The 455 Billion-Dollar Burning Bush

The conflagration in Iraq is about to get worse, with US efforts at damage control going nowhere. Turkey is spreading the killing flames to the north with US weaponry to rid its border of Kurdish separatists, all in the name of fighting terrorists. Once the north goes to hell, all bets for peace are off the table, and Bush knows it. This would all be so pathetically ironic if it weren't so tragic. What radioactive material is Bush's chutzpah made of that he can tell the Turks not to invade Iraq to avenge the killing of 40 of their soldiers? At least the Turks have a reason to invade. Were any Americans killed by Saddam? Were any weapons of mass destruction ever found? This war has been about blood for oil, fanned by the greedy lies of Bush and his cronies. A war started in the name of democracy has been waged by the greatest terrorist of them all. Tens of thousands of lives lost. Hundreds of thousands of bodies disfigured. Millions of families displaced. Half a trillion dollars gone up in smoke and ashes. I wonder if he knows California is burning. Perhaps he's too busy fiddling.

The Last Spokesman Standing

Call it idiocy. Call it hypocrisy. But the U.S. State Department is now warning Turkey about the dire consequences of launching an attack against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. "If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it and I am not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go, the way to resolve the issue," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. This is where comedy and tragedy blur and blend seamlessly, where the stand-up act becomes so awful that it starts becoming hilarious, where the laughter causes you to shake so hard that you end up requiring serious medical attention. When the United States "had a problem" with Saddam, "unilateral incursion" was strongly condemned by the world community and yet, Bush had no problems ripping the lives, hopes and dreams of Iraqis to shreds. The words coming out of the State Department today had no air of contrition, no blush of embarrassment regarding the miscalculated gravity of launching an invasion into Iraq--it was, instead, the blabber of arrogance, blindness and mental paralysis, diplomatic-speak for "don't fuck with our oil-stealing, Iraqi-killing mission until it's over." Is the world only about strong destroying weak? Rich vanquishing poor? Does this give me the right to infect someone with HIV simply because I can?