Chickenhawks "understand" the price of freedom

Thanks to Melissa for this article, which is a nice little feature on the success of yesterday's virtual march. I would point out the lame quote from Diane Feinstein at the end. It seems she has decided that there actually might be "really a movement" against the war. Good for you, Diane. Way to be out ahead on the moral issues, and way to represent your constituency. (/sarcasm).

Iraq Watch

Digby has a MUST READ post on the illogic of this war.

John Judis tries to answer the question "Why Iraq?". I love how the rest of us keep scratching our heads and trying to find some great motivation for this war, which is so obviously ill-advised.

See this excellent analysis of how the media is trying to sell the war by the rhetoric they use and the pictures they show.

ChickenHawk Watch

Check out this amazing article about a pro-war rally in Indiana. Here is a most amazing quote from the article:

Things got contentious at the end of the less-than-hourlong demonstration when some at the rally confronted a group calling itself Vietnam Veterans for Peace. "Go home and eat your wine and cheese, you sissies," William G. Rice, 40, yelled at the group of about 20 people as they walked away. "Cowards." Rice, a laborer, said that although he had no military experience, he thought he understood the political situation better than the veterans. "I seem to have a better understanding of the price of freedom than they do," he said.

That bears repeating: Mr. Rice, who was 10 years old when Vietnam ended, feels he has a better understanding of the "price" of freedom than Vietnam Veterans do. He feels that he knows the price in horror and death that "he" is willing to "pay" for "freedom" better than men who actually fought in that horrible war, and he is willing to pay that price. Good for you, Mr. Rice.

Then comes the ironic twist. This quote, at the end of the article from former Republican congressman David McIntosh:

"The antiwar protesters must be careful not to let our troops down," McIntosh said. "We must remember how our soldiers in Vietnam were shunned."

McIntosh must not have been aware of the earlier part of the article, in which a pro-war protester shunned soldiers from Vietnam. He must have missed the part where soldiers from Vietnam were trying not to "let our troops down", by trying to get them the hell out of Iraq.

There was a lot of ugliness in Vietnam. People were angry that war crimes were being committed in our collective names, and the politicians were involving us in a horrible war without regard to the public sentiment or the lives of the soldiers. And the servicemen were caught in the middle of that debate. Shunning the victims of the war was a horrible thing for anti-war protesters to do.

But how can McIntosh possibly think that not wanting our troops to be shot at, gassed, maimed, or otherwise killed is "letting them down"?

Uniter/Divider Watch

In this article, "U.S. Officials Say U.N. Future At Stake in Vote", we learn that the US is ready to pitch over the UN Security council as irrelevant if they don't line up and support Junior's war. Particularly chilling is this quote:

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not."

So, contrary to Bush's insouciant protests that he "hasn't made up his mind yet" about whether we are going to war, it seems that his little mind _has_ already been made up. No surprises there. I'm so glad the Democrats made Bush go to the U.N. before giving Bush carte blanche to declare war. That seems to really have made a lot of difference - not. So, like much of this administration's dealing with other parts of international law, we find that the U.N. is just another piece of paper to be torn up, along with the Kyoto treaty, anti-ballistic missile treaties, and our arrangement with North Korea which kept them from developing nuclear weapons. Way to go, Junior! Of course, one could argue that he is bringing so many peoples together in their hatred of the U.S. that he can still claim to be a uniter.

Josh Marshall on how Smirk has turned almost every country on earth against us.

South Knox Bubba has a little more to say on Dim Son and our relations with the rest of the world.

Conservative Media Watch

See this interview with Greg Palast, who knows more than anyone what happened in Florida in 2000, at Liberal Oasis. Palast also knows the score about the U.S. attempted coup in Venezuela, and has been following the unsavory business dealings of the Bush crime family for years.

See Hesiod on why Phil Donahue's show was cancelled. It seems that NBC was worried that his show would become "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Horrors!

Finally, this troubling story from Barry Crimmins, who was asked by an NPR show to ridicule the field of Democratic candidates, includes his response, and his frustration with NPR.

Afghanistan Watch

PBS's NOW interviews investigative journalist Seymour Hersch, who explains, among other things, how Al Qaeda and the Taliban fled from Afghanistan (with help from the Defense Department), and the dangers inherent in the situation in Pakistan.

Ari Fleischer Watch

Fleischer is so full of crap, he needs his own category. Today, I'd like to point you to "Ari & I", a series of exchanges between Russell Mokhiber and Ari Fleischer which are taking place at white house press conferences. Mokhiber seems to be one of the only individuals, along with Helen Thomas, who makes a habit of asking pointed questions of Ari. Mokhiber's goal seems to be to make Ari look ridiculous by pointing out the stupidity of Bush policy, and I say more power to him.

Bush Watch

Interesting Times has an interesting commentary on a study about incompetence, and relates it to a certain world leader . . .

Welfare for wealthy Corporations Watch

An article of that greatest of all boondoggles, "Missile Defense".

Economy Watch

Here's a good one for your "Bush lies" files.

Vaterland Security Watch

This little article wins the award for most cynical explanation for the "duct tape" advice of Tom Ridge.

Humor Watch

Thanks to Greg for this Onion article on new Orange Terror alert measures.