Instahoglets 20th Jan 06

Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
Pink Floyd - Dogs Of War.

Congressman Bob Filner is a Democrat and an ass. He's in favor of slipping the leash on the Mujahedeen e-Kalqh, currently under minimal guard at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. I shall quote this moron:

It is time to take the MEK (People Mojahedin Organization of Iran) off the terrorist list. If we can not have war and if appeasement does not work, we have a Third option. As Maryam Rajavi has said there is a third way and that is to assist the internal resistance based in Iraq. That we can have a democratic government. To make change from within. We don't need a world war. We can have the internal resistance make the change.

Yeah, democracy will best be served by letting the messianic leader of the Islamist/Marxist army who used to be Saddam's enforcers run Iran and it's nuclear program. NOT!

Fred Kaplan has a similiar problem. The only non-nutcase alternatives to the Iranian regime-in-place are secular groups which are a) all based in America, not Iran and b) not big enough to fill a pool hall, let alone a parliament. Shades of A. Chalabi! Do we really want to try that one again?

Tough guy Vice President John Way...oops, Dick Cheney...says that the US will not negotiate with terrorists and thus rejects any truce with Bin Laden. I think you have to destroy them," he told Fox News Channel. "It's the only way to deal with them."

Meanwhile, the Shia majority in Iraq pleads with the US to stop negotiating with terrorists! National Security Adviser Mowaffak Rubaie told the Washington Times "I think the Americans are making a huge and fatal mistake in their policy of appeasement and they should not do this." Ah, the delicious irony!

(Cheney is indeed a Dick. If he had said you can negotiate with some terrorists but not others, and then gone on to explain why Osama can't be trusted in negotiations, I would have had less of a problem - maybe none. It's the "Death to all fanatics!" absolutist political whip-up-the-base crap I find laughable.)

Tough Guy French President Jacques Chirac has said France would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state which launched a terrorist attack against it. The problem with terrorists is they are usually stateless, isn't it? At least that's the justification for the US's "illegal combatant" bodyswerve around the Geneva Convention. Understandably, Jacques has upset several neighbouring countries who don't have nukes but do have a history of being invaded by France every hundred years or so.

(The most ridiculous aspect of this story is the American Right, crowing and speculating whether the "socialist Fwench surrender monkeys" finally grew some. France has been led by a rightwing government for over a decade now. Chirac is about as warmongeringly conservative as they come - utterly Thatcheresque. He just didn't see the percentage for France in the Iraqi Adventure.)

It is cynical of me, but I have to think the real reason behind Bush and his crew's unseemly rush to war with Iran is in their checkbooks. Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D. who teaches economics at the American University in Bulgaria seems to think so too:

"The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro."

Piecing together the network of corruption- District Attorney Ronnie Earle has asked for bank records which could prove a link between the defense contractor involved in Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham's bribery and a Texas political committee founded by Tom DeLay.

Once, Harry Reid found cojones for a day when he shut the Senate down over Bush's lies about Iraq. Now he has lost them again and is offering an apology to Repuglicans because a report by his office singled out 33 Republican senators for various ethical lapses and transgressions.

Molly Ivins unloads a rightous can of whoop-ass on theDemocrats' Republican-Lite elite powerbrokers, who jump at their own shadows and at every poll on Faux News, as she tells them "I will not support Hillary Clinton for president." YOU GO, MOLLY!

As noted above, Osama binForgotten popped up this week with a timely reminder that this seven foot tall guy with a gimpy leg who needs weekly dialysis and is also the world's most wanted terrorist can't be found by BushCo and their allies. Rather than be embarassed that they've wasted so much time supporting a Prezi-didn't who couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a map the Right did what it always does - blamed the Left. And did so by putting words in the mouths of Lefties that I've never heard from a real one. I don't usually link to Daily Kos - I'm not a fan for a variety of reasons - but this time a diarist absolutely nails the BushCo sycophants on their moronic use of the language of treason.