He Certainly Needs Protection

As vice-president, Dick Cheney receives secret service protection, which usually expires once he leaves office. However, Dick Cheney could keep his security detail, another perk at taxpayer's expense. We are being told because we have a "sworn enemy" who has "vowed to killl the president and vice-president", however, the truth of the matter is-Dick Cheney is afraid of the American people.
His recent remarks concerning the citizen's opposition to the war in Iraq ("So?") and his lack of concern for the over 4000 soldiers he has sent to their deaths in an illegal war ("They volunteered") have resonated as arrogant and unfeeling with the American people, and will have him go down in history as the most hated VP in the history of the US.
Regardless of the reason, it has been Cheney's actions that have generated the animosity towards him, of course, Republicans being the hypocrites they are and personal responsibility is for poor people,we will once again be forced to waste money that could be better spent somewhere else to protect this paranoiac from the responsibilities of his own actions.
But, unless there is action from congress, Cheney's protection will only be extended for six months. Let's just hope his health care isn't.

So Brilliant, It's Stupid: How We Wound Up In A Quagmire

Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villains. I'm down to Castro and Kim II Sung.-Colin Powell
What a world we would live in if we had run out of villains. The statement above was made by Colin Powell while he was chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs. A soldier needs an enemy to do a job, but by time the former Soviet Union fell, the US had run out of enemies. Which would be a good thing, unless you're the Defense department. The permanent national security state needs an enemy to justify bloated budgets so that retiring military officials can be guaranteed a job with defense contractors when they retire. Defense contractors need to make billions so they can buy politicians, Republican and Democratic, who will continue to okay large budget appropriations for the military. Republican and Democrats need large campaign financing so they can continue to keep their lock on the political system. It's a vicious circle, and for years it fed on the fear of the godless communists destroying our way of life. But then, with thanks to the petrodollar, we were able to outspend those dirty commies, because we had the ability to dig ourselves deeper into a hole than the Russians, mainly because by supporting the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, we were able to keep the Russian oil from going to port..
It's right there in the PNAC statement of principles: "Cuts in...defense spending...are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence ". It's clear; the US needed an enemy to increase defense spending, even if had to fabricate one. Then, almost as if on cue, as if planned by the PNAC itself, we had our "New Pearl Harbor", a "blowback" attack by those very same people we had armed and trained to fight the commies In Afghanistan, were now fighting us.
But it didn't stop there. Now fully committed to a war in Afghanistan, just when it looked like the war may end quickly with Army rangers chasing the enemy into Pakistan, the defense secretary decides to pull troops out of the region for use in another war. can't let that one end too quickly, got to keep the people's attention distracted from the $2.3 trillion missing from the Pentagon. Plus, the permanent national security state needed a war, any war.
Or hell, why not two? Dick Cheney knew the war in Iraq would become "bogged down", that's why they didn't go to Baghdad in 1991. Now John McCain says we could stay in Iraq for hundred years, I'll bet that sent the dollars flying into his campaign coffers from defense contractors. It's all about the money folks, not any other reason.
Fighting "Terrorism"-The reason we are told we are in Iraq is because we are fighting the "Islamofascist" (by attacking the only secular state in the region). But our tactics only serve to bring more fighters to their cause. Which of course, means the longer we'll have to stay there, and spend more money. Every bomb dropped, not also equals more money spent, it also means the likelihood that it will draw another recruit to the insurgency we are fighting there. But according to a report recently censored by the Pentagon there were no links between Saddam, al Qaeda, or 9/11.
Oil-Sorry, while controlling the oil is an attractive aspect of the war in Iraq, if it were really about providing oil for fuel starved Americans, we wouldn't have pledged to maintain OPEC production levels. And while it's true that we did go in there to stop Saddam from switching from the petrodollar to the euro, this was done more to to protect the investments of the MIC than it was to help the average American.We'd be pumping it out of the ground and shipping it here. The only thing this has to do with oil is allowing oil companies to sell $75 a barrel oil at $106 a barrel prices, netting them a tidy profit for doing absolutely nothing, the American Dream!

And who pays for this? We all do. We pay for it with our crumbling infrastructure. Our loved ones who come back, or those who don't. We pay for it with higher fuel prices, which drives up the price of everything. We pay for it with an increased national debt, and rising inflation.
The only people who don't pay for this are the ones who are making a bundle, the defense contractors. They are the recipients of a tax cut.


Join The March 19 Blogswarm

Join The Blogswarm-Save Nelson's Birthday!

March 19, 1999, was a very important day in my life. that's when my youngest son, Nelson was born. Four years later, the US invaded Iraq. Now his birthday will be forever linked with that fateful day, unless we all do something. I know how it is to have a birthday associated with a tragedy (I was born on Groundhog Day), and believe me, it never really goes away.
In the day's leading to the illegal (under international law) invasion of Iraq, I wrote my congressperson. I stood in the freezing cold along with fifteen million other people around the world to protest a war that hadn't even begun. I began blogging, because as John McCain recently said, we'll be in Iraq for a hundred years, and with 3956 US soldiers sacrificed to the corpocracy, not to mention the many injured, or soon to be debilitated due to the effects of DU, it won't be long before they institute a a draft to fill the gap since the children of the corpocracy won't be asked to fight. And I don't want Nelson or his brother to be forced to fight in a war that began when he just had turned four years old.
So i joined the March 19 blogswarm and am asking all of you to do the same, since the elections, the faltering economy, and the psychotic ravings of pop stars has pushed the war from the consciousness of the American people. Remind them the war is still there, it was still based on lies, and it won't go away unless we fight to end it. And I'm asking you please, please, please, do it for Nelson.

This Is Serious, Senator Specter?

I often feel that the US puts too much emphasis on sports. This weekend is a good example, but what is essentially games that children play to burn off energy has become a multi-billion dollar racket, which in the end is mere entertainment, no more important than movies or television and not having any type of bearing on reality whatsoever.
Remember when Congress had a big investigation into steroid use by baseball players? How is professional athletes using performance enhancers bad, while the US military is using depleted uranium for the exact same result? Winning is everything, because we are not a society of losers! What's next? An investigation into actresses who used cleavage enhancing breast implants? (Please,sir, can I be on that committee, sir?)
Early on in this season, the New England Patriots were caught videotaping defensive coaches' signals to players during games. The tapes were confiscated by the NFL, who then fined and denied a first round draft pick to the Patriots. After which, the tapes were destroyed. Now, Sen. Arlen Specter has declared the tapes' destruction analogous to the CIA interrogation tapes destruction. Except with those tapes, they were destroyed before an investigation and no punishment has been meted out at all because of it. Or how about the deletion of emails missing from White House servers? It seems to certain Senate Republicans, only other crimes bear closer scrutiny (or maybe Sen. Specter heard there were some awesome cheerleader upskirts on there he needed to see).