood in the water. And if you get your picture taken with a lamp light in the background, we don't think that's a halo and we just saw the second coming of Jesus.

We're concerned Americans. We're the majority of Americans. And we arrived at our opinions all by ourselves and long before our "representatives" and their dumbass "senior Democratic aides", who we had to drag, kicking and screaming, to our point of view by soundly voting out the last Congress which didn't listen to us.

We are not your "base"--we're not even convinced we "like" you. We just feel the alternative is too corrupt and perverted, and unintelligent to even be bothered with trying to fix.

What we are is your "boss". And we're extremely unhappy with your job performance.

Unless, of course, by "base", you mean an actual military base. Then, you're absolutely correct!

Patience with the war, which has lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II, is wearing thin -- particularly among families who have sent a service member to the conflict. One- quarter say American troops should stay "as long as it takes to win." Nearly seven in 10 favor a withdrawal within the coming year or "right away."

Military families are only slightly more patient: 35 percent are willing to stay until victory; 58 percent want them home within a year or sooner.

Here, too, the military families surveyed are in sync with the general population, 64 percent of whom call for a withdrawal by the end of next year.

But if that's not what this "senior Democratic aide" meant, then God forgive his mother for whatever she did with her relatives to spawn such a tail bearing moron.

Privately, Democrats say they have little choice but to give the president at least some war funding because Senate Republicans have vowed to block any final budget deal unless it has at least some of the war funding Bush has requested.

Of course! Because when you're confronted by a President with a 28% approval rate who wants seventy billion dollars for something 64% of Americans disagree with, what choice do you have but to give in???

Senior Democratic aides will tell you that's the smart move every time.

Still, Democrats are trying to sell $70 billion in new war funding as a partial victory for them. They point out that while the final numbers are still in flux during intense private negotiations, Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested.

"What is for sure is he will not get all $200 billion," said one senior Democratic lawmaker. "Whatever number it is, it is much less than what the president asked for. For the first time in this war, he has received less than his request."

But senior administration officials privately say they expect to be able to get at least of the rest of the president's $200 billion request passed through Congress next year.

I'm sure that "senior Democratic aides" advised Democrats that it would be a partial victory to defeat Bush's two hundred billion dollar request for the most unpopular war in American history by giving him seventy billion now. And the rest later.

It was truly infuriating and disheartening to watch Democrats fail to do the right thing just because the right thing was unpopular.

I don't know what the words are to describe watching Democrats fail to do the right thing even when it is popular.

Good Gawd

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday publicly held U.S. debt breached $9 trillion this week for the first time ever, just five weeks after Congress had raised the statutory borrowing limit…

The increase in the debt limit is the fifth since Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of his presidency…

The Greatest Tax Cut Evah!

Seven years ago, the government was running a 230 billion dollar and growing surplus. By 2012--only four years from now--our national debt--our entire national debt--would have been paid off. Each and every American taxpayer would have enjoyed a tax cut from getting rid of the 300 billion dollar plus interest payments on our debt.

Instead?

After eight years of doing our part, working hard, paying our taxes, when Bush leaves office, each and every American taxpayer is going to be rewarded by owing nearly twice as much as when Bush literally took office.

That's some tax cut.

In approving the debt limit increase, Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009, well beyond next year's presidential and congressional elections.

Oh, thank goodness! I'd hate to think our elected representatives would actually have to answer questions about the trillion dollars they just borrowed in our name during an election year! That would be so distracting from the more important issues of taxing whores, burning flags, speaking English, and making little children recite a pledge they don't even understand.

The modern Gee Oh Pee is horrendous. It's a nation wrecking machine. There's no denying that.

But you've got to admit: the modern Democratic party is weak and lazy, and either too dumb or too scared to fight.

In eight years of fiscally conservative leadership, the Gee Oh Pee added four trillion dollars of debt to American taxpayers. Those were eight years under a "CEO" styled fiscally conservative Republican president. Six out of eight of those years were under a fiscally conservative Republican House, which, under Bill Clinton pretended to want a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget. And four of those eight years--the four record setting deficit years--were under a Republican House, Senate, and President.

The Gee Oh Pee, given total control of our government, answered in red and red for once and for all the age old question of which party can taxpayers trust more when it comes to their money.

And Democrats, quite helpfully, took that issue off the table until after next year's Presidential and Congressional elections.

What a bunch of weak sucks.

Your Congress Thinks You're Too Stupid To Handle How Stupid Your Congress Really Is

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and anti terrorist efforts abroad could cost the country $2.4 trillion over the next ten years, according to a report Wednesday.

The money, over 70 percent of which would go to support operations in Iraq, includes the estimated $600 billion spent since 2001, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag said in testimony before the House Budget Committee. That estimate includes projected interest, since the government is borrowing most of the funds required.

The $2.4 trillion would pay to keep 75,000 troops deployed overseas from 2013 to 2017. About 210,000 troops are currently deployed. It does not include the Pentagon's normal spending, which in 2007 is estimated to be about $450 billion.

Why is the Congressional Budget office studying how much it would cost to keep seventy five thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until 2017???

Who asked for that??? Who's curious???

2017???

We were told four years ago that we liberated Iraq. We were told three years ago that we successfully turned over sovereignty to Iraq. We've been told every six months since then that, within the next six months, either the Iraqis will take over their own security or the American people will demand an end to this stupid war. In either case, we'll start withdrawing from Iraq.

Last year, Democrats ran on ending the war in Iraq. And they took back both houses of Congress.

Meanwhile, the Iraq Study Group issued a report consecrated by holy bipartisanship telling us that the United States needed to withdraw from Iraq.

Just this year, we were told the President had one last chance--to surge to victory or withdraw from Iraq. And we were told the surge was working before it even got started. Then, when the surge wasn't working, we were told it wasn't finished yet. Then when the surge was finished, we were told that it wasn't really clear whether it worked or not, but we were going to end the surge and see what happened.

In the next six to nine months.

And while this was going on? Congress was looking into how much it would cost to keep seventy five thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until 2017.

Why does Congress want to know this? Is this the real debate? The debate the plebes don't have to know about? Every two years, we'll have an election, everyone will run on ending the war in Iraq--either withdrawing or surging to victory!--the we'll stall the rabble you and I call The American People for four short Friedman Units until the next election.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And before you know it? It'll be 2017! And maybe something will happen in between.

Why is Congress investigating the cost of keeping American troops in Iraq for another ten years? Why isn't Congress spending its considerable amount of free time investigating how to bring all of our troops home within another ten months???

People we are being lied to.

And they are gearing up to make it more palatable.

But in relation to the nation's overall economy, it's been noted that the war is relatively cheap.

The entire Defense Department budget, including funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, is about 4.5 percent of the nation's economy. During the Vietnam War it was about 7 percent, and during WW II it was 25 percent.

I imagine that's something that will get noted more and more.

Does anyone or everyone get why that is such a grotesque lie to foist on the American People in support of a more grotesque lie?

Never mind pointless, this war is outrageously expensive.

Right now, according to the CBO, there are currently about 210,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their deployment, along with the normal "more than the rest of the world combined" defense budget of the Pentagon amounts to 4.5 of our GDP.

There are less than two million Americans in our active duty armed forces.

At the height of World War II, there were eight million Americans in the Army alone. There were about sixteen million Americans in uniform and millions of them were overseas, fighting every day. Eisenhower alone had forty nine divisions under his command in the spring of 1945 battling Hitler's Wehrmacht.

While Clark slogged it up the Italian boot. And MacAuthur and Nimitz island hopped through the Pacific.

At the height of the Vietnam War, the United States had 500,000 Americans in the Far East, while protecting Western Europe from the Red Army. Not to mention we had SAC in the air twenty four hours a day. And that was only 7 percent of our GDP.

If this modern military had had to fight the Second World War, it would have taken half our GDP to pay for it.

If it had had to fight Vietnam, it would have taken a quarter.

Relatively, this is an outrageously expensive war. Fought with nothing to gain. So don't believe that crap when you hear it.

And all of this, this two point four trillion dollars of your money that Congress is thinking about spending, while never telling you about it, all of this is a response to less than two dozen guys with plastic knives.

That's it.

That's what we're going to spend two point four trillion dollars to combat: nineteen crazy guys with plane tickets.

Meat Romney Goes Green

Mitt Romney pulled off an interesting bit of U.N.-bashing today, calling upon the United States to withdraw from a United Nations council that the United States isn't a part of to begin with.

"The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late," Romney said during a South Carolina campaign stop. "We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."

There's one problem: The United States already boycotts the Human Rights Council, and has not sought a seat on it.

I don't mind the idealogical differences. I really don't. Despite what batty, old David Broder "thinks", a difference of opinion is healthy in a democracy. I'm totally okay that Republicans have different opinions than me.

But do they have to be so fucking dumb? Do they always have to be fucking idiots?

This caused an aide to clarify the remarks by saying what Romney really meant is that the U.S. should stop any possible financial support for the council.

And laughable liars?

Romney also said he would support an alternative to the United Nations, an all-new "coalition of the free nations of the world and bring those nations together so that we can act together."

"We should develop some of our own — if you will — forums and alliances or groups that have the ability to actually watch out for the world and do what's right," Romney said.

Gee, Mitt, you great big hunk of stupid, we already did that. It was called the Coalition of the Willing, and it included Eritrea, Micronesia, and Tonga--not to mention at least fifteen nations who would prefer to remain anonymous. And that moral force for good did what's right by enabling the Great United States to embark on a totally illegal and unjustified war and had the ability to act together with Great United States by providing about seven soldiers to help out.

Also, they didn't have any money. Actually, we had to pay them to join.

Also, Eritrea had to drop out because it was a totally terrorist sponsoring state.

It was a total fiasco that didn't do what's right and robbed America of it's credibility and moral authority, and goodwill around the world.

So, yeah, Mitt, that's the sort of thing, brought together by another stupid Republican president, the Great United States and the world really needs. Again.

With original and innovative ideas like that maybe we can occupy Vietnam again!

He's literally recycling yesterday's disasters for tomorrow's possibilities.

What an idiot.

These People Really Do Not Know What They Are Doing

NEW YORK (AP) -- Slain al Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a "diabolically brilliant" war tactician, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, likening him to Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant…

"He was diabolically brilliant," Rice said of Zarqawi.

Want to know how brilliant he was? Ready for it?

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — In the video released last week by the terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, he is seen firing long bursts from a heavy automatic rifle, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues as he exudes the very picture of a strong jihadist leader.

In out-takes from the same video, Mr. Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, cuts an altogether different figure:

As the camera rolls, Mr. Zarqawi is flummoxed by how to fire the machine gun until an aide walks over and fiddles with the weapon so it discharges. Another scene shows Mr. Zarqawi hand the weapon off to several other insurgents, who absent-mindedly grab it by its scalding hot barrel.

And after his shooting scene, Mr. Zarqawi walks away from the camera to reveal decidedly non-jihadist footwear: Comfortable white New Balance sneakers…

But with the release of the out-takes today the American military sought to send a very different message: That Mr. Zarqawi is a poseur who can't even fire a basic infantry weapon and walks around in comfortable shoes.

In last week's video, "He is very proud he can operate this machine gun," General Lynch said. It was, "Look at me. I'm a capable leader of a capable organization."

"But what he didn't show you was the clip I showed you," General Lynch said. "Wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grabbed the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun."

The general continued: "We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapons system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapons stoppage. It makes you wonder."

A bumbling, incompetent, bullshitting poseur--no wonder Condi thinks he was brilliant! He probably reminded her of her husband...er, I mean her president.

Condi almost makes it too easy--did I say "almost"?

It is wrong to dismiss Zarqawi's killing as a temporary or insignificant victory in the long fight against terrorism, Rice continued.

"When you hear people say ... 'If you kill one of them, they'll just replace him with another leader,' remember that that's like saying, 'If you take out Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant, well, they'll just replace them with another leader.' " Rice said. "There are people who are better at this than others."

Though, she's right--there are some people who are better at things than others. Like, for instance, every person who's ever worked in the White House is better than every single person who has worked there in the last seven years.

And while I doubt bumbling, incompetent poseur Zarqawi was better at creating mayhem in Iraq than anyone else, if he was, it really begs the question:

Why didn't we take him out before he became the diabolically brilliant leader of al Qaeda in Iraq?

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger…

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq…

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council…

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it…

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it…

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

Oh.

And just for those of you keeping score at home, the National Security Advisor who killed the plan to take out the Robert E. Lee of the Iraqi insurgency was...Condi Rice!

Condi's statement also raises a second question:

Just who in the hell has been saying, "If you kill one of them, they'll just replace him with another leader"?

Oh, that's right! The Bush administration!

For five years.

Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of --

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person…

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you…
Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

Then there was:

Q Scott, you said three-quarters of al Qaeda leadership who's been captured or killed -- I assume you meant known leadership.

MR. McCLELLAN: That's right. Well, and we know that they replace their leaders…

Q Would it make a huge difference if [bin Laden] was found at this point, or killed or captured?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, that's why I made the point that it is much broader than any one person…

And who else was saying that if you take out one leader--say, a Robert E. Lee type--it would just be a temporary victory in the long war on terrorism?

Although Zawahiri is a major leader in the al Qaeda terrorist network and his capture or death would boost the war on terrorism, Rice cautioned, it would not mean the end of terrorism.

"We've always said al Qaeda is not just one man, it's a network," she explained.

That's right! Condi Rice.

First she tells us there are no indespensible figures, no Robert E. Lees of al Qaeda(who no one said there were in the first place; we simply said bin Laden killed 2000 Americans and we ought to do something about that) then she lectures us about how wrong and misinformed it is to say there are no single men in al Qaeda who are more important than others.

Is she a piece of work or what? Does she kiss the Preznit with that mouth? Because it's full of bullshit.

But, hey, Condi, if that's true, if there are people who are better at organizing terrorist organizations and carrying out terrorist attacks, then tell me:

Why in the great blue fuck did we invade Iraq instead of expending all of our considerable resources on the "just one man" who actually organized al Qaeda and carried out the 9/11 attacks on America?

Why on Earth did we let the man go?