Comment from Max
Time: September 5, 2008, 2:28 pm

Iraq is about to erupt into full scale Civil War again at any moment. It was just a break.

I read Juan Cole every day.

http://www.juancole.com/

Maliki is moving to disarm the Awakening councils, they will fight if he pushes it. The Iraqi (shia) army is trying to take over control of Mosul and Kirkuk from the Kurds, they too will fight if he pushes it.

We are looking at a three way Civil War breaking out again.

The surge merely gave everyone an opportunity to take a rest break. Nobody disarmed, nobody reconciled politically.

I think it will explode again before Nov. 4.

To say that the surge succeeded is merely another example of American wishful thinking, and a failure to contemplate reality.

Comment from Leftcoast
Time: September 5, 2008, 5:48 pm

Thanks for the info, Max. I read this and couldn’t decide whether to report or rant–ranting feels better today. The thing that troubles me is that Obama’s team surely knows this, which makes his tepid response to O’Reilly even more baffling.

Comment from Sasha
Time: September 5, 2008, 6:32 pm

You aren’t the audience for O’Reilly. He is really good at tailoring the message to the audience.

Comment from Leftcoast
Time: September 5, 2008, 6:37 pm

Not his audience for damned sure… but Obama still should have schooled that ignoramus right out of his chair and not given those assholes yet another seemingly weak sound bite.

Comment from timr
Time: September 6, 2008, 9:20 am

Max. The latest from Iraq is that al-Maliki has once more thrown sand in the face of the US. Headlines state-once more-that the Iraq govt is pressuring the US to set a deadline to get out. The US says one thing, then al-Maliki comes back with what Iraq demands.
Also, You might take notice that the Iraq govt is cooperating with Turkey on destroying the Kurd movement by allowing Turkey to bring its Army into Iraq when fighting the Kurds. Iran is also acting in accord with both Iraq and Turkey to keep the Kurds from getting their own country. Meanwhile the Kurds still seem to be holding on to the belief that the US will not allow them to be militarily crushed by Turkey, Iran and Iraq. I believe that the Kurds will be, once more, thrown to the wolves by the US. We tend to not keep agreements with small groups. Also, the first 3 US Naval ships that entered the Black Sea have left. However a new ship is currently sitting off the port that the Russians have blocked.
My thought is that Iraq will not restart its 3 sided war until the US has committed to leaving. The govt of Iraq no longer wishes to accede to the wishes of the US regarding equal treatment of minority groups(sunni, kurds, xristians) and equal treatment for women-very much against both custom and religious strictures. Every time we get involved in a country we attempt to remake it in our image and we always fail, but that does not stop us from repeating the mistake-remember the big story a while back about how somebody was going to build a Disneyland Iraq within the “GreenZone” as if that was all that Iraq was lacking, massive consumerism and prepackaged entertainment. We still don’t get it. All muslims in the mideast regard the west(US) as decadent non belivers.
I am currently reading a book called “The New American Molitarism-how americans are seduced by war” by Andrew J. Bacevich. Excellent book. All pres candidates should read it in order to understand the military worldview and how we got ourselves into the current mess. Yes, the author is a conservative. That does not make his opinions on the military any less valid. Iraq and A’stan are not the root problem, they are only the symptoms of the far bigger problem of american militarism and empire building via the new american century neocons, who at this point encompass Big Energy,Big Arms,Big Media and Big Jesus.

Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: September 7, 2008, 6:48 am

HITLER - STALIN - BUSH … this shit must stop, “right now” .

Placid Lake Wobegon Begets a Nasty Police State
August 31, 2008
by Charley James —

I grew up in the Twin Cities, a prosperous and bucolic community hard on the banks of the Mississippi, the last major metropolitan area until you Lewis-and-Clark yourself over the Rockies.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are filled with wide, tree-lined streets, good schools, close-knit families, a welcoming spirit, pride in a deep civic commitment, home of the Guthrie Theatre and Walker Art Centre, and a keen, congenital sense of justice and equality. It’s a place where even wealthy, fourth- and fifth-generation families like the Dayton’s (Target), the Rawlings’ (General Mills), the Pillsbury’s (of Dough Boy fame, tee-hee), the McKnight’s (3M) and the Hill’s (19Th century railroad tycoons) still believe in and practice a gentle, Midwestern kind of mild social democracy.

Example: Most CEOs of Fortune 100 companies based here actually drive themselves to work, often parking in the lot alongside cars belonging to the woman who brings the mail around or the guy working in the cafeteria line. About the only time you see limo’s crawling the streets is prom night or for a funeral.

After all, the characters and settings in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon stories are based on his life growing up in a working class suburb of the Twin Cities. There is more truth than fiction in his recounting of the goings-on of the three Norwegian bachelor farmers, the Buttermilk Biscuit Co., and all the other good folks he turned into cultural icons.

I haven’t lived in either Minneapolis or St. Paul for nearly 20 years, and last visited when my sister died in 1999, but I’ve always thought warmly of my hometown. So I was astonished when e-mails began trickling in during the week from confused, frightened and oft-times angry friends and acquaintances back home. They wrote chilling accounts of police conducting wholesale, warrant-less raids on people whose only crime is that the Secret Service and Dept. of Homeland (In)Security, aided by local police goon squads dressed in riot gear, thought they might, possibly, somewhere, somehow, exercise their 1st Amendment right to protest during the Republican National Convention.

The first inkling of what was unfolding came late Thursday morning from Nancy, my fifth grade love who grew up to become a physician and soccer mom in an upper-upper middle class suburb called Edina – a place so conservative and rich I suspect there’s a local ordinance requiring residents to vote Republican before being allowed to move in:

There’s a story this ahem about St Paul police raiding a home and arresting people who were going to protest at the convention. OK, so you know me: I voted for Bush twice and I’m no lefty loonie. But this scares me. According to ‘CCO radio, police in riot gear raided a house early this morning, arresting nine people who said they were in town to protest at the convention. But they were charged with … are you ready? … having too many people live in a residential home! What the hell?

By mid-afternoon, I’d heard from two more friends.

Mike, who has three teen aged kids and owns a store in a mixed St. Paul neighborhood, wrote, “I don’t know what’s going on but unmarked cop cars with sirens screaming are chasing all over hell and back.” Almost simultaneously, an e-mail arrived from Ivar, a playwright, declaring, “Jesus Christ! A bunch of cops dressed like the Road Warrior just broke into a home down the street and hauled out a bunch of people in handcuffs and hoods. As they were being thrown into police vehicles, cops arrested a guy across the street taking a home video of the bust. My street looks like Burma.” He meant Myanmar but Ivar’s showing his age these days like the rest of us boomers.

By Saturday, the trickle of messages became a torrent.

To verify what friends were writing, I called the St. Paul Mayor’s Office (615.266.8510) where I was directed to the police (651.291.1111). A PR woman for the cops said I had to talk to the Secret Service (612.348.1800), which refused to answer any questions but asked for the spelling of my name before telling me to call Homeland Security (202.282.8000) where repeated calls were not returned.

I tracked down the cell phone number of the St. Paul convention office of the Republican National Committee where the man who answered claimed to have no idea what I was talking about, helpfully suggesting I call the police before suddenly asking how I got the number. Ring around the rosy.

It was like trying to get an answer from Dick Cheney’s office. Translation: The e-mails were accurate.

The unending barrage has continued all weekend.

From Carrie, a late 50-something who still lives in a mostly-student district near the University of Minnesota: “I saw 25 officers barge into a house wearing masks and black SWAT gear. They had large semi-automatic rifles. After, somebody told me the pigs (I haven’t used that word for decades) ordered everyone on the floor. Rifles pointing at their heads, they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The cops refused to show a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away computers and political stuff kept in the house.”

From Rick: “Remember Summit Avenue? Mansions, clubs, cronies, old money? A few blocks away from the Governor’s Mansion, the police just burst into a house looking for ‘photographs and maps of St. Paul.’ Shit! I have photos and maps of St. Paul! Better throw ‘em out or I’ll be next.”

From Robyn and Brent, two independents who decided this morning to vote straight a Democratic ticket: “Never thought we’d see this in America. Enya (their adopted teenage daughter) and a bunch of her friends from school were taking pictures of the convention center this morning when cops grabbed and handcuffed them, shoved them into a squad car and threatened them with arrest if they didn’t hand over the digital camera they were using to take tourist photos! She’s hysterical and we called (their lawyer). Obama and Franken just got two more votes and by the time this is over Enya’s college will be paid for with a large check from the city. Assholes.”

And so it goes.

Bucolic Lake Woebegon has turned itself into a brutal police state, intent on arresting everyone including the three Norwegian bachelor farmers, just in case.

Apparently, civil liberties and the Bill of Rights got tossed into the Mississippi mud like the remains of a once-great bridge that used to span the river. Oh wait. We’re talking about the party of George Bush, who once said of the Constitution, “It’s just a god damned piece of paper!” Guess I - along with people back in the Twin Cities - shouldn’t be surprised.

by Charley James

Charley James is an American journalist, author and essayist who lives in Toronto.

Please pass this on to those who believe in the Constitution and are unafraid to stand up to what this administration has done to our country these past seven and a half years. Wake up people … Why aren’t we being informed by the news media concerning these jackboot atrocities ?
I’ll tell you why, the reporting in this country is being stifled by Bush and the Republican thugs, who have a stranglehold on our right to know. The TV executives and newsprint owners are in bed with this administration and we sit on our hands and do nothing.
The McPOW - IMPALIN ticket will mean more of the same or worse.