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Can We Call It WW III NOW???

by ThePete 3:55 pm 2008-08-11
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I’m not sure how many major-theater/major-world-power wars need to be going on at once before we’ll actually call this what it is: a world war.

I know it’s a big scary thing to call it a "world war" but I feel that we need to take responsibilty for all of this death and destruction before every continent is engulfed in combat.

Merriam-Webster.com defines a "world war" as: "a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world,"

That’s pretty much what we’ve got going on here. So why not just call a spade a spade?

OH YEAH. Because then we’d have to take responsibilty for it.

Yick! Responsibility!

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by ThePete 3:55 pm 2008-08-11 In TheNews, ThePete.Com, TheWars | Tags , , , , , | $ |

Cheney & Energy Task Force Plotted Iraq pre911

by ThePete 12:31 pm 2008-07-30
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So, as I’ve said recently, I’m slowly catching up on my podcasts. One podcast I don’t like to miss is the audio version of "Bill Moyer’s Journal" on PBS (site: http://www.pbs.org/…rs/journal podcast (audio): http://www.pbs.org/…odcast.xml podcast (video): http://feeds.feedburner.com/bmjvodcast ). I was listening to the episode from June 27, 2008 when Moyers started talking about the war in Iraq. My gut instinct was to assume he was going to go on about how it was all for the oil and run the typical blood-for-oil argument you hear from so many people. Which is pretty much what he started to do. I immediately thought to myself "Yeah, but Bill, where’s your hard evidence?"

That’s a question I’ve asked many times of anti-war folks. Usually I just get the answer "it’s obvious!" or "You really think we’d be in Iraq if there wasn’t oil there?"

Of course, they’re right, but what really connects Cheney to a oil-motivation?

Well, for once, a person quoting the blood-for-oil argument (BOA) actually had some evidence to back it up. The above screencap is part of it. And what’s really messed up about this is that the above screencap comes from a press release dated July 17, *2003* (see the original page here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/…d-pr.shtml ).

Now, maybe I missed it in the cacophony of crap the Bush Administration was puulling at the time (back in July of ‘03 we’d only been in Iraq for four months). Regardless, what Judicial Watch found is downright damning.

If you look at the above cap, you’ll see that they say: "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org."

Yeah, that’s right, *before* 911, Cheney was eyeing maps of oilfields in Iraq. Why would Cheney need to know where oil was in Iraq while planning for America’s energy future? Sure, we could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just learning as much as he could about "our energy partner in the middle east," or some such crap they might spew to excuse maps being there (and not just say charts of oil output and other less visual aids), but after all that has happened, I can’t imagine that he was doing anything but looking at those maps and thinking "yeah, we gotta secure that shit."

Especially considering the growing concern in 2001 that the world’s peak oil limit might be approaching. "Peak Oil" is the theory that the Earth will produce more and more oil until it begins to run out–production will peak–then, we, as a planet, will start to run out and prices will climb. That last bit sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I heard about this theory for the first time in 2003, I believe. There was a December 2000 talk given by an oil expert called CJ Campbell, a guy who worked for oil companies, helping them find oil. You’d assume he’d be aware of just how much oil was left on the planet. (You can read a blog post I wrote about it here: http://thepete.com/…o-run-out/ )

So, there Cheney was, just a few months after Campbell’s talk, chatting over energy policy with maps of oil fields in Iraq–before the 911 Attacks, before invading Afghanistan, before invading Iraq.

Am I reading into things? Maybe. But I can’t help but wonder why Cheney and friends would withhold these maps from Judicial Watch when they first asked for them in April of 2001. Check out something else from the above screencapped press release: "Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002."

So, in 2002, a judge ruled that effectively Cheney had violated the law by keeping these documents from JW. I wonder why they would have done that.

Shades of things to come.

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by ThePete 12:31 pm 2008-07-30 In TheNews, Politricks, ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , , , | $ |

Didn’t They Already Have a Say?

by ThePete 8:53 pm 2008-07-10
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Grabbed this screencap from Google News in the early hours of 7/9 and just had to shake my head.

I mean, REALLY.

A bipartisan panel wants the government to play a bigger role when a president decides to go to war.

Uhhhhh, YEAH.

You know what, Mr. or Mrs. Bipartisan Panel?

THEY ALREADY HAVE A BIGGER ROLE.

They just turned over that role to Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq Attack–or did you guys not study very hard in school?

I mean, any kid who paid attention in history class (or for me, Social Studies class) knows that it’s Congress’ job to authorize military force. Before we invaded a sovereign member of the UN (Iraq) back in 2003, the US Congress told Bush that he could swing his ability to declare war around like a huge penis in order to scare Saddam into fessing up about his WMD.

Of course, no amount of penis-swinging would get Saddam to admit something that wasn’t true, so Bush got to use his war powers. Of course, if Congress hadn’t been lied to by the White House, they’d have known Saddam had nothing to declare as we threatened to cross his border.

They trusted the guy in the White House. It’s my impression that the Founding Fathers didn’t want the guy in the White House to have the power to invade a country–so why did Congress defy that interest of the FF? Especially to a man like Bush who was such a great leader he let 911 happen, invaded a whole country and then couldn’t even capture the guy who was behind 911.

This was a guy who didn’t even have the decency to make sure he won the 2000 election.

Hey, did you know that when there’s a tie in a presidential race the US Constitution states that it’s *Congress* that votes on who the president should be?

Yeah, apparently the Supreme Court hadn’t heard that either. By I digress!

The USC(ongress) should never have given Bush the ability to shoot his military load into Iraq to begin with, so essentially, since Bush "took office" the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House all let us down. That’s all three branches, isn’t it?

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by ThePete 8:53 pm 2008-07-10 El Archivos del Arbusto, In TheNews, Politricks, ThePete.Com, TheWars | Tags , , , , , | $ |

Bush in TheNews: What’s Wrong with this Picture?

by ThePete 12:42 pm 2008-03-27

OK, this is getting seriously out of control.

BUSH is scolding CONGRESS about Iraq???

HOLEEE Moley.

This isn’t America, it’s BIZARRO AMERICA. After the incredible mess Bush, himself, has caused in that country, he has the GALL to scold CONGRESS?

It would be one thing if he were saying something like: "Why did you guys vote to give me the power to go to war? Don’t tell me you didn’t think I’d screw it all to hell, now! We had African tribesman yet undiscovered by modern society sending emails to the White House telling me not to invade, but you guys let me do it anyway!"

However, here’s what a March 27, 2008 article from http://AP.org/ and http://MyWay.com/ (here: http://apnews.myway.com/…RRLO0.html ) reported Bush saying:

Bush derided calls from Congress for troop withdrawals or deadlines so that the military could focus more on the anti-terror battle elsewhere. "This argument makes no sense," he said.

…

Bush suggested that Iraqi officials were able to make more progress than the U.S. Congress.

"They got their budget passed," the president said. "Sometimes it takes our Congress awhile to get its budget passed.

"Nevertheless some members of Congress decided the best way to encourage progress in Baghdad was to criticize and threaten Iraq’s leaders while they’re trying to work out their differences," Bush said.

…

"They’re trying to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they’re doing it while under assault from one of history’s most brutal terrorist networks," Bush said. "When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not foot-dragging, as one senator described it during Congress’ two-week Easter recess. It is a revolutionary undertaking that requires great courage."

…

But, he countered, "If America’s strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al-Qaida and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden’s deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?"

Yeeeeah.

That last part is what you call a "straw man argument" and the Bush Administration uses them all the time. It’s like using "rape" or "Hitler" in your argument–it’s a fairly sure sign you *have* no argument. In case you’re not familiar, a straw man argument is when you rephrase the issue in a way that makes it easier for you to beat.

For instance, Bush is waging a war on a concept (terrorism) where our enemy is a few-thousand strong (which got that strong thanks to his foreign policy). So, rather than admit that Al Qeada is a tiny, minuscule threat to America (especially when compared to something like cancer, AIDS or even car accidents) he says something like "Don’t you want to protect America against the people who hate our way of life?"

How can you say "no" to that?

He sets up the straw man and then knocks it over–paraphrasing Shakespeare:

…it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Of course, what’s really disgusting, to me at this point, is the way Congress is behaving through all of this. It’s bad enough Bush has lied and bullshit his way into wars that are making his friends filthy rich(er), but Congress has the Constitutional authority and obligation to stop him. Yet, they’ve instead acted like a bunch of sheep, allowing themselves to be herded around by the good shepherd George.

I hope we all vote against our incumbent senators and congresspeople the next chance we get because every single one of them has let us down. Sure, some have tried, but none have stopped Bush from continuing this mess.

The whole thing makes me laugh like Chuck Heston in "Planet of the Apes."
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by ThePete 12:42 pm 2008-03-27 El Archivos del Arbusto, In TheNews, ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , , , | $ |

Bush Thinks $3 Trillion War is Fine for Economy

by ThePete 1:39 am 2008-03-12

This is something I wanted to post about last week but just didn’t find a moment, so I’m staying up extra late to get it done. Not that it matters, since the cost of the war in Iraq and its obvious effect on our economy won’t be going away any time soon.

Back on February 29, 2008, Democracy Now did almost an entire hour with Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and Professor of public finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Linda Bilmes–the authors of the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" (get it from Amazon here: http://snipurl.com/21kf0 ). It seems they’ve put a rather large price tag on the war and George W. doesn’t believe the war is having that big of an effect on the US economy!

Check out the video excerpt from the February 29, 2008 Democracy Now episode (available on ThePete.Com or Utterz.com) to hear these words for yourself or just read them below. Juan Gonzalez, co-host of DN introduces a clip from the "Today" show:

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to take an in-depth look at the cost of the Iraq war. Last week, President Bush rejected charges that the war in Iraq has hurt the US economy. He addressed the issue during an interview with Ann Curry on the Today Show.

ANN CURRY: Some Americans believe that they feel they’re carrying the burden because of this economy.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, well–

ANN CURRY: The economy, they say, is suffering because of this war.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don’t agree with that.

ANN CURRY: You don’t agree with that? It has nothing to do with the economy, the war, the spending on the war?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don’t think so. I think, actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs.

ANN CURRY: Oh, yeah?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, because we’re buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses.

JUAN GONZALEZ: While President Bush claimed the war has nothing to do with the economy, one of the country’s leading economists has just published a book that puts an estimated price tag on the war in Iraq. The number may surprise you: $3 trillion.

That’s the estimate calculated by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author Linda Bilmes. According to the book, the Iraq War has become the second-most expensive war in US history, after World War II.

Pretty crazy, huh? And what a guy–our fearless leader not thinking a war that cost us $3 trillion is going to hurt our economy.

Where do you think all that money came from? Tax payers? Investors in the Fed? I wish. I’m no expert, but I have trolled the Fed’s website and done a bit of reading elsewhere. My theory is that they just made the money from nothing. Really, that’s what all banks do when they loan out money. It’s not their money they’re loaning–it’s someone else’s. The thing is, when you get it, you spend it and it then counts as part of our economy. But if you follow the trail back, it’s not your money–so effectively, it’s created from nothing.

That’s assuming my brain, educated by the American public school system and Spider-Man comics, didn’t screw something up. I could easily be missing something and I hope I am. However, it doesn’t look like that’s the case. What it *does* look like is that we the people are going to need more than just $600 each to make all of our money worth more again.

If I had any money, I’d put it in Euros. :)

To read the transcript from the Democracy Now broadcast, check it out here: http://www.democracynow.org/…dollar_war

You can also check out the entire episode in video or audio form here:
http://www.democracynow.org/…/29/stream

And to pick up the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" and give me a few pennies, buy it through my Amazon link here:

http://snipurl.com/21kf0

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by ThePete 1:39 am 2008-03-12 El Archivos del Arbusto, In TheNews, TheMoney, ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , | $ |

The 5 Minute Show Episode 14: The Return!

by ThePete 3:42 pm 2008-03-10

Three years after the last episode (episode 12) of the 5 Minute Show was shot I asked my friends if they wanted to go back to making more eps of T5MS and they said yes! Sadly, most of them kind of lost interest after a handful of episodes, so I found NEW friends to help me! But that’s later. This episode originally posted on April 1, 2006 and does deal with the war and stuff, but it’s pretty damn funny, I like to think.

Every time you watch 24 times, I make a penny. YAY!

by ThePete 3:42 pm 2008-03-10 TV.ThePete.Com | Tags , , , | $ |

The 5 Minute Show Episode 12: ThePete Covers TheWar

by ThePete 12:07 pm 2008-03-05

OK, this is the final episode of t5MS before a LONG break. See, it’s hard to make funny when the war is on your mind. I don’t know how Jon Stewart and his writers do it 4 days a week. I did it once and had to take three years off. :( Anyway, so, see if you like ThePete’s coverage of the Iraq Attack!

by ThePete 12:07 pm 2008-03-05 TV.ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , , | $ |

The 5 Minute Show Episode 11: TheSerious About TheWar

by ThePete 11:44 pm 2008-03-04

This episode of The 5 Minute Show was shot the day I learned that the US had invaded Iraq. I found this pretty disturbing and felt weird about doing a “funny” video show that week, so I didn’t. Don’t worry, I don’t stay serious very long after this episode. In fact, this is the second-to-last episode of The 5 Minute Show before a rather long hiatus. But don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing :D

by ThePete 11:44 pm 2008-03-04 TV.ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , , | $ |

The 5 Minute Show Ep 9 Anti-War Rally Finale

by ThePete 5:13 pm 2008-02-24

Here is the final episode following ThePete’s adventures at an anti-Iraq War rally back in 2003, before the invasion happened. Sure, it didn’t do any good, but there were a lot of hot women at the protest! :D But seriously, it was fun to go and experience all those people who think war’s a bad idea.

by ThePete 5:13 pm 2008-02-24 TV.ThePete.Com | Tags , , , , , , , | $ |

The 5 Minute Show Episode 20030223 Anti-War Protest pt 2!

by ThePete 3:16 pm 2008-02-22

And here are the continuing adventures of ThePete at an Anti-Iraq War protest shortly before we went to war in Iraq. :(

by ThePete 3:16 pm 2008-02-22 TV.ThePete.Com, TheWars | Tags , , , , , , , , | $ |

Oklahoma 911/The War On Terror License Plate

by ThePete 1:53 pm 2008-02-04

I can’t believe I, of all people, missed this story last August, but I did. I stumbled across a post about it a week, or so, ago (here: http://enews.org/…ights.html ) and I felt like I had to make a bigger deal out of it. Have a look at that ugly, horrible sample plate. If you own a car in the fine state of Oklahoma, you can decorate your car with this thing for just $37 (http://www.tax.ok.gov/…45.html)...

…If you want to.

WHY you’d want to is beyond me. The post I linked to above, written by a guy calling himself "Espresso Sucking Pavement Dweller" or ESPD for short, is all about the lousy design of the plate. ESPD is right–the black on red banner is hardly readable (it looks like it says "944" to me) and the clipart used for the Towers look like completely different buildings. He makes a few other points, including one about how others will criticize this license plate for reasons other than design.

Let me be one of those people. Let’s begin:

1) Since when do you have license plates memorializing terrorist acts? Isn’t it a little ghoulish to use the deaths of those 3000 people on 9/11/1 as advertising for a war?

2) I’m of the belief that America is stronger than a few thousand Muslim extremists. We can handle anything they can throw at us and the idea that we need to fight "The Global War On Terrorism" seems like over-dramatizing the threat of Al Qaeda and terrorism, in general. If you look at the statistics, cars, cancer and AIDS each kill more people every year than terrorism (more: http://thepete.com/…0-points/).

3) Oklahoma is fighting the war on terror? How’s that, exactly? What does Oklahoma have that Al Qaeda wants?

4) As I mentioned in point 1, this plate is just an advertisement for a war–for killing people. Has "The Global War on Terrorism" brought us Bin Laden or even a single conviction on actual terrorism-related charges? So far it seems like this whole thing hasn’t meant–well, I could be off color, here, I’ll just suggest you refer to the acronym for "The Global War On Terror" only remove the "Global."

As Super Duper Tuesday is tomorrow and the next presidential election is in seven months, don’t let 911 and mentions of the wars, Al Qaeda and other fear-mongering scare you into voting for one person or another. Vote with your head–not your fear.

Do I think we should go after Al Qaeda? Definitely. They do want to kill some of us. However, a war on a few thousand people with no country, no army, no nukes, and no obvious hierarchy seems like blatant, soulless, overkill. Plus, it’s just what they want us to do.

Who knows? Maybe Bin Laden will see this license plate and give up. But I’m thinking it’ll just make us snobby cityfolk point and snicker.
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by ThePete 1:53 pm 2008-02-04 TheCultureJam, ThePete.Com, TheWars | Tags , , , | $ |

10 Points

by ThePete 6:00 am 2006-01-02

Here are 10 points to start off your new year on the right, er, center foot.

1) More than 2000 American soldiers have died during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) more have been both mentally and physically wounded. Tens of thousands (over one hundred thousand?) of Iraqis have died during the invasion/occupation with countless more mentally and/or physically injured.

2) On 911 3000 Americans died with hundreds of thousands more mentally and/or physically injured.

3) No less than 37,000 people have died in car accidents every year since 1995 (source: www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/) in America, alone.

4) Lung cancer killed 157,630 Americans in 2002, the most recent year statistics are available. (source: www.cdc.gov/lungcancer/statistics/index.htm)

5) Worldwide, roughly 3 million humans died in 2005 thanks to AIDS. (source: www.avert.org/worldstats.htm)

6) While statistics vary wildly depending on who you talk to (+-thousands), the highest estimates have the human race losing, on average, 3,227 lives a year for the past five years to terrorism, worldwide. (according to RAND/MIPT numbers, 2001 and 2004 saw more than 4000 deaths for obvious reasons - 911 and Iraq) (source: www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/intlterror.html)

7) According to the UN Ambassador from Sri Lanka, Prasad Kariyawasam, it will take $2.1 billion to give 150,000 Sri Lankans their homes back, post-tsunami. $500 million has been dispersed of the required money in the first year after the tsunami hit. (source: www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/28/1457235)

8) At the start of 2006 the war in Iraq has cost Americans in excess of $230 billion. (source: nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182)

9) In 2004 projections estimated that the 2004 presidential election would cost more than $1 billion–this includes not only administration of the election itself, but also the advertising and general expenses of the candidates. (source: www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2004/04spending.asp)

10) You are more likely to die of AIDS, lung cancer, or in a car accident than you are in a terrorist bomb. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US Government could have paid for the complete reconstruction of Sri Lanka several times over ($2.1 billion), bribed Saddam Hussein into stepping down ($50 million? $100 million?), AND STILL had tens of billions of dollars left over to sink into a cure for AIDS, cancer and ways to make our roads and cars safer.

Why are you afraid of terrorists when cars are ten times more likely to kill you?

Hell, AIDS is a thousand times more likely to kill you…

by ThePete 6:00 am 2006-01-02 In TheNews, Politricks, TheCultureJam, ThePete.Com, TheWars | Tags , , , , , , , | $ |

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