Joel Hirschhorn - America's Delusional Democracy. Don’t Mute Newt

By Joel S. Hirschhorn

 

Global Research, December 20, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28298

 

The trick to maintaining the US delusional democracy is feeding the illusion for citizens that voting and elections really matter.  But when both major parties are owned by rich and corporate elites it matters less than most people think whether Republicans or Democrats win and control Congress or the White House.  Their seeming differences are a clever distraction that keeps fooling and manipulating Americans.  With the help of the mainstream media, making entertainment out of political races, Americans are deceived into thinking that elections deserve their respect and participation. 

 

As power shifts periodically from one party to the other partner of the two-party plutocracy, the illusion of meaningful change sustains the corrupt, dysfunctional political and government system and the economy rewarding the top one percent.  Winning politicians are adept at lying convincingly, especially about change and reforms and, like well advertised products, Americans consume the lies.

 

The perennial problem is that despite what so many Americans view as failed presidencies and, even more clearly, failed Congresses, no Second American Revolution is produced that would return the government to we the people.  The biggest lie of all: Elections can fix the broken system.

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Zachary Roth - Paulonomics: Ron Paul’s plans for taxes, spending and Social Security

By Zachary Roth

Senior National Affairs Reporter

If you know anything about Ron Paul's economic views, it's probably that he's not a big fan of the Federal Reserve system, or that he loves the gold standard. But those are hardly the only noteworthy planks in his platform. The Republican congressman from Texas, who now looks to have a real chance of winning the Iowa caucuses in less than two weeks, also wants to abolish five Cabinet departments, drastically lower corporate taxes, and allow younger workers to opt out of the Social Security system.

Here are they key components of Paul's economic plan, "Restore America," released in October:

Spending: Paul proposes cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget during his first year in office, and balancing the budget by his third year. He would do this in part by eliminating five cabinet departments: Energy; Housing and Urban Development; Commerce; Interior; and Education. (Paul has not offered specifics on what would happen to some of the functions currently performed by the departments he wants to abolish--maintaining our nuclear weapons, administering our intellectual property system, and conducting the Census, for instance.)

He would also scrap the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, eliminate corporate subsidies, end foreign aid, and return most other federal spending to 2006 levels.

Paul says he would cut the federal workforce by 10 percent, and accept a presidential salary of $39,336- roughly equal to what the average American makes. The president currently makes $400,000.

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Robert Reich - Why the Republican Crackup is Bad For America

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

http://robertreich.org/post/14535718993

Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican crackup threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for America.

The crackup isn’t just Romney the smooth versus Gingrich the bomb-thrower.

Not just House Republicans who just scotched the deal to continue payroll tax relief and extended unemployment insurance benefits beyond the end of the year, versus Senate Republicans who voted overwhelmingly for it.

Not just Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can’t keep, versus Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can’t control.

And not just venerable Republican senators like Indiana’s Richard Lugar, a giant of foreign policy for more than three decades, versus primary challenger state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who apparently misplaced and then rediscovered $320 million in state tax revenues.

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Benjamin Schett - Russia's Elections. Who is Calling the Shots at the Duma?

By Benjamin Schett

Global Research, December 22, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28317

The Russian elections this month held some unwelcome surprises for the nation’s ruling party, "United Russia". Administered in tandem by current president Dmitri Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin (soon to be president once again), United Russia found itself receiving significantly lower-than-normal parliamentary results. This, combined with the protests that ensued quickly thereafter, seems to have sparked the corporate media’s hopes for a "colour revolution".

The situation echoes the Serbian, Georgian and Ukrainian models; in these and several other countries, the governments had to step down after mass protests were organised with the support of US think tanks including the National Endowment for Democracy. These actions, led by the US and several EU countries, were geared toward the installation of leaderships that were more in line with Western agendas than their predecessors, and not necessarily in the interest of the Russian population.

Certainly no effort is being spared to work towards a change of government in Russia.

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Ray McGovern - Pvt. Manning and Imperative of Truth

December 21, 2011

Exclusive: The prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning for inconvenient truth-telling is more proof of how hypocritical Official Washington is, especially when Manning’s case is compared to how Bush administration officials walked despite clear evidence that they sanctioned torture and other war crimes, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/21/pvt-manning-and-the-imperative-of-truth/

When I was asked to speak at Saturday’s rally at Fort Meade in support of Pvt. Bradley Manning, I wondered how I might provide some context around what Manning is alleged to have done.

(In my talk, so as not to think I had to insert the word “alleged” into every sentence, I asked for unanimous consent to using the indicative rather than the subjunctive mood.)

What jumped into my mind was the letter Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham City jail in April 1963, from which I remembered this:

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Anonymous - Night Raid Equipment-Maker Lobbied for NDAA, Singles Out Sen. Rob Portman.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Anonymous-Night-Raid-Equi-by-Ralph-Lopez-111220-589.html

December 20, 2011 By Ralph Lopez If we are pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, what is all this stuff for? Night-raid gear? These are basically made to blind people as they awake from you busting down their door, not for open combat. In a night firefight you don't want any lights near you whatsoever. That gives the other guy an easy target. A $23 million contract would buy enough of these things to outfit maybe 50,000 soldiers. The geeks at Anonymous probably think they are having more fun publishing the Twitter handles of the 83 senators who approved the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act, last Thursday, on Bill of Rights Day, which okays indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial.  But buried in the information dump is truly amazing information, which could have been put together from public records, but which Anonymous actually brought to the fore. First, Anonymous singles out Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) for receiving a particularly large sum from companies and PACs lobbying for the NDAA.  From the RT report: Robert J. Portman...we are truly disturbed by the ludicrous $272,853 he received from special interest groups supporting the NDAA bill that authorizes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

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George Monbiot - This Bastardized Libertarianism Makes 'Freedom' an Instrument of Oppression

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/19/bastardised-libertarianism-makes-freedom-oppression

It's the disguise used by those who wish to exploit without restraint, denying the need for the state to protect the 99%

by George Monbiot

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the right-wing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Right-wing libertarianism recognizes few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like theTaxPayers' Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side, and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterized as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

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Mike Lofgren - Propagandizing for Perpetual War

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by CounterPunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/20/propagandizing-for-perpetual-war/

Are Our Rulers Stupid, or Do They Think We’re Stupid?

by Mike Lofgren

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour.

In view of the crippling costs both human and financial as well as the strategic and moral disaster the invasion of Iraq precipitated, what sort of verdict do you think our leaders – leaders representing a presidential administration ostensibly opposed to the invasion and promising hope and change – bother to offer us? While junketing in Turkey on December 17, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the press the following:

As difficult as [the Iraq war] was, I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.

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Robert Reich - The Defining Issue -- Not Government's Size, but Who It's For

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Defining-Issue-Not-Go-by-Robert-Reich-111219-786.html

December 19, 2011 By Robert Reich If we want to get our democracy back we've got to get big money out of politics. We need real campaign finance reform. And a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court's bizarre rulings that under the First Amendment money is speech and corporations are people. The defining political issue of 2012 won't be the government's size. It will be who government is for. Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government. But the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn't about government's size. It's the growing perception that government isn't working for average people. It's for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead. In a recent Pew Foundation poll, 77 percent of respondents said too much power is in the hands of a few rich people and corporations.

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David Cay Johnston - The Corporations That Occupy Congress

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by Reuters

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/12/20/the-corporations-that-occupy-congress/

by David Cay Johnston

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10″. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

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Lauren Unger-Geoffroy - Dispatches From Cairo: The Worst So Far

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dispatches_from_cairo_the_worst_so_far_20111220/

Posted on Dec 20, 2011

By Lauren Unger-Geoffroy

We asked Lauren Unger-Geoffroy, an Arabic-speaking American who lives in Cairo, to share her perspective of life in Egypt after the revolution. In this entry, she writes about a new surge in army brutality in suppressing protest.

CAIRO—Foreboding and warning. Egypt should have felt it coming. This was the worst so far. Hope is gone. The people are in despair. As our imam shouted Friday at noon prayer: Will it get worse before we have cleansed the land of Satan?

Authorities are now accusing 164 people of being involved in the new violence and interrogations have begun, with even injured people being questioned in hospitals. Many of the suspects are under 19 years old. Some are children, street kids accused of throwing Molotov cocktails. Some of the doctors at Omar Makram field hospital are being detained. At least one of the detainees has died from his injuries; activists accuse the army and security forces of torturing him in the headquarters of the national Cabinet.

Yet in my neighborhood Thursday night, a time when most Egyptians still were unaware of the beginning of this catastrophe, there was a hopeful festiveness stemming from the opening of a restaurant by a famous takeout food company. Blasting Egyptian dance music through the mosque speakers till midnight, the event was like a wedding celebration, full of lights and decorations.

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GOI Monitor - The Indian Land Grab In Africa

http://countercurrents.org/goi201211.htm

By GOI Monitor

20 December, 2011
Goimonitor.com

Joining the neo-colonial bandwagon, Indian companies are taking over agricultural land in African nations and exporting produced food at the cost of locals

Indian companies venturing abroad is always regarded as a healthy trend, an indicator of India's new-found economic status. But little is known about how these companies are flexing their imperalistic muscles in poorer countries, grabbing the land and giving little in return. A report ‘India’s Role in the New Global Farmland Grab’ by researcher Rick Rowden brings forth these atrocities which are shockingly similar to what India used to blame rich western countires for.

Joiing the race with China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea and the European Union, Indian and Indian-owned companies are acquiring land in Africa at throwaway prices, indulging in enviornmental damange and exporting the food while locals continue to starve. The origin of this unhealthy practice can be traced back to the food crisis of 2008 when rich countries were forced to confront the reality of how fragile the global food scenario can be, especially for those without sufficient cultivable land. To ensure more direct control over food, these countries started acquiring land in poorer African countries and shipping the produce back home. A recent World Bank report found that 45 million hectares of large scale farmland deals had been announced between 2008 and 2009.

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www.coburn.senate.gov - Dr. Coburn Releases New Report on Wasteful Government Spending in 2011: "Wastebook 2011"

Dec 20 2011

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/6946d43b-bccf-4579-990e-15a763532b40.html

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.

“Video games, robot dragons, Christmas trees, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars. Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated and lamented about how to reign in the federal government’s out of control spending. All the while, Washington was on a shopping binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. Instead of cutting wasteful spending, nearly $2.5 billion was added each day in 2011 to our national debt, which now exceeds $15 trillion,” Dr. Coburn said.

“Congress cannot even agree on a plan to pay for the costs of extending jobless benefits to the millions of Americans who are still out of work. Yet, thousands of millionaires are receiving unemployment benefits and billions of dollars of improper payments of unemployment insurance are being made to individuals with jobs and others who do not qualify. And remember those infamous bridges to nowhere in Alaska that became symbols of government waste years ago? The bridges were never built, yet the federal government still spent more than a million dollars just this year to pay for staff to promote one of the bridges.”

Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2011” include:

• $75,000 to promote awareness about the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees & poinsettias.

• $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska.

• $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.

• $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

• $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.

• $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.

• $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.

• $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.

• $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in the nation’s capital.

• $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.

Ari Shavit - Israel has never been so ugly

Netanyahu's weak leadership and moral laxity are what unleashed this frenzy. The fact that he has not put a stop to the dark forces that have always oozed from our depths is what brought us to this situation, but it is not yet too late.

By Ari Shavit

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/israel-has-never-been-so-ugly-1.401501?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.227%2C

We have never been so ugly. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu seeks to silence the call to prayer over the loudspeakers of the country's mosques, and to shut down Channel 10 television. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman expresses support for the Russian "democtator" who has just rigged elections. Defense Minister Ehud Barak stands by while Jewish settlers victimize Palestinians and ultra-Orthodox religious nationalists victimize female soldiers.

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman is trying to turn the Supreme Court into other one of his subsidiaries. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is working to prevent the media from reporting on investigations against public figures. Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman excludes women from participation in an official award ceremony.

Coalition chairman Zeev Elkin undermines and neuters civil society. Religious fanatics exclude women, tyrannize secular citizens and spit at priests. Jewish terrorists burn Muslim houses of worship, invade Israel Defense Force bases and attack soldiers.

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Sam Smith - America’s Silent Collapse

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/20/americas-silent-collapse/

December 20, 2011

by SAM SMITH

One of the curiosities of being chronically ahead of the mainstream is that periodically you suddenly discover that you’re not. For example, over the past decade I’ve putting forth the notion, seemingly bizarre to many, that the First American Republic was over and that we had moved into a post constitutional adhocracy. Lately, however, the idea seems to be becoming increasingly mundane, almost like saying, “Geez, that was a lot of rain we had.”

But when did it shift from being a radical thought to becoming so inevitable? I don’t remember people debating it on corporate TV, writing about it in the NY Times, arguing it in a campaign speech, or analyzing it in a professorial paper. It just happened. The most important development in our nation’s history since the Civil War crept into the room like a shy new guest. And somewhere in between, radical conjecture transformed itself into the norm.

We have moved into a time in which the Bill of Rights is being routinely trashed, the true unemployment rate is higher than anything we’ve seen since the thirties, our corporations are out of control, no one in power seems to care about climate change, and the only presidential candidate in either major party who won’t send you to Gitmo without an indictment and trial is Ron Paul.

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Mitchell J. Rabin - Can & Will America Get Behind a 3rd Party Candidate in 2012?

By Mitchell Rabin

When the U.S. government was established, there was no provision in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights stating, or even suggesting that there should be just two political parties controlling political office on local, state or federal levels. In fact, for most of U.S. history, there were numerous parties andparty-switching was fairly frequent. Now it's nearly non-existent.

The idea that there are only two parties and that loyalty to one's party is seemingly more sacred than Congress' commitment to their vow of upholding the Constitution and serving the People of the Land. No one likes to use the word treason, but, isn't this some form of it? If a Party's platform undermines the health and well-being of the government and the People at large, no matter their party, well, what do we call this, business-as-usual? Life without integrity or heart?

Why should two parties dominate our Body Politic when our People are so diverse and the parties don't begin to represent every citizen's view? The only change they seem to come up with over time is to become more and more like one another.

While I am no fan of the Democrats, the Republicans seem, like a fraternity just short of the special handshakes. They put their party's importance above the interests of the nation, and this is patently in violation of their oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the U.S. This violation should have legal consequences besides the obvious moral decay and emotional immaturity, sad as it is to say, that it expresses.

It is due, not to strong Democratic values but to the lowest end of politics and sheer manipulation, that has kept worthy 3rd Party candidates from gaining a foothold. In terms of qualifications, 3rd Party candidates have, in my opinion, far outshone those Presidential candidates of the two main parties, now dinosaur-like, self-interested, both of which are paid-out by the same corporate interests. Strong as it may sound, it's hard for intelligent, self-respecting Americans, cultural creatives, progressive thinkers who actually care for others, a humanitarian type of individual, to take either of these two parties seriously, so quick are they to let the children, elderly and those disadvantaged suffer. Even the middle class! Didn't Jesus say " "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me also"..."? Do not most members of Congress consider themselves Christian? So, what has happened to the dignity of brotherly love? Surely there are members of each Party who are good men and women with a strong drive to improve the country and the lot of people, but they are overridden by the lower common denominators of their respective parties. All the more reason that we re-join American history's precedents and give attention and power to viable independent parties. The time is "so here" it isn't funny!

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Rodrigue Tremblay - The "Official End" of the Bush-Cheney Disaster in Iraq?

By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research, December 20, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28289

"Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the [Bush-Cheney] administration because now we can invade Iraq." Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman (R-Tex.) and 2012 Republican presidential candidate

“After the war [against Iraq] has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.” Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va), March 19, 2003

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end... Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.” President Barack Obama, Friday, February 27, 2009

The Obama administration officially put an end to the Iraq war  on Thursday December 15, 2011, close to nine years after the March 20, 2003 military invasion of Iraq, dubbed “shock-and-awe.”

I had not intend to comment on the end of this most unnecessary war, but since I wrote a book to explain how it all came about, I feel that I must say something.

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Brian Becker - Colonial Iraq: The Reality behind "the End of the Iraq War"

U.S. retains thousands of troops

By Brian Becker

December 19, 2011

pslweb.org

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28283

“Our war there will be over. All of our troops will be out of Iraq,” President Barack Obama said in his Dec. 17 weekly radio address.

But while combat troops are leaving, for now at least, the U.S. government is creating a staff of 16,000 for its newly constructed embassy in the heart of Baghdad. Although Iraq has only 28 million people, the new U.S. embassy is the largest in the world. It is a massive compound that is one and a half square miles-—an enormous complex of 22 buildings and the size of 94 football fields. Half of the 16,000-person staff will consist of a private military army made up of mercenaries under the control of the State Department. The State Department budget for the embassy is estimated at $25-30 billion over the next five years.

In addition, the Pentagon retains a vast network of bases, sea and air power surrounding Iraq. Washington’s intention clearly is to dominate Iraq for many years to come in a colonial-type relationship. Iraq possesses the second largest oil reserves in the world.

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Adele Stan - How Ron Paul Could Win Iowa Caucuses -- and Screw Up Everything

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet

Posted on December 19, 2011, Printed on December 20, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153511/how_ron_paul_could_win_iowa_caucuses_--_and_screw_up_everything

In the week before Christmas, the elfin creatures of the world are said to be very, very busy, hammering out toys for all the good girls and boys. At least one, however, is busy plotting his revenge -- revenge on the media, whose smarty-pants talkers regard him as a curiosity; on the Republican Party, whose establishment has long dismissed him as a crank; on the president of the United States, who, as an African American, has the audacity to lead a nation in which he shouldn't even have the right to sit at a lunch counter.

This industrious fellow, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is planning to win the Iowa caucuses, the January 3 opening round of the GOP presidential primary season, just as the nation settles into its post-holiday doldrums. And from the way it looks now, he'll probably do just that.

Follow the Bursting Bubble

Barely over a week ago, conventional wisdom-peddlers were shifting their bets from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Ga., as polls showed the bombastic bomb-thrower surging. But bubbles have a tendency to burst, as Gingrich himself surely knows, having collected $1.6 million for his historical advice to bubble king Freddie Mac, the federally sponsored mortgage giant whose executives were charged with fraud last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission for their role in creating the spectacular bursting orb that brought down the global economy. Since his peak polling in Iowa last week at 27 percent, according to Public Policy Polling (some polls had him as high as 33 percent), Gingrich lost 13 points, leading PPP analysts to describe his campaign, with its current 14 percent share and high unfavorability ratings, as “imploding.” (Just as we predictedduring the Newt bubble's peak.)

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Gary Younge - The US is Blind to the Price of War That is Still Being Borne by the Iraqi People

Published on Monday, December 19, 2011 by the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/18/us-blind-price-paid-iraqis

by Gary Younge

On 19 November 2005 a US marine squad was struck by a roadside bomb in Haditha, in Iraq's Anbar province, killing one soldier and seriously injuring two others. According to civilians they then went on the rampage, slaughtering 24 people. They included a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair and a three-year-old child. It was a massacre. "I think they were just blinded by hate … and they just lost control," said James Crossan, one of the injured marines.

When he heard the news, Major General Steve Johnson, the American commander in Anbar province at the time, saw no cause for further examination. "It happened all the time … throughout the whole country. So you know, maybe, if I was sitting here [in Virginia] and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and done more to look into it. But at that point in time I felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement."

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