Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Leaving Iowa Behind, Nuri Must Be Impeached



"The pro-adultery website ashleymadison.com - have you heard of this? It's a website for married people that want to cheat. Anyway, they have come out and endorsed Newt Gingrich for president. I guess it's their way of thanking him for all the years of business." – Jay Leno

"Yesterday in New York City, Donald Trump officially changed his political affiliation from Republican to Independent. And Donald's hair has switched from pelt to carpet sample." – Jay Leno

"John Edwards - remember that sleazeball who ran for president? He's asking that his upcoming criminal trial be delayed because he's been diagnosed with a medical condition. Lets hope it's erectile dysfunction." – Jay Leno

Thank God that the Iowa caucus is over, all of that media hype for less than 150,000 voters. Mit Romney won over Rick Santorum by eight votes, and that's about as much excitement as I can muster. Part of it is snobbery on my part; having grown up on the left coast, we always thought of ourselves hipper and cooler than those who lived away from the ocean. Folks from the Midwest were thought of as hicks who were stuck in a conventional way of living, with conventional ways of thought. I assumed that they would frown at my lifestyle and not comprehend the things I was interested in. Now that I am much older and living far away from the Pacific Ocean, I can see how my assumptions were based on the arrogance of youth and fondness for telling older folks to f**k off...

Also, I have never been to Iowa and other surrounding states. I never bothered to connect with relatives who lived in Kentucky and Arkansas, I had plenty of cousins and grandparents who had moved to California, and there was no way that they'd ever go back... Michelle Bachmann came in last and has dropped out of the race, though it would have been fun watching all of the ways her campaign used trying to keep her husband out of the spotlight and in the closet... In the days to come, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and that blow-hard Newt Gingrich should also drop out, leaving Ron Paul alone as the champion of conservatives, Christians, disenfranchised elderly, and anti-governmental radicals under 30... If Ron Paul were to win the nomination, would he invite his son to run with him, or would he shun him for some other candidate, stop riding on my coat-tails, sonny, grow up and be a man...

What have we learned from the first Republican gab-fest of the season? One, that unless we have a national debate over the cult of Mormonism, Romney will muddle along. Second, that as long as there is a similar choice available, conservative, evangelical  Republicans will not vote for a woman, and tell their wives not to vote for one, either. Third, the Heartland is probably not as radically conservative as I and the media make it out to be, that it is more a figment of the six o'clock news than reality. It is a lesson that the GOP has yet to learn, that it can only be revitalized by those of a more accepting and moderate persuasion. Even though catering to the extreme right wing crazies is fun and madcap, the rush is short-lived and you come down too hard. Yes, right wing politics is the Republican form of speed and cocaine... Which is why I've been saying that the right wing evangelical conservatives really need medical attention and a nice hospital ward instead of allowing them out on the streets, where it can only end up in violence and more shootings...





No sooner than the last American troops had left Iraq, ol' Mr Peanut-head of the Middle East set off bombs all across Iraq, either in celebration or a last thumbing of the nose to his friends and former allies. Nuri al-Maliki also issued a warrant for the arrest of the Kurdish Vice-Premier, accusing him of some trumped-up treasonous BS. It now looks like Iraq is sliding towards that civil war we tried to stop during eight years of occupation. Ironically, many Iraqis, trying to avoid the domestic bombings and everyday violence, moved to peaceful Syria...

Another irony, is that nowadays the Arab Brotherhood is seen as a moderating influence. While Afghanistan appears to be serious in trying to recover all of the money that was stolen from the Kabul Bank, newly- rich Taliban groups are opening up storefront shops in Qatar, a very long way from home. Oh yeah, it's better this way, to negotiate a peace with the Americans... The newly-rich Taliban is even trying to make peace with its Pakistani counterparts, to stop the bickering and internal warfare so that less innocent Pakistani civilians get killed. It might be a decent trade-off, to allow spy drones to buzz around all day if the damned CIA will only remove their operating bases... Which begs the question, with all of the fast moving changes of policies taking place in the Middle East, where are we going to put our rendition centers to torture and interrogate Islamic prisoners? Instead of closing the prison at Guantanamo, it looks like we are refurbishing the base and will keep it open. It may get a lot more prisoners, as we withdraw our troops from the international stage and begin to concentrate on the enemies within... maybe that's why our President signed into law on New Year's Eve, saying that we could detain indefinitely American citizens suspected of supporting terrorism. Don't need any proof, and it will be under military jurisdiction, so those detained won't get a speedy trial, we can hold you on any trumped-up charge that some paranoid right wing crazy in the Justice Department can think of... We have met the enemy, and he is us...

Ahh, but have we accomplished anything in Iraq? We spent bucket-loads of cash and it didn't prove to be a transformative agent. Iraq may also be the only country where al-Qaeda has a firm foot-hold, everywhere else they're thought of as a bunch of violent blow-hards. Which is good, because trying to convince other people to blow themselves up for you should not be a thriving business model... We never successfully rebuilt their electricity plants and other infrastructure. We haven't left its political institutions on solid ground.

About the only thing we did do right was help the Kurds establish a state of their own, one that is in jeopardy now that there no longer are US troops to keep the Iraqi military away. Strange, that the new government of Iraq may join with Turkey and succeed where Saddam Hussein left off, at destroying Kurdistan as a safe haven for ethnic Kurds. Or, we could use this as a good excuse to re-intervene sometime soon, especially if we get a new Republican president...

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