My quote of the day was spoken by Col. George Brandt, a psychiatrist at Walter Reed hospital, and it requires a little background. Dr. Brandt's quote, which you will read shortly, is from testimony he gave at the preliminary hearing of First Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, who was charged with the following crime by an Army prosecutor: attempted suicide and endangering the life of another soldier in Iraq.

Yes, you read that right: her crime was attempting suicide by self inflicted gunshot wound while serving in Iraq.

(cont.)

Update [2008-3-7 9:33:19 by Steven D]: Commenters indicate that Elizabeth's court martial case has subsequently been dropped by the Army.  That it was ever brought however is still a travesty of justice.

We know that Obama is either a secret Muslim or a member of a fake Christian cult. A man educated in an Islamic Madrassah, who hates America because he won't wear a flag pin or hold his hand over his heart during the national anthem.  We also know his middle name is "Hussein" which is the same name as the evil Islamofascist dictator Saddam Hussein!  And his last name is just one letter away from the being identical to that of Osama Bin Ladin, who attacked us on 9/11! Think that's a coincidence?

But that's not the half of it.

(cont.)

You might think my title is a reference to John McCain's claim that we should stay in Iraq for 100 years.  That would, after all be a reasonable assumption.  But no, the idea that we must stay in  Iraq for the indefinite future at a cost of thousands of lives and billions (trillions?) of tax dollars is not solely limited to Republicans, right wing crazies and Bush/Cheney dead enders.  It's also the rallying cry of prominent news reporters and self described Middle Eastern experts like Michael R. Gordon of the New York Times, who today in a column/report castigates Democrats for daring to talk about pulling our military forces out of Iraq:

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Here's a simple piece of unsolicited advice from someone who admittedly someone else as the Democratic nominee for president. I think you could do your campaign a world of good, and even more importantly, your country a great service, if you would do call a press conference and:

1.  Make a Public Apology. No excuses, no qualifications. No, "my supporters went off the reservation and I can't be held responsible for what they say" remarks. Just a flat out straightforward "I and my supporters who made these racially insensitive remarks were wrong and I apologize to Senator Obama, his family, his supporters and to the American people." And promise it will not happen again. Ever.

(cont.)

Update 1 and 2 below fold.

Since earlier this year, the White Hose and the Pentagon have claimed that Iran supplied explosively formed penetrators, or EFP's, used in Iraq to kill American soldiers.  Despite evidence that these weapons were manufactured in Iraq, they have continued to assert that Iran was the supplier.

That Iran suppled these EFP's was one reason the State Department official designated Iran's Qods Force as a terrorist organization, a move which could be used to justify an attack on Iran.  Gareth Porter has now posted "Explosive charge blows up in US's face" that alleges US military has known for some time that Iran is not the source of the EFP's, but chose to repress this information and present false reports accusing Iran under orders from the White House.   An excerpt from that report follows:

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Not many people can (or will) politicize a human tragedy like right wing talk show hosts do.  First it was Glen Beck with his statement that the America haters in Southern California were losing their homes to the raging wild fires there.  Now take a wild guess as to who Rush Limbaugh blames for these wild fires (hint: it isn't global warming, drought or even an act of God).  

Give up?  Well, in Rush's world it's the "environmentalist wackos" and "Hollywood liberals," along with (wait for it) Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, who are to blame!  Really, that's what he said, and I have the transcript from his own website to prove it:

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Dear George,

I hope you don't mind me calling you by your first name, but since I'm told you're a guy whom Americans would love to have a beer or two with (even though you don't drink anymore, right?), and because Texans don't mess around with stupid rules of protocol and etiquette, I thought you wouldn't mind a little informality.

You see, Georgie, I'm with you on this democracy promotion thing of yours.  I know it's been a tough sell so far, with our troops tied down for the last four years trying to make chicken soup out of the chicken shit from all the death, violence, ethnic cleansing, failure to rebuild, supply health care, clean water and electricity (not to mention the massive refugee crisis) in Iraq, but I know your heart's in the right place.

It just so happens, there's another little country that could really benefit from your "democracy promotion" initiative:    Burma, or as some of the locals call it  Myanmar.

(cont.)

Bush has been calling the Democratic candidates with some free advice.  About Iraq.  And I really fear that, after watching the Dem debate the other night, Clinton, Obama and Edwards are actually listening to the one human being on this planet who has proved his ineptitude knows no limits:

Bush has even quietly sent advice through intermediaries to Clinton and other Democratic candidates, urging them to be careful in their campaign rhetoric so they do not limit their options should they win, according to a new book, "The Evangelical President," by Bill Sammon of the Washington Examiner. Bush has "been urging candidates, 'Don't get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically,' " White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten told Sammon.

(cont.)

I've been pretty angry with the actions of Senate Democrats recently, but I have to give them props when they do do the right thing.  In this case, they forced Bush to withdraw his nominee for CIA general counsel, John Rizzo, because of his connections to the CIA's use of torture enhanced interrogation techniques at secret foreign prisons.  Here's the press release from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [Ed. note:  I'm sorry there's no link, as I received this in an email.  The Committee's own website doesn't yet have it up.]:

I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell is going on?  No impeachment proceedings, despite the Kucinich Impeachment Articles languishing in the House?  A refusal to make the Republican Senators filibuster the Webb amendment that would have required a mandatory year’s rest between deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan (which wasn’t even an antiwar bill, but one crafted specifically to support the troops)?  Twenty two Democratic Senators voting to condemn Moveon.org for exercising their right to free speech?  No strategy for ending this war other than a vain hope to "peel away" a few "moderate" Republicans?  Mealy mouthed explanations for why nothing gets done?

(cont.)

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) made a very big mistake, at least as far as the Democratic leadership in the House is concerned.  He told the truth about AIPAC's unhealthy influence on American politics:

In an interview with Tikkun, a California-based Jewish magazine, Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is "the most powerful lobby and has pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning. I don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power." [...]

And for that transgression, House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md) has decided Moran needs to be taken to the woodshed:

Update below (cont.)

We worked to elect John Kerry, and they stole Ohio.

We marched against the war and were ignored.

New Orleans drowned, and we saw Bush shuffle the poor off to toxic FEMA trailers in an evil social experiment in disaster capitalism.

We voted for Democrats, then watched their Leaders sit on their hands, while Bush "surged forward" in Iraq.

We need something else.  Something that can tap into the country's anger with "politics as usual."

Beginning with a General Strike.

(cont.)

Forget the fact that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and apparently comfortably ensconced in northwestern Pakistan still plotting to attack the US, despite Bush's pledge once upon a time to to bring him back dead or alive.  Forget the fact that the Taliban, the fundamentalist religious extremists who tried to take Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages, imposed its own draconian version of Sharia law in which public executions were held in a soccer stadium, and sheltered Bin Laden while he organized the terrorist plots of 9/11, is back with a vengeance in Afghanistan.  Forget everything you've ever known about the deep hatred among both Al Qaeda and the Taliban for America.

George Bush has.  Right now he's allegedly engaging in secret peace talks with the Taliban if this report by Asia Times is correct.  

(cont.)

This is the third in my series, Race, America and Me.  Part One is here, and Part Two is here.

• * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Danger, Will Robinson!

All white people know who the dangerous other is in America, even if they won't admit to that knowledge. But Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Ann Coulter and a thousand lesser points of conservative radio wave lights will tell you:  the "dangerous other" in America  is anyone who is not white.  Let me repeat that, for emphasis:

The Dangerous Other is Anyone Who Isn't White

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A lot of people think that the entire brouhaha about the death and rape threats Kathy Sierra received have been vastly overblown.  In fact, the proprietor of this website, the dominant liberal blog in terms of traffic, had this to say recently about her "situation":

Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats". [...]

But so what? It's not as if those cowards will actually act on their threats. For better or for worse, this isn't a country in which media figures -- even hugely controversial ones -- are routinely attacked by anything more dangerous than a cream pie.

As I've written elsewhere, I think that was a terribly inappropriate response to make.  But it's also got me thinking: why do so many people defend what Kos wrote?

(cont.)

All we hear about in our news media is the looming danger of Iran's nuclear program.  According to Ex-General, now Cable News Military Expert, Barry McCaffery, Iran is certain to get nukes (and Saudi Arabia, too), and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  Former UN Ambassador (by back door appointment) John Bolton claims diplomacy with Iran has failed (before we've even tried it), and its time to kick our unilateral "regime changing machine" into high gear.  Even Iranian President Ahmadinejad has gotten into the act, claiming that soon Iran has started "industrial scale" enrichment of uranium with thousands of new centrifuges.

Sounds like a dire situation doesn't it?  Well, yes, it does, unless ...

(cont.)

Yesterday, in Part One of this series, I described why I believe we need to open a new dialogue in this country on the issue of race.  I also gave a brief history of how the concept of race was developed, and then refined and exploited by our American forefathers and mothers to justify inequality based on differences in skin color, culture, or nationality.  An inequality that continues to exist despite the many achievements of the Civil Rights era in eradicating previously legal discrimination based on race.

Part One was a prologue to the heart of the story I now wish to focus upon: my own personal journey, and the evolution of my own feelings, sentiments and prejudices regarding race over the first 50 years of my life.  I believe that before you can have an intelligent conversation with someone on the subject of race in America, they have to know where you are coming from.  Well, the story I begin today in part two of this series will tell you where I’ve been, what I’ve experienced and what I’ve learned about race and racism, over the course of my lifetime, a reality that continues to eat away at the American ideals we profess to love, and pledge to defend.

(cont.)

Race is a myth, but a very powerful one.

What if people suddenly discovered that their most basic assumption about race--that the world's people can be divided biologically along racial lines--was false? And if race is a biological "myth," where did the idea come from? [...]

[R]ecent scientific evidence suggests that the idea of race is a biological myth. Anthropologists, biologists and geneticists have increasingly found that, biologically speaking, there is no such thing as "race" and that skin color really  is only skin deep.

Yet race is deeply woven into the fabric of American life ...

I have long wanted to write on the issue of Race in America, and what it has meant to me in my life.  For better or worse, the way Americans view the concept of race, and the actions they take with respect to their perceptions and beliefs about race, will be critical for our nation's future.