Truly Equal

Yeah right, like if I’m going to link to the real video. You can get your “war porn” elsewhere - it was bad when he killed people, and it is bad to derive some sense of happiness from watching him hang. So have some fun instead… it’s Christmas.

I’m glad he’s gone, but actually I would have him alive - yes alive. You know why? Because George Bush the elder, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney (through Halliburton) were waist-deep in shady businesses with him. What do prosecutors do when they get a big fish? Have them squeal the other big fishes. I’m sure Saddam was willing to offer plenty of incriminating documents in order to save his neck…

Update: There is another Saddam Hussein video… just what we need.

This is from Democratic Underground - the list is hilarious and quite comprehensive - and for rounding out a list of the stupid things Bush says to just 50 is deserving of a prize:

50. “I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here.” —at the President’s Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

49. “We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.” —Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001

48. “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” —Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

47. “We both use Colgate toothpaste.” —after a reporter asked what he had in common with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Camp David, Md., Feb. 23, 2001

46. “Tribal sovereignty means that; it’s sovereign. I mean, you’re a — you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.” —Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004

45. “I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves.” —Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003

44. “I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.” —as quoted in Bob Woodward’s Bush at War

43. “I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.” —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

42. “The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.” —Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003

41. “I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It’s pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future.” —Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004

40. “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” —discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, as quoted by Robertson

Read the rest of this entry »

Well Dubya, chalk another one to your growing list of “accomplishments”:

- 96 American soldiers killed in December 2006
- 2,983 total U.S. soldiers killed thus far
- over 25,000 U.S. soldiers injured

Heck of a job, ain’t it?

Via Raw Story:

“Security firmly in place, Clinton Fein’s latest exhibition, Torture, scheduled to open at Toomey Tourell Gallery in San Francisco on January 4, 2007, is a shocking and defiant exploration of America’s approach to torture under the Bush administration,” the press release states.

The exhibition consists of “a series of staged and digitally manipulated photographic images” which “recreate infamous torture scenes from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, transforming diffuse, muted and low-resolution images into large-scale, vivid, powerful and frightening reproductions.”

Artist Fein was born in South Africa, and according to his blog, he is “closely identified with his controversial web site, Annoy.com and his notable Supreme Court victory against Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, challenging the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act in 1997, where Fein’s right to disseminate his art was upheld in a landmark victory for First Amendment rights.”

And just what types of pictures he plans on exhibiting? Here are two of them:

And then you wonder why I think George W. Bush is a war criminal.

Update #1: Welcome Crooks & Liars readers! This blog features mainly health & human rights news… so if you like what you see and like to keep up with the latest human rights news - the ones the mainstream media won’t cover - please consider bookmarking my blog, or adding my feed. I’m a new blogger, so the support is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Make that best articles as well. From the current Esquire Magazine, “The Meaning of Life”:

I could be perfectly fine without kids. If my wife wants kids, that’s fine, too. It’s not an issue because of this. But I plan on wearing my prosthetics most all the time. And if I have those on, I’m not going to be able to carry my kids. I can’t really bend over because it’ll throw my balance off. So I’m not going to be able to pick up my kids. So you’re walking through the park and they don’t want to walk, they want to be carried. Sorry, I can’t do it. I’ve thought about that a lot. It’s going to be hard.

He just lost 3 limbs, but is still upbeat about life, about accomplishing more in life - his life did not stop. He must be courageous to pose in the cover of a magazine like that - not because of his amputee status, but because the right wing will go out of his way to get him and smear him.

If this magazine cover does not stop you in your tracks, nothing will.

—–

Update #2:

Due to popular requests, here are the most popular posts in my blog:

Saddam Hussein Hanging Video - War Porn for You (NOT!)

Bratz Dolls Just Stopped Being Cool

Merry Christmas? Not for Iraqi Children

How bad is it in Iraq? Pretty fucking bad…

3,000 Dead U.S. Soldiers by Christmas 2006

The AIDS-Malaria Connection, and more

Let’s Stop the Bomblex!

How bad is climate change? Even the bears have stopped hibernating!

Dumb-but-stupid? Leave that Lewinsky girl alone!

This is a great op-ed from the LA Times that I just couldn’t pass up:

First, as you now know, the long effort by King Leopold II of Belgium to bring Congo under his control was driven by his avid quest for a commodity central to industry and transportation: rubber. Does that remind you of anything?

What’s more, the king justified his grab for Congo’s natural resources with much talk about bringing philanthropy and Christianity to darkest Africa. Now what did that remind you of?

Leopold cleared at least $1.1 billion in today’s dollars during the 23 years he controlled Congo, and his businessmen friends made additional huge sums. Much of the money flowed into companies with special royal concession rights to exploit the rain forest. Final question, for extra credit: Do those companies remind you of anything? If you mentioned Halliburton or DynCorp, you’re right again.

As a reader of history, you must have been interested, I’m sure, in something else in the Congo story: the case of another world leader facing his own Abu Ghraib scandal.

Of course, some backstory is needed for all of this. Adam Hochschild is the author of among other books, of “King Leopold’s Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa”, that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by Leopold II of Belgium. Basically King Leopold justified his grab of Congo’s natural resources - notably rubber - with talks of bringing Christianity & philanthropy to Africa.

Then why Hochschild’s op-ed? Because George W. Bush supposedly read his book. So Mr. Hochschild was very pleased that Dubya read his book, and he not only compares Dubya with King Leopold, but has a couple of suggestions for Bush as well:

For your next assignment, Mr. President, how about a different sort of reading? Ask Laura to stuff your Christmas stocking with books about people who’ve had the courage to change their minds. One former tenant of the house you live in, Lyndon B. Johnson, entered politics as a traditional segregationist but ended up doing more for civil rights than any American president of his century. Another, Dwight D. Eisenhower, spent half his life in the U.S. military but gave us (a little late) an eloquent warning about the military-industrial complex.

Another ex-military man, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps, won the Medal of Honor twice, but then ended up denouncing the oil companies and agribusiness corporations he realized that he had been fighting for in U.S. interventions in Central America.

You think Bush is going to listen to Hochschild? Of course not - the man barely listens to what the American people say of him.

These news pieces come by courtesy of the IPS News Service, an awesome, but overlooked in the U.S., news agency.

Take this article by IPS, titled Iraqi Hopes Dim Through Worst Year of Occupation:

“I wish I could flee to any third world country and work in garbage collection rather than stay here and live like a frightened rat,” Adel Mohammed Aziz, a teacher from Baghdad told IPS. “We are all living in fear for our lives; death chases us all around..”

Live in a third world country and work in the garbage, than live in Iraq. How does that square with President’s Bush rosy “we are winning in Iraq” babble talk?

Also, forget about children in Iraq enjoying any of the fruits of the “democracy” Bush has brought there. Not only is Iraq lagging in all health indicators, but in education as well:

Statistics released by the ministry in October showed that a mere 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to roughly 75 percent of students who were attending classes the previous year, according to the Britain-based NGO Save the Children.

Just before the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003, school attendance was nearly 100 percent.

Iraqis are forgetting almost what a child needs. Dr. Ahmed Aaraji of the Baghdad Societal Organisation, an Iraqi NGO which monitors the state of Iraqi schools and families in an effort to assist families where possible, is trying to remind everyone what that should be.

[…]Iraq was awarded The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. At that time, literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations.

(All emphasis is mine)

Not only that, but Iraq is fast becoming the worst refugee crisis in the world - yes, even eclipsing the situation in some African nations.

The displacement of Iraqis from Iraq is currently the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis, according to the Washington-based group Refugees International which works towards providing humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people.

The United Nations estimates that at least 2.3 million Iraqis have fled the growing violence in their country. They estimate that 1.8 million Iraqis have fled to surrounding countries, while another half million have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq. An estimated 40,000 people are leaving Iraq every month for Syria alone, according to the UN.

And that is not counting the 600,000 innocent Iraqis that have died in the Iraq War (according to the Lancet scientific journal, link to PDF report), so yes, we can conclude that it is pretty fucking bad for Iraqis.

At least, ever-growing faithful readers, you can rest assured that our Decider-in-Chief can sleep soundly at night. The president of the U.S. started a war on false pretenses that thus far has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilinas, lost all of our allies, bled the treasury dry, and he’s resting well.

May you roast in hell, Augusto Pinochet. And say hi to all of history’s war criminals for me while you are there.

And may you receive a proper sentence, the one you never received on Earth:

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile’s democratically elected Marxist president in a bloody coup and ruled the nation for 17 years, died today. He was 91. Pinochet had suffered a heart attack a week ago. Chile’s government says at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his rule, but Pinochet escaped hundreds of criminal complaints because of his declining physical and mental health.

Oh, poor him. I surely hope the people of the U.S. learn and don’t let George W. Bush of the hook as well.

Now let’s get something straight here. I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, has the same bloated ego as President Bush, and is clearly taking advantage of the civil war in Iraq to gain more influence in the region. And at times, he does make some sense, like in his “open letter to the American people.”

What gets me about the whole Iran debacle is that all the focus is on Iran’s nuclear program, and how it is such a threat to the world. Fine, but what the f@*k do we do about this?

TEHRAN, Dec 4 (IPS) - Currently, in Iran, there are nine women sentenced to death by stoning on charges of adultery, compared to two men for the same offence — highlighting the fact that this barbaric mode of execution is primarily a women’s issue.

[…]Stoning is more a women’s issue because, according to Islamic laws, a man can have four permanent wives and any number of temporary wives.

When caught in adulterous relationships, men can always claim to have been in a temporary marriage contract with the woman involved –provided she is not already married to someone else. Temporary marriage contracts, for hours or months or years, can be easily made between the partners. A married woman cannot escape stoning in the same way.

You rarely hear about this in the media. People still stone women to death, and somehow that doesn’t require an immediate intervention by the U.N. Security Council. But make a couple of radioactive watches, and watch out. Iran is a threat all right - to the countries that already have nuclear weapons, and don’t want more competition. Guess who has the biggest arsenal on planet Earth? The country that bitches loudest about it: the U.S.