Nuke and pave.

jeez, trent lott speaks from experience. That's what he's trying to do to parts of texas, after all.

The Clone Wars begun have.

I see Trent's "sensitivity" training isn't going very well. But what the hell, they're only A-Rabs, right, my badly-toupeed white supremacist?

And of course, we need a quote from Norm "The Gutless Wonder" Coleman. We'll see what he says when Iraq becomes such that it's poltically disastrous for his party (not that it isn't already). Then the ultimate political opportunist/backstabber will be screaming at the top of his lungs to "PULL OUT! PULL OUT!"

Imagine yourself in a darkened Art Deco theater...

[Bird calls, lion roar, chimp babble]

Rotary engine aircraft motor sputters to a stop...

[Rising whine as plane plummets towards jungle]

Norm Coleman:
'Pull Out... For God's Sake... Pull Out! '

Yep, the GOP rats are starting to see the water level rising in the bilge...

Yee haa, It's Lottie Boy's Jihad Hour!!!

“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens.

What an ASS...

Now I must admit, Sen. Bill frist would never have said anything like that even though I've seen him try really, really hard to cater to the whims of the un-educated voters of the right, all those members which are the mainstay if the Republican Party.

Sen. Bill First might not even be able to conceive of such a visceral thought - Sen. Frist should simply think of the people of Iraq as though they were just cats at the local animal shelter-that way he'd be able to relate better to the members of his party and speak accordingly in the necessary visceral thought patterns of his fellow groupies.

I don't know much about Norm Coleman, but he gets props for being the first (and as far as I know, only?) senator to speak out against the RIAA.

"PULL OUT! PULL OUT!"

We can't pull out until the emission has been accomplished.

Has Norm visited Walter-Reed?

As for Lott, I wonder what he and his CCC brethern would think of an Islmaic army occupying Jackson or Mobile.

'Pull Out... For God's Sake... Pull Out!'
Sorry everyone, but as a woman I find that exclamation totally hilarious, lol, lol.

Slightly OT: Best comment read day came from Wallid Jumblatt, Lebanese politician and leader of the Druze community, who expressed regret US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was unhurt in a Baghdad rocket attack. "We hope the firing will be more precise and efficient (next time), so we get rid of this microbe and people like him (in) Washington ..."

Somehow, the word "microbe" so comfortably fits this murdering batch of politicos.

Watch the Press ignore this latest missive from Lott!

See them squirm uncomfortably at his overt racism!

Hear them mutter under their breath words they dare not speak aloud!

Servile idiots. The man just advocated genocide against all of Iraq, but you're going to ignore it.

How you sleep at night is beyond me.

Being from Minnesota, O used to live in St. Paul, which had Norm Coleman as it DEM Mayor for several election cycles. He actually was a pretty good mayor. I don't remember any big terrible things happening.

But when in the middle of a term, he switched from Dem to Republican he actually started talking different. Like he had a script or something. We used to mention it. Now we know. Karl Rove bought him off with tons of money and gave him talking points. He won the next mayor election as a republican (St. Paul is very rightwing - Mpls. is left leaning i.e., the great reporting being done by the Star Tribune).

Now he sits in Wellstone's seat and I cannot watch him. He was on a local show and he speaks in paragraphs that have no subject and no end. He goes around, over and under an answer and you end up not knowing what he said. On Capital Gang recently he has Bush's words, better articulated, coming out of his mouth. He is a Bush clone. Bought and paid for and he has big hopes for his future. Once, heard him mentioned as a VP for bush's second term because Bush really wants to win Minnesota and he has a shot at it, believe me. Minnesota is becoming a right wing state, with a few left-leaning corridors.

"We hope the firing will be more precise and efficient (next time), so we get rid of this microbe and people like him (in) Washington ..."

As much as I despise Wolfowitz and everything he stands for, I thought that "microbe" comment was vile. That's how the Nazis used to talk about the Jews -- as a plague bacillus, an infection that had to be eradicated. And it's how some Israeli extremists now talk about the Palestinians.

It's just another way of dehumanizing your enemy, so that killing them becomes a form of social hygene. Please don't bring that kind of stuff into the bar, it makes me nauseous.

So Trent Lott is a Randy Newman fan.

I'd never have guessed it.

I dunno... kind of sounds like our side is getting... what's the word?

oh, yeah.

Desperate.

I understand the worry Billmon, but I don't accept that it is OK to bring in a genocidal maniac and not his enemies who use the microbial nomenclature.

It IS a worry that many of us felt cheered that someone is able to talk that way about an American and we can both see why he says it, and not immediately spring to his throat. But that is the place this administration has taken its people and the world.

I see Jumblatt's comment of a piece with Mahathir's. That such things can be said in public, on a global stage, and receive assent is a "metric", (listening Rummy?) of the damage done to the US in the global community by its insane government.

At what point does a rhetorical metaphor become a dangerous condition of the mind. We may be quite close.

BTW, does anyone else have difficulty getting to Kos? I keep getting this message.

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Apache/1.3.28 Server at www.dailykos.com Port 80

Does he have a problem?

Same here with Kos. Weird, because I don't think he would've mass-ban people like that. Perhaps a problem with the new server??

Lott is right. Turning Iraq in a giant parking lot makes sense, with all the oil they can provide. The guy is a visionary, no doubt about it.

Chalabi & Co. are going to capitalize on our desperation:

Mouwafak Rabii and fellow Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi called on the coalition authority to coordinate far more closely with Iraqis.

"We need to be tougher," Rabii said. "We need to go and seek them out. Also, we have to be brutal — I should say 'less kind.' Because if we don't kill them, we will get killed or the people of Iraq will get killed."

A spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress faction praised the Iraqi police but said their hands were tied on investigations. Entifad Qanbar noted that Iraqis turn over terrorism suspects to the Americans and said it should be the other way around.

One of our former Iraqi collaborators claims that we want to train the Iraqi police in Jordan instead of Germany so that the police will act according to "repressive Arab" standards.

I saw a blog recently, apparently originating in Iraq, wherein the writer called for bringing back the death penalty in Iraq.

As for Kos, he is having server problems. I had a problem and e-mailed him, and that's what he told me.

mow it down to the microbes?

Oh well f*ck it let's just distribute all the planet's nukes equally to all nation-states and willing substate or transnational religious/nationalistic/ideological/environmentalist/supremacist/segregationist/genocidalist/anti-abortion/anti-vivisection/anti-whatever/pro-whatits groups that practice or advocate violence(we may have to build more just 20,000 weapons may not cover the demand) and just say "everybody either just behaves and watches their damn mouths besides or we all just die good luck morons"

When I get to the point that seeing some rancid pinhead boiling with hate and braying for carnage makes me want to get a 12-gauge and blow his useless head off I wonder if "why can't we all just get along?" is the stupidest or the wisest thing I've ever heard. How about "ready, fire, aim?" which is apparently the Chickenhawk's ROE.

Hey if anyone wants some good reading try Stanislaw Lem "Memoirs found in a Bathtub" and "The Futurological Congress" he's Polish and its too bad he wasn't elected as Pope. (If you've seen a Soviet/William Hurt "Solaris" movie don't worry these books don't suck)

Something is up at Agonist as well as kos, I can't get the message boards or the archives.

BTW, another 2 soldiers killed in a tank today. Is it the same cause as this Something felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq ? but what??

"at least at this point" should be Normy's middle name. Once a democrat, now a republican, if Bush tanks, a democrat again?? I love it when he says "folks" with that Brooklyn accent. Carpetbagger anyone?

“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.”

Sounds like Hitler discussing Stalingrad. But I will confidently predict that the mainstream press will basically ignore this comment, just like it ignored Pat Robertson's recent call to nuke the State Department.

How is it, I wonder, that wingnuts so easily get away with this kind of hateful kill-'em-all stuff--- that's in addition to the outlandish lies which they habitually tell? If a democrat had said something similar about, hmmm, let's say, a military dictatorship in Burma, Latin America, or the Middle East, now THAT would be a major press scandal!

Is it because the rest of society sets the bar way low for rightwingers, subconsciously understanding that (again, like Hitler) these people are basically just lying, blowhard bullies, from whom we can expect nothing in the way of reason or compassion?

And is Lott really so stupid that he can't concieve that each one his foolish words will be repeated and amplified by Jihadists worldwide, and much like the Deserter-in-Chief's infamous "Bring 'em on!", be taken as a rallying call for further attacks against US soldiers?

Or do these fools make such reckless 'stir-the-pot' statements on purpose because, again like Hitler, they are arrested adolescents, consciously or subconsciously hoping to provoke the ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN of GOOD VS. EVIL?

I'll never understand these wingnuts. But maybe that's good, assuming the dubious truth of the old maxim "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner."

"of course. a Self-Healing Minefield."
-get your war on

Trent Lott is an embarrassment to the Republican Party and to the people of the United States of America. He must go.

*sigh*. I remember when Minnesota used to be a Blue State. No more.

“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.”

what the hell???
does he know iraq is a *civilian* country?
i think the media needs to report a) the number of american soldiers who died - in combat and from wounds - more, and b) report the number of iraqi civilian casualties, which, in my estimate, have been *far* exceeding the american casualties and is just as bad if not far worse because the iraqis never asked to be part of a war.

and we gotta bring the draft back for those geezers in washington.

Bobo, me too. Bush has been here (in Minnesota) so often we think he has a ranch here.

Somebody is going to have to campaign VERY hard here to make this a blue state again. Gore did nothing here, I MEAN NOTHING. No year signs, no campaign stops, nothing. He assumed MN would be his and it was, barely. With real work on the republicans part, it will go red, unless by that time Bush is such a leper to all that it is a countrywide landslide agianst him.

the post about Minnesota going red, was mine. A typo posted the remark instead of previewing it. sorry.

'One of our former Iraqi collaborators claims that we want to train the Iraqi police in Jordan instead of Germany so that the police will act according to "repressive Arab" standards.'

Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss.

The "alternative" is staring us in the face: do what the Iraqi ruling council asks, and turn security over to them and a reconstituted Iraqi army. We could move to the borders to help them out.

Why aren't we moving in this direction? Because Iraqi authority is inimical to Halliburton and the rest of the Beltway Bandits making a killing off this thing.

This must be some sort of coordinated line-of-the-day -- both the New York Post and the Daily News had kill-'em-all editorials yesterday.

Post:

America and its allies cannot pull any punches.

They must not shy away from action for fear of inciting Arabs and Muslims.

Yes, respect rules of engagement meant to protect, to the extent possible, innocent civilians.

America is not al Qaeda, after all.

Daily News:

There is an alternative to merely staying the course - take the gloves off altogether.

We've been playing a little too nice in Iraq. We've been pacifying more than we've been taking care of business. We've been more culturally sensitive than is entirely a good thing for the safety of our troops. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it himself: Our aggression is insufficient. We're not punching hard enough.

Yikes.

Of course, I can't imagine that the Bushies will actually do any of this, if only because it would require deviating from Rummy's "fewest employees possible" CEO style, and because Bush surely isn't going to go into an election year reinstituting a draft (though I half-hope that Charlie Rangel brings the draft up again, just as a means of busting Bush's balls).

Maybe what this kind of rhetoric is meant to do is set up a new (but familiar)GOP argument: Peacenik liberals (in this case, those who are calling for withdrawal) are forcing us to fight in Iraq with one hand tied behind our back.

I know this has probably been discussed before but it seems to have been lost in all the discussions. When this administration talks about withdrawing from Iraq, does this mean they will pull out ALL the American troops (even the ones guarding the oil wells)? And IF they do, what happens when the first election puts an anti-American person in place? Does anybody on this planet really think we are really liberating the Iraquis and will let them self-govern? Isn't the point more like we are creating an American protectorate that will be expected to follow American orders?

>It's just another way of dehumanizing your enemy

Agreed. But I think (yes your bar, your rules, but) that also refers to your post. How much more dehumanizing can it be than to say "just mow the whole place down" like it isn't peoples homes, businesses, and social centers, but rather just an old building infested with vermin.

This also makes me think of another amazingly insensitive (and revealing) statement from the US-- belittling that rocket attack with stuff like "science project" and "crude" and etc.

Now I'm third generation American from a country that was under Communism 'till the USSR fell. I don't speak the language, I've never been there, my dad didn't speak the language, I don't know anybody, etc. etc.

However, even at that when I heard WASPY types say stuff like "the _____s could only build crude ___" or "the _____s have a dysfunctional ____" it made me bare my fangs.

Now quite possibly they were simply shorthanding for "Under the repressive, corrupt Communist government it's impossible for the _____ to build anything but crude ___" and that would be fair.

But it never sounded that way- it always came across as patronizing, referring to at best children and at worst mud people.

I would be really interested to hear what Salem Pax's emotional response to the "science project" crap was. I bet it would be similar to what I've described.

In fact, he did report a sense of shame between him and his brother over the Iraqi army being so throughly routed by the US at some point. And he hates Saddam in a way we can't even comprehend.

The US may not be full of assholes, but the people who represent us sure are.

I work in St. Paul, MN and my impression is that Norm Coleman isn't as good or bad as most make him out to be. He's a typical politican who seizes opportunities as he finds them and who tries to avoid controversy. Paul Wellstone he ain't, but neither is he Jesse Helmes. Coleman's views on Iraq will most assuredly be informed by his licked finger sticking up in the political winds.

.................the problem is not George or Trent or.....
the problem is the republican party with their "ME"
attitude instead of an "US" party..and if you replace
"ME" & "US" with $$$$...the "ME"s have it while us "US"s
don't..........2004 is coming fast!

GOP argument: Peacenik liberals (in this case, those who are calling for withdrawal) are forcing us to fight in Iraq with one hand tied behind our back.

Thus laying the groundwork for the next stabbed-in-the-back argument.

The more things change...

Please forgive me for this intrusion,I am a daily reader of the various blogs, including this one, this mornig I wanted to access The Daily Kos and was given this message below, anyone with similar experience or help?

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Apache/1.3.28 Server at www.dailykos.com Port 80

Another Viet Nam parallel- Lott's comments sounds a lot like the "bomb 'em back to the stone age" sentiment. Or was it "bomb 'em until no two stone lie on top of one another"? I get my mass murder comments confused sometimes.

My apologies gentlemen, should have read the entire comment section prior to posting, I now realised that there are others experiencing the same problem as I.

Quote from the New York Daily News: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it himself: Our aggression is insufficient. We're not punching hard enough.

Punching at whom? This is the reasoning of a hard-line Likudnik in Israel. If only we destroy this one more Palestinian camp, bulldoze these few more houses, assassinate this one more suspected terrorist, then we'll squelch these attacks on us. It's worked miracles in Israel, hasn't it?

But I push the analogy too far, perhaps. I don't know the situation in Israel very well, but I suspect that Israel has some compelling reason to hold back from complete, violent suppression of Palestine. They are violent, yes, but their violence has a forcible-feeble aspect, characterized by sudden irruptions and recessions. I'm guessing that Israel is unadmittedly dependent upon Palestine in some way (economically? the need for labor?) that has restrained their violent course at least slightly.

The Bush administration and its forces, however, being mere invaders into Iraq and not long-time residents, has an option available to them not available to Israel: they can leave any time. They are not tied to Iraq in any way except perhaps by the temporary bond of greed, the desire to suck from the country what wealth they can. There is nothing that I can see preventing the U. S. from razing and slaughtering without constraint for precisely that reason: afterward they can leave and hope to avoid direct consequences.

Yep, it's the liberal media's fault. NYT, WaPo, ChiT, LAT, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, Faux, Clear Channel with their drumbeat against the war all the time has lowered our troops' resolve. The Iraqis, watching on their cable news televisions which can apparently run without electricity along are attacking because the American press is telling them to. This also means that not only the good news of school opening up is being ignore but the other good news in Iraq, newstands selling American papers, are selling goods faster than we can put them on the shelves as Iraqis are enjoying an economic miracle even greater than the one in the US.

All would be going well if those organizations listed above would give up their hard hitting investigative reports and just do stenography for the party in power.

Here's what Norm had to say on May 30th in a prepared statement responding to protesters charged with trespass at his St. Paul office:
The protesters were simply wrong. With the discovery of mass graves, the welcoming of American forces when Baghdad was liberated and the fact that thousands of American soldiers were not killed . . . it's clear that those who protested America's position on this matter were wrong.

Steve M,

BushCo can pave over Iraq without more troops. They have publically comtemplated using nuclear weapons for conventional warfare. Theoretically, Bush could say "This suicider movement is too sticky and We need to stop it NOW!" and start throwing big green glowing footballs at Baghdad. It's not like he would worry about the health consequences of fall-out since the Rapture will start in 8 months. One just wonders if US troops will be allowed to leave before the bombing starts, or will just have to die for the Glory of Dear Leader.

A little OT, but has anyone been noticing that the Iraqis have taken out two M1 tanks in a very short time, killing two of the crew in the second incident?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an M1 seventy tons? How the devil do you wreck one of those with an "improvised explosive device"? Must have been one hell of a big explosion -- or perhaps one of the new Russian RPGs they suspect wrecked the first M1, punching a hole right through one side and halfway through the other. That time the crew was lucky, thankfully.

slightly OT but replying to Ernest Tomlinson: I don't know the situation in Israel very well, but I suspect that Israel has some compelling reason to hold back from complete, violent suppression of Palestine. They are violent, yes, but their violence has a forcible-feeble aspect, characterized by sudden irruptions and recessions. I'm guessing that Israel is unadmittedly dependent upon Palestine in some way (economically? the need for labor?) that has restrained their violent course at least slightly.

Over the last five years, the number of Palestinians working in Israel has dropped sharply, replaced by other foreign workers. It's an ominous turn if that dependence has been restraining Israel in the territories. There may be other restraints.

Quote from the New York Daily News: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it himself: Our aggression is insufficient. We're not punching hard enough.

The protesters were simply wrong. With the discovery of mass graves, the welcoming of American forces when Baghdad was liberated and the fact that thousands of American soldiers were not killed . . . it's clear that those who protested America's position on this matter were wrong.

imagine all the people...

Besides Daily Kos, I've noticed that cursor.org is down. Is there a putch on?

... moral midget ...

another Billmonism to tuck away for future use.

Thanks!

I guess Arnold must have asked Trent for help in Southern California.

Norm Coleman:
"(...) But I, at least at this point, am convinced that we’re doing the right thing, and we’re doing the best we can."

Brilliant Norm, you summed the current administrations' entire track record in one sentence - always doing their best and yet always way off target - mediocrity and failure all the way.

I can almost imagine George W. sitting up in bed at night, staring into the dark and muttering "I don't know what happened - I just wanted everyone to like me.". The only thing that remains a bit nebulous for me is whether he talks to himself, a framed photograph of his dad sitting in the oval office, the hotel bible he "borrowed" after his most recent fund raiser or the Dubya action figure that Karl Rove gave him.

Come to think of it - he somehow reminds me of a 21st cross-breed-gone-bad between Frankenstein and King Midas - wherever he goes he breaks everything, whatever he touches turns to shit - and he's always doing his best.

Almost tragic - but only almost.

Another Viet Nam parallel- Lott's comments sounds a lot like the "bomb 'em back to the stone age" sentiment.

Or Tommie Friedman's "They want 1389? We can do 1389" plan for the Serbians.

jeez, trent lott speaks from experience. That's what he's trying to do to parts of texas, after all.

Did I miss something? He's planning to wipe us out in Texas too?

The big problem with just mowing everything down is that you never know what crop will spring up in its place.

I can't help thinking that this bunch in the White House read 1984 and thought that it was a Neocon Utopia.

Welcome to Hate Week

LOL, Bush, a cross between King Midas and Frankenstein: Fire bad! Pretzel good!

Bush is the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to shit . . .

Re: Wolfowitz & microbes - hell yeah! Don't insult those poor innocent microbes by comparing them to Wolfowitz! What's wrong with you?