Stop 'Stop-Loss', or Stop the War?

The Credo mailing list sent a notice telling me to see the movie Stop-Loss, and to sign a petition telling Gates to Stop Stop-Loss.

While it is nice to see a movie that exposes the meat-grinder aspects of military service, it is stopping the war that should be the priority.

The reason we have stop loss is that people really don't support this war enough to offer themselves up to the meat grinder. The politicians and the Pentagon know it, so they need to use stop loss to have enough IED fodder to keep the war running. John Kerry has been pushing his solution, increasing the size of the army, for four years now. In addition to the lack of enthusiasm people have for signing up, it appears that the money isn't there to support a bigger army. Another alternative way to add bodies would be a real draft. That sure as heck ain't flying.

I sure don't like Stop-Loss, but I like the war even less. I am not supporting a bigger Army, because that will keep the wars going. If you don't like stop loss, don't join the fucking army. If you are in the army and don't like stop loss, just don't go.

You mean it really isn't just a job, and you can't quit? Go to Canada or go to jail.

If George Bush had to send ten thousand soldiers to jail for refusing to go on a second or third tour of Iraq, while he spent Vietnam being young and irresponsible, we might find out where he has been hiding his balls since the 'Mission Accomplished' abomination.

Here is the Credo screedo:

See the movie. Stop the backdoor draft.


Once in awhile a film comes along that makes you want to tell everyone you know. Starring Ryan Phillippe as a soldier ordered to leave home and go back to Iraq, "Stop-Loss" is a new film dramatizing the practice of stop-loss -- the forced extension of service members' enlistment contracts.

Spread the word.

We've created a flyer that you can print and hand out to other movie-goers to help them understand the stop-loss policy and its effects on our men & women in the military, their families, and their communities. Please see this movie and help spread the word and increase awareness about the stop-loss policy and its tragic effects.

In the words of Iraq veteran and chairman of veterans' organization VoteVets.org Jon Soltz,
"Stop Loss has been one of the most painful Pentagon policies for those who have served in Iraq. While the film examines how the policy might affect one soldier, this issue affects thousands and thousands of those who serve our nation, in a very similar way. Longer and more frequent deployments have been linked to depression and even suicide among our troops and veterans. We must rally behind our troops, and end this destructive policy."

Click here to sign our petition urging Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to end the military's stop-loss policy.

Thank you for working to build a better world.

Support the troops who won't shoot women and children

Marine Stephen Tatum, who told another marine to shoot a group of Iraqi women and children he found on a bed in a closed room, then apparently did it himself when the marine refused, has had charges against him dropped.

This is not an exceptional pattern, it is consistent with numerous other atrocities. At My Lai, most of the people doing the killing got off, while Calley was given an extraordinarily light sentence.

For Haditha, it looks like Wuterich will get hung out to dry, but undoubtedly the Marines will do their best to give him as light a sentence as possible.

Remember folks, the best way not to commit atrocities is not to join the Army or Marines in the first place.

what is 'serron emerdee'?

In his latest warning, William Lind says

General Petraeus calls President Bush and repeals the famous words of Marshal I MacMahon at Sedan: "Nous sorrune dans une pot de chambre, and nous y serron emerdee." Bush thinks he's overheard Petraeus ordering dinner -- as, for Bush, he has.

I am wondering, what do 'sorrune' and 'serron emerdee' mean?

UPDATE: WikiAnswers has the translation

This should (probably) read: Nous serons dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés. Literally it means We'll be in a chamber pot and we'll get filthy there. But the verb emmerder (lit. to foul with excrement) also means to cause trouble, to irritate, to impede, so this is something of a jeux de mots, or pun, which is rare in French.

Enron: Where did the money go?

I was googling around on the subject and ran across a Washington Post chat with reporter Bethany McLean from 2004. McLean says,

There really wasn't any money or property left. Enron's creditors are getting about 20 cents on the dollar; stock holders were left with nothing. the only people who made money were the execs who sold stock and the wall street firms who made millions in fees from enron.

Okay, I'm sure our intrepid reporter looked really hard. Also from the same chat is this gem,

I think energy deregulation has definitely lost some of its luster! just look at california. as for other forms of deregulation, I don't think they've lost their luster. unfortunately, no one has rescinded glass steagall yet!

Huh? The internets all say Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. I hope her Enron reporting was better informed. Also, one has to wonder whether her low opinion of G-S has changed with recent events in the banking world; will we be seeing "The Smartest Guys in the Room Part 2"?

Well, I still don't know where the Enron money went. It is hard not to be skeptical of Ms McLean's claims, however. Was the spaghetti web of offshore partnerships intended to be an accounting fraud to help pump up the stock price, or was it a cover for extracting cash out of the business?

Responsibility isn't Responsible

The brown shirts love to bleat, "Freedom isn't Free", and they also like to call withdrawal from Iraq "irresponsible".

Funny, the American people don't think that way. Irresponsible is starting a war you have no idea how to get out of. Irresponsible is sending kids to get killed cause you want to cheap out on armor. Irresponsible is a chanting slam dunk lies and turning your brain off. Irresponsible is leaving it to the next guy to make the decision. Irresponsible is whining, we don't have the votes to stop the war.

Ahmadinejad for Peace

Juan Cole does his usual excellent job in his Friday post.

He dismantles the lies of our delusional president regarding Iran's intentions. Then he goes on to present substantial remarks from Ahmadinejad stating Iran's peaceful intentions.

Now you might consider me to be a useless idiot for taking Ahmadinejad at face value (of course, that could not be as useless as taking 'Mission Accomplished' Bush at face value), but there is substantial independent evidence from the NIE and the IAEA that is consistent with Ahmadinejad's statements.

Usually, when the utter absence of any evidence for Iranian nuclear weapons program is shown, the foaming-at-the-mouth right wing fascists change the subject to Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups that are driven by local conditions in Palestine and Lebanon, and have nothing to do with any nuclear program.

There is no excuse for letting the delusional, dangerous Bush Cheney administration wreak havoc on the world. The congress needs to grow balls and put a stop to all this saber rattling over Iran.

Vice-President Delusional F******d

Here is a snippet from a McClatchey article:

But Cheney, who spent the night at a sprawling U.S. base in the northern town of Balad, told soldiers they were defending future generations of Americans from a global terror threat.

"This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001"

What kind of fools does this ignorant, delusional, alcoholic, shotgun waving relic think we are?

My Lai Anniversary

Today is the 40th anniversary of the My Lai massacre. My Lai is the story of shocking atrocities by American soldiers. It is also the story of American soldiers who showed incredible inner strength and confidence to do the right thing.

When anti-war folks like me refer to the bad acts of American soldiers, we are called anti-American or enemy sympathizers. But what about the soldiers who refuse to go along with these bad acts, or even act to stop them? Are they anti-American? Can't we support the troops who do not lose their moral compass?

The book "Four Hours in My Lai" should be required reading in every high school history course. Perhaps the most stunning revelation there is that the army photographer at My Lai came home, and showed photos from My Lai at public presentations even before My Lai was widely exposed in the press. Yet the ordinary citizens who saw these photos either did not recognize what they were seeing, or did not care to raise awareness of the atrocities.

Even though we should respect heros like Thompson, Colbourn, and Andreotta, and we can all hope that we would behave with similar honor if we encountered such a situation in the crucible of war, experience shows us that most people would not show the courage and bravery that these three showed. Hell, most people won't stand up to the tin-horn right wing Nazi-esque bullies who call them anti-American for questioning a bad war.

Here is the AP's anniversary story.

Petraeus: Iraq not making progress

In case you believe the lie that 'the surge is working', the architect of the surge says that it is not.

Well, that is my characterization, at least. Petraeus said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

Since Petraeus has long said that their is no military solution in Iraq, and that the purpose of the surge was to provide breathing room for reconciliation, I believe that my characterization is warranted.

Here is the Washington Post article. See Juan Cole today for more elaboration.

Arthur Appetizer

The corporate sleaze fest that ushered in the Bush-business criminal-class government - Enron, Worldcom, the collapse of Arthur Andersen - may turn out to look like an appetizer compared to the feeding frenzy that has the financial sector looking pretty dazed today. But when an accounting firm, that should be the guardians of honesty in the numbers, and that should be the most trustworthy people in business, can blow up, why can't the whole economy? And why didn't more people see it coming?

Oh, that's right: we had Sarbanes-Oxley to keep a lid on it.

By the way, where did the Enron scammers hide their loot? 'Follow the money'.

Are the crazies out of the box?

Centcom commander William Fallon, who was trying to put the crazies back in the box, has resigned.

I hope that this does not signal that the insane criminals running the U.S. are going to try to attack Iran.

Hillary botches the 3 a.m. phone call

So Hillary runs an ad about who do you want to take a 3 a.m. phone call. The ad has stock footage of an 8 year old girl sleeping. It turns out the footage is ten years old, and the girl, now 18, is an Obama supporter. You probably know all this, since the girl has been on the Today show and Good Morning America.

What this situation shows is that Hillary is not the one you want to take that 3 a.m. phone call. If she can't even get her organization to do basic groundwork, like find out who they are putting in her campaign advertisements, how could we trust her as president to get her team to do their homework on stuff that matters?

McCain: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

McCain on 60 Minutes.

The good, or at least honest:

Asked if water boarding is torture, McCain said, "Sure. Yes. Without a doubt."

"So the United States has been torturing POWs?" Pelley asked.

"Yes."

The bad:

"Those who say just withdraw, then you say, 'What next?'" McCain asked in the 2007 interview.

I have ranted about this before. The pro-war people say that those who are for withdrawl don't have a plan for what's next. But the pro-war people have halfassed plan after halfassed plan, surge, pause, what the fuck, and they have no idea what's next. Hypocrites.

The ugly:

"I disagree with what the majority of the American people want....withdrawal will lead to chaos"

We stayed, and there was chaos. And contempt for the wishes of the people. The constitution gives the power to declare war to the congress, which is representative of the people. McCain, bless his straight talkin heart, admits that if elected (by the people, sort of, indirectly, via the electoral college) he will say "Screw You" to the people and continue this insane war that is bankrupting and bleeding this country dry. And he says this knowing full well that there are enough junior brownshirts in the USA that such comments will not hurt him at the polls.

Victory Through Defeat

I just ran across the Alabama Thunderpussy song that titles this post. The name and band are very serendipitous:

'Victory Through Defeat' sounds like the Bush Iraq strategy
George Bush spent his coked up exile from the National Guard in Alabama for Red Blount's Senate campaign.
Bush is a thunderpussy.

heh.

Do over for Democracy

So we have to have a Do-Over for Michigan cause it ain't fair that Obama took his name off the ballot like the national party said. Actually, it's brilliant; instead of trying to vote early, so your vote matters (right, Romney voters?), schedule your primary last, so either your vote really doesn't matter, or else you are the decider.

Really, why don't we have a do over for the entire country, on the same day. That way, it would be almost like they do elections in real democracies.

Also, like in real democracies, let the number of votes determine the winner, instead of Stupordelegates, or Electoral Collegians.

Why not have a boxing tournament made up of the electoral college? The candidate whose electors win the most matches wins the election.

When the entire system is a joke, arguing about whether a do-over is fair or unfair is completely beside the point.

Surge ahead, fall back

surge
a sudden large increase, typically a brief one that happens during an otherwise stable or quiescent period

increase, rise, growth, groundswell, escalation, leap.

pause
a temporary stop in action or speech

stop, cessation, break, halt, interruption, check, lull, respite, breathing space, discontinuation, hiatus, gap, interlude; adjournment, suspension, rest, wait, hesitation; informal letup, breather.

Discontinue the war. Pull the plug. Cease fire. Bug out. The war is on hiatus. The troops in Iraq appreciate their breathing space.

'Otherwise stable or quiescent' my ass.

The 'pause'/'surge' crap is more of the Bush bullshit cynical PR labeling, try to slip some positive but utterly false connotation from the penumbra of a word's meaning into the public's view of its policy. 'Death tax.' All taxes for war are death taxes.