Republican Leaders: Pray For Another Terrorist Attack On U.S. So We Can Win

I noticed some people - including at least a few Republicans I spoke with - were quite taken aback when the head of the Arkansas state GOP said the other day that (to paraphrase):

What we need in America is another September 11th, another horrific terrorist attack
on our home soil, because that is what the GOP needs to win all the seats it wants
in the 2008 presidential election.

Excuse me? Really? We need another 9-11-01?

Unbelievably, this Arkansas ass is hardly the first rightwinger to state something like this. There are an endless number of examples, almost all of which come from the far red right.

For example, Newt Gingrich (who remains an undeclared contender for the GOP race for President) said last summer that America needed to do whatever it could to help Israel turn the war they were waging on Lebanon (one often called a proxy war fought by Israel for America to put the fear of God into other Arab/Muslim heavy countries like Iran and Syria.

Specifically, Gingrich said (and I am not engaging in hyperbole) that it was in the very BEST interests of the GOP to help Israel morph the Lebanon situation into World War III SINCE Americans would flock to embrace Bush's war-as-the-answer-to-everything doctine as they did after 9-11. He said this publicly and repeatedly. Virtually none of the press called him on that, or demanded to know why taxpayer money and U.S. soldiers' lives were completely and utterly expendable so long as Republicans not only retained power, but they also got MORE power.

On This Memorial Day Weekend...

Let us appreciate America's 25 million living veterans (one in every dozen citizens), demand we stop unnecessary aggression against other countries, and begin to worry about our own massive problems. At the same time, think about all the many wars this Republican chickenhawk vice president (Dick Cheney) and chickenshit commander in chief, Mr. Bush, have started since they used corrupt court processes to take the White House in December 2000:

Besides those declared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the proxy war Israel waged for Bush to break the spine of Lebanon in proxy:

• War on the military and our veterans (asking so much while cutting services to them every damned day)
• War on basic human rights
• War on individual privacy
• War not on poverty but against the poor
• War on families (you have to be the "right" kind of family not to feel "intruded" upon
• War on science
• War on reason
• War on truth and accountability as well as the whistleblowers who try to make the Bushies honest
• War on public education and against the best conditions for our kids
• War on young minds, trying to lure them away from high school or college with lies
• War on drugs (which got rolled into the War on Terror which, as they say, is a bumper sticker motto but hardly a game plan) which includes the ability for Americans to afford them, to get them for their most urgent needs (ex: contraception, pain relief, and yes, even decongestants in cold formulas), and to make decisions about their own bodies
• War on anyone who isn't of the Fascist Fundamentalist Christian "faith" (Muslims, especially)
• War on America's honor, its reputation, its compassion
• War on the sick (remember Terri Schiavo, kept alive when there was little brain left in her while the Bushies had no trouble discontinuing treatment to the ultra poor minority babies)
• War on journalism
• War on the United Nations, NATO, and other worldly agencies

Care to name some other wars?

Bolton, Bush, And The Middle East Meltdown

Worthy of note from Buck at Pensito Review:

Lest we forget: The Bush administration’s hard-on for Israel has a name: John Bolton. The former U.S. envoy to the United Nations has spilled the beans to the BBC in an interview where he pretty much says that U.S. interests were best served by Israel dropping shitloads of cluster bombs on Lebanon during last summer’s dust-up.

Please either read the whole thing or at least drop down to the end where it gets into the disparate casualties on the Lebanese side versus the Israeli side, keeping in mind that whole thing was supposedly over a couple of Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped.

Mr. Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was ‘damned proud of what we did’ to prevent an early ceasefire.(Emphasis added)

Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capability.

Mr Bolton said an early ceasefire would have been “dangerous and misguided”.
He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel’s campaign wasn’t working.

Israel was reacting in its own self-defence and if that meant the defeat of the enemy, that was perfectly legitimate under international law. The former envoy, who stepped down in December 2006, was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary, The Summer War in Lebanon, to be broadcast in April.

Mr Bolton said the US was deeply disappointed at Israel’s failure to remove the threat from Hezbollah and the subsequent lack of any attempt to disarm its forces.

Britain joined the US in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.The war began when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, but it quickly escalated into a full-scale conflict.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says the US-UK refusal to join calls for a ceasefire was one of the most controversial aspects of the diplomacy.

British, US and Israeli ambassadors at the UN, August 2006
The UK, US and Israeli were alone in resisting an early ceasefireAt the time US officials argued a ceasefire was insufficient and agreement was needed to address the underlying tensions and balance of power in the region.

Mr Bolton now describes it as “perfectly legitimate… and good politics” for the Israelis to seek to defeat their enemy militarily, especially as Hezbollah had attacked Israel first and it was acting “in its own self-defence”.

Keep reading here.

The Bush Doctrine for Dummies

As with all things Bush, you pretty much have to deliver up details in a very simple visual format since our president appears to be illiterate (among with his many, many other... uh... er... strengths).

Thus, Jesus' General - who remains an 11 on the 1-10 manliness scale - has summed up Dubya's own Middle East doctrine in perfect pictorial format (although I think both "Iraq" and "Iran" may be rather big words for the president to grasp).

The General labels this:

Our Glorious Eternal War
to Resubjugate Brown People

It's Official: Israel All But Demands U.S. Pay For Its War on Lebanon

[Ed. update: Senators just went to Israel in an effort pushed by the Bushies, with the express purpose - stated by Jon Kyl for the Bushies - of indoctrinating them into feeling "an obligation" to Israel. I'm for helping... but obligation considering what we already fund? And I almost guarantee you the subject of Iran came up.]

Although I predicted this would happen, it took until this week for Israel to expressly demand that American taxpayers reimburse them in large part for the war they waged in Lebanon last summer. Before I tell you why this is outrageous - and I don't blame Israel entirely for this outrage; the Bushies' filthy fingerprints are all over Lebanon - let's get a little perspective on how generously we already fund one of the world's smallest nations.

You may not realize this, but we give more financial aid to Israel every year (starting at around $4-6 Billion - yes, that's with a B, folks) than we do most other countries put together. A minimum of $2.5 Billion of this directly funds Israel's military, one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world for a nation that is one of the smallest. Some analysts say the amount that goes to fund Israel from the U.S. actually probably is closer to $10-15 billion per year because we do a lot of "under the table" stuff for them. And this is separate from private funding that goes on not just from Jewish communities in America, but from defense contractors and a host of others.

As I've stated a multitude of times, I do believe it is very appropriate for us to help Israel. First, we allowed the Nazi atrocities to go on for years before we acknowledged any of what was going on. Second, the U.S. helped carve what is today Israel from what was, to both Jews and Westerners, a very inhospital region (I'm still not sure we did the right thing there, in terms of location, but.. what's done is done). Third, obviously, Israel is a strategic partner for the U.S. in the Middle East; granted, however, it's an oft-times unholy alliance but that is also a long story. But fourth, and in my thinking, most important: everyone should have a place to call home. Four million Jews are in Israel and we should help them survive there. [The far-right Christians would tender a fifth reason they consider almighty: that the Bible tells them that Israel has to be in place in its current configuration for the "end of times" to happen the way they want. This, to me, is both madness and something far worse than crazy. But that's also a battle for another day.]

Here's where I - and many others - have problems with the level of funding and "strategic partnership" that flows from our country to Israel. At the most basic level, it's way out of proportion to Israel's size. Divide 4-15 Billion dollars into 4 Million people and... let's just say that Americans don't get that much from their own government for their health and welfare.

Well beyond that, the degree of assistance causes us untold "blowback" - to use Chalmers Johnson's apt phrase. Because Israel has a rabid appetite for military stuff, everytime Israel launches an attack on a Palestinian refugee camp, on its neighbors, et al, those being attacked can see the U.S. logo on the big guns like the helicopter gunships swooping in. We give far less in aid to much larger Muslim-majority nations with a much, much, much lower quality of life circumstance.

But let's get to the Lebanon issue. I join a great many Israelis in believing that the war Israel waged on Lebanon last year was WRONG in every way, shape, and form. Many of those who originally supported the war and "bought" the propaganda that it was waged to weaken Hezbollah (Hizbollah with some spellings) have long since turned because they saw - much as we see with the ever-strengthening al Qaeda and Taliban after all the U.S. action - that what was done only empowered Hezbollah and made people who did not see Israel as their enemy into Hezbollah supporters. Why? Because Hezbollah was the closest thing to an army/aid organization the Lebanese saw.

Israeli sources last year were telling us that they were waging a war "in proxy" FOR the United States, attacking Lebanon to send a powerful message to Syria and Iran that Israel AND the U.S. would come after them next. While the Bushies smirked and insisted that wasn't true, the very fact that Bush WANTS to write a check to pay the Israeli government FOR the Lebanon war is just one more piece in an already sizeable pile of evidence that the war by proxy story is 99.9% accurate.

I encourage you to run, not walk, to your phone, call your elected reps, and tell them NO, you do NOT support paying Israel for the destruction of Lebanon (which, contrary to the pablum espoused by the far right, is a generally peaceful land that is far more Christian than Muslim). I also encourage you to do your own research and, if you agree that FAR too much money is flowing into Israel for its militaristic endeavors, to demand your legislators take a long and hard look at cutting the funding to Israel. I'm not saying cut it all because I don't think that would be right. But I don't want to fund the Israeli war machine anymore than I want to fund outs.

Think about it: between $4-15 billion for 4 million people, each and every year. Something is dangerously out of whack here.