Biden is clearly the master of the obvious...

Of course, Biden refuses to address the same question us "moonbats" were asking back in 2002.... how much is this gonna cost, and who is gonna pay for it.

When Biden wants to address the hard questions, I'll start to take him seriously. Until then, he's just another Democratic Party establishment hack who is better at positioning himself than in coming up with real answers.

I suppose if you moved to Japan it would flip the averages.

RE: Biden's op-ed. Blah, blah, blah. More utter crap.

What has changed in Iraq in the last three weeks, or so, that has the caused the parade to begin of the likes of John Edwards, Murtha, Norm Dicks, and a host of others to conclude the Iraqi adventure was a mistake?

Nothing.

What has changed is that the corporate media herd has turned on Bush, so it is now media safe to issue such BS mea culpas, such as did Edwards. Biden's op-ed, though no mea culpa, falls within the same category.

The media turn, it seems to me, began with Brian Williams standing in New Orleans calling the Bush administration on its lies about the FEMA response, if one can call it that. And like the, generally, feckless herd it is the stampede was on.

Don't get me wrong, Bush and his pack of liars and crooks deserve every media slap they get; but this parade of gutless politicians now stepping forward, after perhaps 100,000 pointless deaths in an illegal invasion, is sickening.

If Bob Graham and Al Gore knew Bush et al were lying through their teeth in the run up to the invasion of Iraq then why didn't Edwards, Murtha, Dicks, and the rest of the gutless, feckless bunch?

I think the Americans are lying.

Biden's request for a plan is nothing new. Democrats have been requesting honest answers to, and some accounting of the actual costs, timeframes, and ultimate objectives of the Iraq misadventure for years, and have never received any meaningful response from the Bush government.

We hear of unknown unknowns, and staying the course, and not staying one minute more than we have to, and other moot and hollow doublespeak none-replies, - but there is no clear concete answer to any of these critical questions from the Bush government.

The reason the Bush government disinformation warriors are dishonest, and cleverly cloak the answers to these critical and legitimate questions is because - the warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government have no intention of ever leaving Iraq.

Plunder, profiteering, imperialism and the supremist delusions of the Pax Americana neverendingwar and empire agenda are the primary drivers of the Bush government's neo-facist activities in Iraq and beyond.

This is a government expert in the black arts of perception management, information domination, and other disinformation warfare tactics to shape and control the message and the framing of the message, and to cloak the actual activities designs and ambitions of the government in clouds, shadows, or darkness.

Bush government disinformation warriors cunningly deny congress and the people the facts with regard to costs, accounting, timeframes, and objectives of the Iraq misadventure; and cloud, obfuscate, disinform, and propagandize the actual ambtions and secret illicit designs known only to the neo-fascist cabals operating within the Bush government. Sand is thrown in the face of America to blind us from the truth.

America is financing 12 permanent bases in Iraq. These are hardened, high security, 4th generation facilities. While the actual designs, applications, and ultimate purposes of these bases are other closely held secrets, - it is quite obvious that the Bush government warmongers and profiteers do not intend to hand these 21st century facilities over to the Iranian proxy government aborning in Iraq.

The Bush government has never been and will never be honest about any single aspect of the Iraq horrorshow.

The cataclysmic failures, radical deceptions, obscene abuses, and wanton profiteering in Iraq cannot be cloaked completely, and we are witness to wildly disingenuous litany of hollow responses, evasions, and excuses from the Bush government heaping blame on everyone else.

The ultimate ambitions, designs and the Bush government actual plans in Iraq are predatory, imperialist, neo-fascist, illegal, unjust, and unholy and will therefore obviously, never be openly revealed.

American troops are never leaving Iraq.

Since this is an open thread, I'll feel free to throw out the following non-sequitur:

Whatever happened to the Democratic idea of calling on Bush to declare himself unwilling to use the pardon in the CIA leak probe?

FOX News: Bush approval now at 28%

One must realize that the mistakes made in 2002, right before the 2002 elections, have cost, are costing, the country a lot. This mistake was the mistake of patriotism trumping reasonable deliberation on an act of war.

Senator Biden is trying to recover from that. Its not just the President's Men who were in error. It was a Senate snowed by appeals to patriotism that got us here. No one should claim that Biden does not have a right to ask for deadlines and advocate for some sort of concrete ending of the American occupation of Iraq.

Strangely, Senator Biden has neglected to mention Afganistan. I am not sure why. Mr. bin Laden remains at-large. However, the excuse that America cannot find someone in four year, at the expenditure of $160 thousand millions of US taxpayer dollars needs to be thoroughly investigated. I'm not just asking for an accounting of how the money was spent. No, we ask, politely for now, for an accounting of where the money, time, and resources went.

i have taught mba courses as an adjunct prof for a number of years... for nearly 10 years, it was an honor for me to team-teach with someone from whom i learned a great deal... he had quite a bit of experience with japan since he was a sr. vp of a u.s. company with a japanese subsidiary, at that time a rather unusual circumstance... he got to study japanese business methods up close and was fortunate to know a number of highly placed japanese business people... this was also during the time when the japanese were literally kicking our butts in the marketplace and there was much fascination over how they were doing it...

i'll never forget roy's comment... he said, or words to this effect, that he had observed that japan had the most liberal organizational/business culture in the world and that the u.s. had the freest society in the world... he then pointed out the irony because the u.s. has among the most rigid organizational/business cultures in the world while japan has the most rigid societal structure in the world... make of that what you will...

http://www.takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

Sexual Sessions: Does autoerotic play qualify as a sexual session? The numbers might go up a bit if these are included as "data points." Mind/Body Kabuki for the sexually starved or something like that.

Is there any correlation between the rise of karaoke and the decline in sexual sessions? Might make an interesting paragraph for those freakonomics dudes.

So don't call them "those f---ing Japanese" any more, Nipponophobes.

Am I the only one that's reminded of The Joker when Biden smiles? He uses it often, but it's never a disarming gesture as it's normally used.

Biden et al. voted for the war because most of the Federal Democrats were afraid of seeming soft on terrorism. They would have voted with the Republicans on any type of police or martial policy, weapons or not. I haven't seen any new formation of a backbone yet.

Oral doesn't count as sex, right?

There may not be a formation of the backbone yet, - but what we do witness is a larger recognition of the factbasedrealities revealing the Bush government's deceptive, manipulative, hyped, sexed-up, and otherwise dodgey pimping, - I mean mass marketing of patently FALSE justifications for the war.

Because the fake veneer of false omnipotence and trust has rapidily evaporated, and the Bush government credibility chasm has expanded exponentially - democrats are now more willing to challenge the Bush government on the issues, riske being slimed as unpatriotic or un-American and adopt the exact positions that were formally dismissed as conspiratorial or lunatic.

The Bush government reprehensible sliming of any and every voice of alternate opinion or challenge to, or quesiton of the Bush government policies - no longer resonates in the public mind. The Bush government slime is no longer effective, because it has been revealed as an automatic response to criticism or questions, and so has lost it's potency. Fanaticus on theright may take glee in these kinds of scurrilous, but patently false slime hurled on our fellow Americans, - but the "sheeple" in the cushy middle no longer believe or accept the Bush governments mindless slime of our fellow Americans.

All the Bush government dismissing and sliming of questioners and questions failed in the end to push back or cloak the many festering instances of deception, abuse, failure, dereliction of duty, mismanagement, malfeasance and perfidy, imperial hubris, and wanton profiteering by Bush government cronies and oligarchs. The hard math of US expenditures, the noendisight realities in Iraq, the terrible blood shed and loss of Ameican lives, the woefull lack of accounting, the book cooking, and the wanton profiteering in Iraq and beyond have driven daggers into the heart of the Bush government fictions, myths, disinformation, propaganda and FALSE images of a war president channeling god in the WH. The hollow patently false justifications for the horrorshow in Iraq must now be addressed and the hard questions recognized and actually answered. There is too much blood in the water, and the American people want honest, concrete answers to why, how long, how much, and what for in the Iraq misadventure. The American people have grown weary of the meaningless drivel and hollow promises proselytized by the Bush government disinformataion warriors.

Democrats sense and intend to exploit this rapid change of heart and mind of the American public. In order to stand against and eventually remove the Bush government, democrats must admit their own mistakes and failures to adequately vet information on the one hand, - and press the forcefull calls for answers and an honest accounting from the Bush government on the other. This is exactly what we witness today.

You can slime democrats all you want, but Democrats are now - finally - standng on the correct side of the issues in Iraq, and the more we learn about the Bush government's insidious conduct in the prosecution of the costly, bloody, failing noendinsight horrorshow in Iraq, - the more unsavory, untrustworthy, incompetent, and criminal the warmongers, and profiteers in the Bush government appear to the "sheeple" in the cushy middle.

“One must realize that the mistakes made in 2002, right before the 2002 elections, have cost, are costing, the country a lot. This mistake was the mistake of patriotism trumping reasonable deliberation on an act of war.”

Patriot,

Are you sure you are NOW ready for “reasonable deliberation” about why America is bleeding in Iraq?

You say “patriotism” prevented Congress from doing so before the war. I don’t quite understand what is patriotic about invading and devastating a country that never did America any harm. Some of those who supported the war but now want to jump out of the sinking boat – as Biden is trying to do in his op-ed today -- are blaming intelligence for their support of the misadventure. Generally, the Republicans are accusing the CIA of supplying wrong intelligence while Democrats are attacking the Republican administration for manipulating intelligence to justify the war. They’re all talking about intelligence that claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). In other words, they all would still have supported the war if only the Iraqi dictator could be found hiding some WMDs.

What has never been debated is why America should attack Iraq even if that country had some WMDs. America never contemplated attacking Pakistan or India for their acquisition of nukes and wouldn’t want to talk about Israel’s possession of 200 or so of them. If Iraq had some WMDs, it didn’t have the delivery vehicles to hit America with them. In fact Saddam never sponsored or supported any anti-American terrorist group or action. Indeed he never had a quarrel with America and enjoyed America’s blessings and active support during his war with Iran.

Now and then some American politicians would hint that WMDs would have made Saddam a “threat to his neighbors.” I don’t know that any of Iraq’s six Muslim neighbors – Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iran – ever expressed a concern about Iraq's plans to acquire WMDs. And despite Saddam’s earlier conflicts with Iran and Kuwait, neither of them or any other Muslim country has joined or supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The only “neighbor” that is opposed to Iraq (or Iran) laying its hands on WMDs is Israel, which in 1981 bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility. And we know that this is one of the main reasons the neocons have been wanting to invade Iraq since the early 1990s. Building a global empire is another.

So my question, again: Are we now ready for “reasonable deliberation” about why America invaded Iraq? Oh yes, Iraq’s oil is another apparent reason. But WMDs wouldn’t possibly have prompted Saddam to stop selling us oil, would they? Was the fact that such weapons would have posed a threat to Israel one of the reasons we invaded Iraq? Americans have fought bloody wars for friendly nations, most famously World Wars I and II. Israel’s support among the American public is deep and wide. Maybe Americans would have wanted to invade Iraq to preserve Israel’s nuclear weapons monopoly in the Middle East. But what’s wrong with having “reasonable deliberation” about it? Aren’t we up in arms against our president for allegedly wanting to bomb Al-Jazeera for deliberating about such issues?

Ah. An "open" thread, eh?? Well, heres my thing....

I am a bit perplexed by Steve's comments about Cheney and the devil, and the fact he ignored a couple of requests to clarify his meaning. Was he speaking rhetorically, or was there a deeper spiritual meaning to his comments? After all, this IS an Administration that has made a great show out of the President's alleged "christianity", and has sought the ear of the far right Christian base when attempting to peddle policy. If one is to consider Bush's claims of an alignment with God's grace, must'nt one also consider the alternative possibility? Here is an interesting link to the comments of an evangelical Christian that has devoted some time to the investigation of what is involved in the initiation used by the Shull and Bones Society. It is an interesting read, I assure you.

An excerpt....

"And, of course, the lies and exaggerations that led to the war- the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the non- existent ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda- are now the reality of the daily news. Over 2000 American dead and 30,000 Iraqi."

"In this light, let us return then to President Bush having stated he had been "honored" to become a "Bonesman" and to his hosting the secret society members in the the House. Some have asked--is he in fact a true Christian? A few have suggested he sought to succeed as a politician after years of alcoholism and many failures in his career by drawing to himself a base of us evangelical voters. For myself, for a long time I deeply trusted the President because I believed he trusted God. I continued to trust him until some months ago . I am now sadly reminded of the words of Christ : "The devil is the father of lies.""

excerpt from.....

http://www.counterpunch.com/alper11262005.html

(BTW, screw Biden. He is a spineless political opportunist. When the mewling puke loudly and publically DEMANDS the missing two thousand pages of the Taguba report that Rumsfeld promised him, I MIGHT consider him something other than a loud mouthed COWARD. Until then, he can kiss my ass, and the ass of every other American that wants to see torturers held accountable for their deeds, even if they DO reside in Bush's treasonous and criminal cabinet.)

Sexual sessions? Is that what they're calling it now?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/wbolton27.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/27/ixportal.html

snip
Britain has angered John Bolton, America's combative ambassador to the United Nations, by breaking ranks with him over the need for reform.

The rare public disagreement between the two close allies comes as the showdown over reforms at the UN's New York headquarters becomes increasingly acrimonious.

Britain has rebuffed a Bolton move to join him in refusing to pass the organisation's 2006 budget until member states approve wide-ranging management reforms.

To the irritation of Mr Bolton, many developing nations are bitterly opposed to changes that they claim are driven by American political pressure. He suggested last week that talks on the 2006 and 2007 budgets could be postponed as a means to overcome the trenchant resistance from the "G77" bloc of developing countries. He also threatened that the United States could seek an alternative to the UN for solving international problems in future.

snip
thought some folks here might appreciate this

I've been posting several times a year on this blog the link below to Eisenhower's Farewell Address.
http://www.luminet.net/~tgort/ike.htm

These are not new problems but those of the military-industrial-complex about which Ike wanted almost 44 years ago. He considered adding Congressional to it as Congress appropriates the money and should oversee how it is spent and has never put oversigh above helping military contractors in the districts and states they represent. Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and right to the present is a clear progression.

Of course, it is worse with the present Administration, but none of this should be any surprise. LBJ promised us guns and butter, and that is not possible. But this administration leaves most people with margarine or less while only the most wealthy get tax cuts and butter. Might doesn't make us right, and our military is not nearly so mighty to keep us safe. There are other and better ways.

To quote Parrot above;

"It was not just the President's Men who were in error...It was a senate snowed by appeals to patriotism that got us there."

>Helloooo! If you really believe this, I have a tower in Paris I'd like to sell you and I'll even throw in a bridge in Brooklyn for free.

>Going into this was no "error" by the President's Men. Like wise, members of the Congress would not be hollering for Bush's ass had things gone well for the U.S. in Iraq (WMD or none).

>The facts are the insurgency is worse than Bush ever thought about and, is getting stronger, that our soldiers are constantly under fire and dying, the Iraqi people are still infighting among themselves as to the place of religion within the Bush proposed form of Iraqi government, the American people are onto the Bush lies that got us into Iraq and, 2006 elections are coming up.

>Helloooooooooo.

re: Japanese sex

This references sex with other people. I think if you included sex without other people the Japanese would win by a mile.

Don't see Leichtenstein on the list at all.

A lesson in stupidity and arrogance - that is what Joe Biden's oped contains.

See my blog jacob's politics

.....US has caused this chaos - US should pay through its nose to put it right. Why come begging to these "other "countries". All Americans, as taxpayers, have to pay and pay and pay...

US has lost the invasion and has caused catastrophe by its occupation of Iraq, causing the deaths of thousands of US soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and this person, who claims he is a Democrat, cannot see beyond the tip of his nose.

I hope some of you will tell him where to get off.

As an international observer I was sickened to read this garbage from a Democrat US Senator.

Interesting: although the French have sex most often, they might need to, because they apparently suck at it (32% orgasm rate, near the bottom). Unless that's just my own typically American, gauche, goal-driven prejudice or something.