US plays down Iranian nuclear threat

Could the voices of sanity have prevailed in Washington? Possibly.

I'm not gonna throw my hands in the air and pray to the twin gods of beer and masturbation just yet, though. Remember that Bush and Cheney are in the White House for a while yet.

Fuckers.

Rudy Giuliani is a cock-weasel

The latest character I have chosen to brand in this way is good 'ole lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key Rudy. He's a dirty little cristo-fascist toerag straight out of the Bush mold. An example, if you will:

"The man lies with staggering impunity. But here's the thing: he does it with such conviction and such seeming authority that people who are not inclined to study the matter will believe him - will in fact be utterly convinced that Giuliani is speaking the gospel truth, and they will prove almost impossible to shake from this conviction."

more jesus-freaks with direct access to the White House

No wonder the US is in such a state. Half the population are insane (they voted for Bush, 'nuff said). Anyhow this is good for a few, dark laughs.

"Two of the three nights in my apartment I have been attacked by a hair raising spirit of fear," she writes, noting the sublet contained a Harry Potter book; "at this time I am associating it with witchcraft"

Naomi Klein is a Goddess!

The text of her talk at Democracy Now! is available here. Its pretty profund shizz.

Wow! Anthony DiMaggio kicks arse!

This dude has done an awesome job on unbalanced media coverage of various topics in the States from Hugo Chavez to Iraq.

a fine piece of Bush slagging

Have it, you filthy cristo-fascist cunt.

Islamism or cristo-fascism, who is the bigger threat?

Well, according to these chaps its the latter. I couldn't agree more.

20 facts about Iran

Its a pdf.

Bush is a cock-weasel

the end of oil, the Pentagon and the Carter Doctrine

So the whilst the Bush administration are expending billions of dollars and consuming million of barrels of oil trying to control the supplies of the Middle East, the Pentagon's future as an oil consumer has been analysed and found to be grossly flawed. This enforcement of the Carter Doctrine by military force is actually consuming more oil than it is securing- a laughably counter-productive situation considering the lengths to which Bush et al have gone to initiate the hostilities.

Bush's Demagoguery

Online Journal is usually a bit too ranty and neurotic for my liking but it ran a great article slating Bush's complete inability to engage in rational, lucid, public discourse. Of particular note is his abuse of the term "evil". This, of course, applies to a great many intangible terms that appear far too frequently in our rulers' vocabulary- "terror" is a good one, or "threat" or "intelligence" . . . how about "insurgency"? All of these words are bandied about by politicians without any attempt to elaborate on their meaning.

I think Blair is worse because at least he is aware of what he's saying. Bush can barely read an autocue, let alone comprehend the meaning of the words he's parroting.

Americans are stupid - part 2

Because they're letting this happen to their great nation.

Senate majority leader states that US can't win war in Iraq

Does anyone else find it offensive? I'm talking about the way that US republicans talk about their troops as if they need all the support they can get when they're murdering Iraqi civilians. Why should the troops need support from everyone? They get paid a wage to do a job, don't they? They live in a democracy where it is not illegal to holod an opinion that differs from that of the incumbent junta? Why do the troops need a cuddle and a kiss at night before they can feel capapble of doing their jobs, as the republicans seem to be implying? For Harry Reid to point out the obvious and then to be accused of "not-supporting" the troops is taking hypocrisy to another level! If Bush hadn't sent the troops in there'd be 3000 more of them still walking the earth (not to mention half a million Iraqis) and thousands more would still have arms, legs, hearing, a lack of nightmares, no pieces of Iraqi civilian's brains in the fridge, etc. etc.

you can't re-write history

Johann Hari has done an excellent job of drawing attention to Bush's latest regression into fascism.

Iranian idiocy

So the Iranians think they can just kidnap British service personnel? I really didn't think they were stupid enough to simply throw away the high moral ground but it looks like they have been so impressed by George & Tony's incredibly naive foreign policies that they have decided to emulate them.

Fucking idiots.

Scary told you so - no evidence for Iranian complicity in Iraq

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Fucking right I did.

Even if there are Iranians in Iraq- so fucking what? There are Arabs of every nationality as well as a large number of Americans involved in committing attrocities in Iraq. If evidence existed that the Iranian government was involved so fucking what again? The US and UK governments have engaged in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocents and have no grounds for complaint. This is what happens when you engage in an illegal war. You have no right to whinge when previous victims of your injust policies seize the opportunity to deal out a few rightly deserved kidney punches when your people are looking the other way.

Another article in the Guardian details how the US and UK have together engineered Iran's supremacy in the middle East:

"The uncomfortable paradox facing London and Washington as they try to put the Iranian genie back in its bottle is that they have done more than anyone to uncork that bottle in the first place and set Iran on the way to regional hegemony.

First they removed the Taliban, Iran's enemy to the east, and then they eliminated Saddam Hussein. In little more than a year, the allies ensured Iran achieved its key strategic objective: to become the dominant power in the Gulf and the Middle East."

Lets face it, of the three I think we're better off with the Iranians coming out on top than the Taliban or Saddam. At least the Iranians are a balance between the outright religious nutcases of the Taliban and the endemically corrupt and totalitarian personality cult of Saddam's Iraq. Iranian culture is- in many ways- far more progressive than the other two (although still appalling brutal in other ways but next to the Taliban and Saddam's secret police I know who I'd rather be imprisoned by).

Bush's legacy

I laughed!

1st there was Iraq's WMD and now there's Iran's

On CiF today.

I'm still too numb from the Iraq debacle to even consider this as a real prospect. Put it this way: The American military don't want war, the American people don't want war, the Iranians don't want war, the Euopeans don't want war. Every informed analyst across the globe says it would be another disaster. So why is it still being pushed by the Shrubbery? Why do these things happen when everyone knows they are going to be a disaster? It's like Western society is masochistic and wants to hurt itself and other people around it. This is why society is in such dire need of a change of government style. If such decisions are left up to some faceless diplomats, ministers and civil servants in London then you will end up with inhuman decisions. If we were allowed to practice direct democracy, can anyone see an attack on Iran happening with UK endorsement? I can't.

"There's more to foreign policy than shaking a big stick"

The article is targeted at the US but is equally applicable to the UK.

Cock-Weasel-In-Chief Blair: Take notice!

One of the links in the article leads to a fascinating publication on American exceptionalism.

An interesting aspect of this article is its relevance to Trident replacement- "lead by example", "multilateral action, not unilateral", "United Nations needs reform- not sabotage" and "foreign aid is money far better spent than an overweight defence budget".

Example of an oxymoron: A war on Terror

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"Civilized societies, it is said, adhere to the generally accepted principles of international law, including the laws of war. By their very nature barbarians and ‘savages’ are deemed incapable of abiding by such laws. While terrorists might be capable, they are unwilling to do so. In this respect they are something akin to modern day ‘savages’; at least in terms of their problematic place in the international system and international law."

Adherence to the generally accepted principles of international law, including the laws of war, is exactly what Bush and- to a lesser extent- Blair have not done. Therbey lowering themselves to the level of despots and their respective 'civilisations' to tyrranies.

whole article

UK considers ballistic missile defence installation

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What costs billions of pounds and is completely useless against "rogue" states and terrorists? (Apart from Trident and its potential replacement, that is.)

Yes, its the US's ballistic missile defence system that has so far proved utterly useless at doing the job it was intended for. So far the system has only managed a meer handful of "successful" intercepts out of dozens of test launches against a drone target missile. The cost of the system has been $8bn so far and is looking to hit several tens if the Shrubbery keep puring money into it.

Question?
- How much would US and UK society be improved if the budget currently allocated to violating nuclear proliferation treaties, defending against the consequences of our grossly offensive foreign policies, subsidising our own arms industries and "faith"- (read "ignorance") -based initiatives was invested in social projects, renewable technologies, education and aid projects?

I know utopia is just a concept but compared to our current society I don't think its an exaggeration.