{"id":92,"date":"2007-07-15T16:59:04","date_gmt":"2007-07-15T16:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/?p=50"},"modified":"2007-07-15T16:59:04","modified_gmt":"2007-07-15T16:59:04","slug":"sunday-morning-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2007\/07\/15\/sunday-morning-musings\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Morning Musings\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gut
\nAl Qaeda are coming!!!<\/u><\/strong>
\nI was watching Meet The Press <\/em>this morning \u2013 Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was on, pushing the company line for the Bush administration. What a shit-for-brains idiot!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all, al Qaeda, al Qaeda, al Qaeda! The surge is working! We must stand firm! Our national security is at stake. If we leave, al Qaeda will win. Blah, blah, blah. al Qaeda. He must have said \u201cal Qaeda\u201d 10 times in maybe a minute.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like Bush and his cronies figure that if they say the magic words \u2013 \u201cal Qaeda\u201d \u2013 then everyone will stand at attention and go along with anything they say.<\/p>\n

And then if Bush and his buddies really<\/em> want to get our attention, they\u2019ll invoke the ghosts of \u201c9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNow this did work for them for quite a long time. It didn\u2019t matter if there was any actual connection or not. So I\u2019m not surprised to see them still trying the same tired ploys, now that things are falling apart for them.
\nThankfully, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) was there to poke holes in Graham\u2019s specious arguments. Webb actually made him look like an ass.<\/p>\n

To reiterate, once again: before we invaded Iraq, there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein had no connection at all to 9\/11 or Osama bin Laden. None. Bin laden and Hussein were enemies.<\/p>\n

By taking out Saddam, we made it possible for al Qaeda to become active in Iraq. Better yet, we gave them a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre<\/em>. A rallying point.<\/p>\n

Every day our troops stay in Iraq drives just that many new recruits into al Qaeda. Muslims have long, long memories. The way they see it, we\u2019re the Christian \u201cCrusaders,\u201d the infidels re-occupying their holy lands.<\/p>\n

What would happen if Russia invaded the United States? We\u2019d all unite and try to drive them out!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the exact same thing in Iraq. All the different factions \u2013 who otherwise may be mortal enemies \u2013 are united in one goal \u2013 getting the US the hell out of there.<\/p>\n

We have no business being in Iraq. It\u2019s their civil war. The sooner we get out, the sooner all the shooting will stop.<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019ll probably end up with a Shi\u2019a government with leanings toward Iran. But it\u2019s their country, not ours! We have no business dictating to them.
\nWe must get out of Iraq at once!<\/p>\n

George W. Bush: the worst president in history<\/u><\/strong>
\nWashington Post story. <\/a><\/p>\n

Bush has firmly secured his place in history, as the very worst president ever, behind (in ascending order) Warren G. Harding, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Johnson (the bottom five).<\/p>\n

But then what can you expect?<\/p>\n

Look back to early 2001: Here is a man of below-average intelligence, flailing about aimlessly, no direction to his administration, a little over a year into his presidency, and he\u2019s already dying in the polls.<\/p>\n

If it hadn\u2019t been for 9\/11, George Bush would have been a one-term wonder.<\/p>\n

So then 9\/11 came down.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s handlers seized the moment. How do you resuscitate a dying president? Make him a \u201cwartime\u201d commander. A warrior defending our precious freedom! Everyone rallies around a wartime president \u2013 as they knew. So all of a sudden, they trotted out a wartime president. And presto chango, we were at \u201cwar\u201d with terrorism \u2013 which coincidentally is a concept, not a country.<\/p>\n

Timing is everything. Bush\u2019s buddies did an excellent job.
\n\"Seig
\nSo we invaded Afghanistan \u2013 but they were a little, weak country, and so that didn\u2019t take very long.
\nIf Bush were to remain a \u201cwartime\u201d president, now he needed a new war. Saddam Hussein was a dictator no one really liked \u2013 the asshole tried to kill Bush\u2019s mom and dad! Plus he\u2019s got a lot of oil and other stuff we can plunder.<\/p>\n

So for Bush to continue to be a wartime president, we now invade Iraq.<\/p>\n

The bitch is that lately, people have finally started to notice the humongous failures of the Bush administration: they\u2019ve alienated almost every ally we have and made enemies of the rest of the world (no one likes a bully!); he\u2019s killed off the best and the brightest of our children in his war in Iraq; his administration is riddled with scandals and corruption; he\u2019s flouted the constitution, pushing for an \u201cimperial\u201d presidency that is above any law and is unanswerable to the will of the people; he\u2019s pushed his right-wing Christian religious agenda down the throats of the American public. On and on and on.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s flailing around now, aware that if we withdraw the troops from Iraq, all pretense will be gone; his mantle as a wartime president will be gone.
\nHe\u2019s desperate to continue the war at any cost (as long as he doesn\u2019t have to give the soldiers any pay or benefit raises – Story here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If in September, the report card for his surge is as bad as it looks like it will be \u2013 and he still resists bringing our troops home \u2013 hopefully the congress will have the balls to impeach him.<\/p>\n

Joe Lieberman, Foreign Agent<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The more I hear Senator Joe Lieberman (Independent-Israel) spout off about how we must keep our troops in Iraq, it really pisses me off.
\nLieberman, as you\u2019ll recall, the former Vice Presidential candidate with Al Gore, had to run for re-election for his Connecticut senate seat as an independent because his views on the war, among other things, were at odds with the Democratic party lines.<\/p>\n

What pisses me off is that when Lieberman voices support for continuing the war in Iraq, the constituency he is representing is not Connecticut, but is in reality, Israel. It\u2019s certainly in Israel\u2019s best interests for the US to remain to have a strong presence in the area \u2013 it takes pressure off Israel.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s clearly against the interests of all Americans.<\/p>\n

There oughta be a \u201ctruth in advertising\u201d law for politicians.
\nI\u2019ve always been a strong supporter of Israel \u2013 and always will be. But I think Lieberman ought to register as an agent of a foreign government and quit the pretense that he\u2019s representing Americans.<\/p>\n

I also think Lieberman should resign his seat in the senate \u2013 or be thrown out. If he wants to work as a lobbyist for Israel, great, but he shouldn\u2019t be doing it as a member of the senate.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s appropriate for any foreign government to have a seat in our congress. Great Britain should not have a seat in our congress; Canada should not have a seat in our congress; Russia should not have a seat in our congress; Mexico should not have a seat in our congress; Israel should not have a seat in our congress. No foreign country should.<\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Qaeda are coming!!! I was watching Meet The Press this morning \u2013 Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was on, pushing the company line for the Bush administration. What a shit-for-brains idiot! It\u2019s all, al Qaeda, al Qaeda, al Qaeda! The surge is working! We must stand firm! Our national security is at stake. If we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikepellegrini.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}