Thursday, August 06, 2009

I Hate The War

Last Thursday, a memo by US Col Timothy Reese recommended, based on his observations from the ground in Iraq, that the US get all troops out of Iraq by the end of 2010. Once upon a time, such a memo might have gotten attention.

Instead you had idiots dismiss it and attack the writer. That was the playbook for Cult of St. Barack. Lot of losers disgraced themselves. Especially the apologist for Barack at Harper's -- you know the little liar who was presenting himself to the media as Constitutional Law scholar when he's not. When he didn't study it and when he doesn't teach it. But it sounded so damn good! And despite that ethical lapse, Scott Horton remains at Harper's. Where he 'blogs' despite claiming he was done blogging about a year ago. Even going so far as to write his farewell blog post.

He's a bit of a Drama Queen, yes. He's the hysteric downing a bottle of children's aspirin and dialing 911.

He's already has little dust up with Michael Ratner who, for the record, is a Constitutional Law scholar and expert (and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights). In 2008, Michael Ratner and Scott Horton were both calling for accountability when it came to the US government's torture. Then Barry O was elected and Michael Ratner was still calling for accountability but suddenly Scott Horton was okay with a for show effort that wouldn't do anything or, in fact, okay with even less. That's how it is for the Cult. They live to serve their love guru.

So Horton Hears A Bam-Bam lost interest in accountability or the Iraq War or much of anything at all. Cindy Sheehan wrote this week, "I see signs of this country coming out of the 'Hope'-nosis of Obama as positive change is not even in the forecast but the reawakening is not happening fast enough and we really need everyone to walk towards the light of truth and peace if we ever want to see any of my dreams become reality!" And it's going to take a lot of waking up. Thing is, the 'alarm clock' media we thought existed? It never did.

There was no media about justice or peace. There was a media that grabbed certain issue to embarrass Bully Boy Bush and the Republicans and to pimp Democrats as the saviors and to make you foolishly believe that voting Democrats into power would end the Iraq War. Cindy Sheehan's latest column walks you through what could have been if the Democrats really wanted to end the Iraq War, or prosecute torture or shut down Guantanamo, Bagram and all the secret black ops sites.

So Robert Burns (AP) covers the memo today and quotes Andrew Bacevich dismissing the notion that it will have any impact, "I don't see what constituency is going to seize upon the Reese argument and insist that the time has come to pull the plug. Remember that the vast majority of the American people have tuned Iraq out."

And that will remain true until people get honest about the fact that the Iraq War hasn't ended and continues to drag on.

It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4328. Tonight? 4330.

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