I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."

- George Bush

In defending the genocide of the american indians, you  once told me that the superior technology prevails, and (I assume by simple application) that's how it goes in Iraq also.

Would you abdicate our responsibility (the superior force) for stablizing and protecting those whom we have just conquered?:

Do you think that just maybe Saddam had something to do with it?

Apparently you do not.

Why did the US sign all of those treaties that delineate just those very responsibilities being ignored in the article I linked? Are you infering that those accords are not binding, or should be ignored? Or is the Bush administration so stupid that they were not aware of those stipulations. To me this is indefensible.

 The architects of the invasion are criminally liable for the current state of Iraq. The hawk defenders like yourself are now stuck, pining away for some Shangri-La moment when you can turn to your opponents and say "See? we were right!". But meanwhile the invasion of Iraq has pulled the country over a million razors in the other direction.

And you blame Saddam.

This administration, in it's "use of force" to effect regime change in Iraq, has failed, criminally, to provide for the basic human rights of the very people they supposedly have liberated, and thus taken responsibility for. But if you read Malkin's latest, she finds a penny in a s**t pile and screams "keep digging everyone!"

While there is no cure for lingering viral infections such as HIV and herpes, a recent study at Princeton University suggests it may be possible to deactivate such viruses indefinitely with the flick of a genetic switch.

Princeton scientists Leor Weinberger and Thomas Shenk hope their work will illuminate the processes by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other viruses transition into dormant phases in their hosts. The researchers have discovered a specific genetic trigger that makes HIV fall into its latent phase, where the virus essentially hibernates, relatively harmlessly, but awaiting an opportunity to re-emerge and wreak havoc.
...
Weinberger and Shenk share their findings in a research paper appearing in the Dec. 26 issue of the online journal Public Library of Science Biology.

"We have helped understand how HIV can turn off, and in doing so I believe we've uncovered an important component of the biological switch," said Weinberger, a Lewis-Thomas Fellow in Princeton's Department of Molecular Biology. "If we can figure out how such resistors affect viruses, it might lead to a whole new class of drugs that can treat some of the world's most dangerous illnesses."

Last weekend on Fox News Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed congressional opposition to the administration's escalation plan undermines the troops.....

Today, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said it "is complete nonsense to say we're undercutting the support of the troops." Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, said that as a soldier in 1968, he "would have welcomed the Congress of the United States to pay a little attention as to what was going on."

think progress

We will see more and more of this in the coming  months. But according to ppj, the WH need not pay attention because we do not have a parliamentary system. Tell that to Hagel and the growing list of elected officials who want to keep their jobs.

I posted this to Blue Mass Group yesterday. (link)
Today's Boston Globe has this article: (link)
Building on this article in the Boston Herald earlier in the week: (link)

My goal has been to show the unavoidable connections between the problems at the Mass.State Police DNA lab and a 23-year-old wrongful conviction case where a 2002 Innocence Project supported DNA test backfired and seemed to further implicate the inmate. It is a fascinating case that I urge you to learn about and to post on. The place to start would be www.BenLaGuer.com.

1. Collateral Damage. Too bad for them.

2. They're not children. They're future insurgents.

AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS COMMITS DOMESTIC TERRORISM IF THE INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH A LOCAL, STATE OR FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ENTITY AND ASSOCIATE WITH ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS AS AN ORGANIZATION, GROUP, CORPORATION OR COMPANY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PATROLLING TO DETECT ALLEGED ILLEGAL ACTIVITY OR TO INDIVIDUALLY PATROL FOR THE PURPOSE OF DETECTING ALLEGED ILLEGAL ACTIVITY AND IF THE INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS IS ARMED WITH A FIREARM OR OTHER WEAPON.

China faced a barrage of international condemnation from London to Canberra yesterday after it was revealed that it had launched a missile attack on an ageing weather satellite, a test that threatened to open a "Star Wars" space race.

Formal protests were lodged with the Beijing government, accompanied by expressions of concern from world leaders, including Tony Blair. The Bush administration is privately seething over the event and is believed to be preparing to turn the incident into a major diplomatic spat.

The concern in the US is that the satellite-killing missile test - said by the US national security council to have been carried out on January 11 - demonstrated China has the capability to knock out its military satellite system, which the Pentagon depends on for navigation and surveillance.

American military and diplomatic analysts said a Chinese attack on about 40 to 50 satellites in low orbit round the world would leave the country's military blinded within a matter of hours.

But others, more sceptical about US policy, insist China had a right to challenge the US's effective monopoly of space. They noted that Beijing has repeatedly pressed for the US to sign agreements outlawing arms in space, overtures Washington has repeatedly rejected.
...
The destruction of the Chinese satellite was the first such attack in space since the US carried out a similar test in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was pursuing the Star Wars anti-missile defence programme.

I admit, I am against the death penalty, but I do resent those who rally around a real SOB that concedes his guilt.  Even though I think the execution is wrong, I empathize more with the living victims than I ever can with the perpetrator.  I havent staked out a rational position, but a heartfelt one.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the US military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against US troops and undermanned NATO forces. This has prompted US commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new US Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions.

NATO's 30,000 troops in Afghanistan are supposed to have taken responsibility for security operations. But Taliban attacks have risen sharply, and senior US officers here describe the NATO operation as weak, hobbled by a shortage of manpower and equipment, and by restrictions put on the troops by their capitals....
...
A US Army battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks to deploy to Iraq.

Next week General Petraeus will face his senate confirmation hearing and will argue that the surge is not nearly enough to secure Bagdhad:

WASHINGTON: When Lieutenant General David Petraeus assumes his duties as the new U.S. commander in Iraq, he will be guided by a new military doctrine on counterinsurgency that makes the security of the population a chief objective.

But a pressing question that is likely to emerge when the U.S. Senate takes up his confirmation next week is whether the administration's new Iraq strategy will draw on enough forces to assure security, as measured against the general's own guidelines.

The additional five combat brigades that would be sent to Baghdad under President George W. Bush's strategy would roughly double the size of the U.S. force involved in the security operation there, about 15,000 troops. But as a whole, that would still represent only a small portion of the 120,000-strong force that would be required to secure the entire capital according to the force ratios outlined in the military's new field manual for counterinsurgency, which Petraeus helped to draft.

Anybody else get the feeling that you're being again?

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 18 -- Facing public outrage over the soaring price of tortillas, President Felipe Calderón abandoned his free-trade principles on Thursday and forced producers to sign an agreement fixing prices for corn products. Skyrocketing prices for corn on the world market have pushed up the price of the humble tortilla, the mainstay of the Mexican diet, by nearly a third in the past three weeks, to 35 cents a pound in Mexico City and even higher in other parts of the country.

The cause?

Some economists blame the increased demand for corn from ethanol plants in the United States, and it is true corn prices in the States last week reached their highest point in a decade,

What is wrong with these antiwar rethugs anyway? Where was Warner in March?

Weedend open thread.

Investigating, rather than reciting, Bush claims re: Iran

Something odd occurred this week: Fox News -- spewing filth churned out by the lowest depths of right-wing innuendo swamps -- was "reporting" the two-pronged falsehood that Barak Obama attended a "madrassa" as a child and that it was Hillary Clinton's campaign which maliciously disclosed that story. There is, of course, nothing at all odd about any of that.

But in response, the national media -- rather than merely passing those accusations along -- decided instead to subject them to critical scrutiny, investigate the claimed basis for the accusations, found that there was no basis, and then reported that the story was completely unfounded. Or, to put it another way, they fulfilled their most basic and defining function as "journalists" by investigating, rather than reciting, other people's claims.

Encouragingly, the media is beginning to engage in a similar exercise concerning the President's war-pushing accusations towards Iran. And they are finding that those accusations have about as much basis as Fox's Obama/Hillary story did....