the Shackle Report

The NY Times just can’t seem to cut Bush any slack. Here’s today’s editorial on the new torture bill:

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal … that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

– Why so negative, Grey Lady! Can’t you see the man can do no wrong. . . now? . . .Legally speaking?

AS TRUE
AS IT GETS
AND AS LONG
AS YOU GET IT

SERVICE!

Baghdad, Iraq – Citing the need for the country to heal, the judge presiding over the trial of Saddam Hussein has ended the proceedings, and sentenced the former dictator to do community service in order to pay for his crimes, which include the murder of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens.

“We need closure!” screamed Hakim Hakim al Hakim, the presiding jurist in the case, while tearing at his hair and blowing spit bubbles. “Healing! We all need healing!”

The community service sentence is to extend for a period of not less than two consecutive lifetimes, and is to consist of acting as an expert consultant to the current Iraqi administration, and the coalition forces struggling to keep the country from collapsing into a full-scale civil war.

The ruling met with widespread approval. “I’m for it,” said Marine Corp. General Skip “the General” Majors. “You know, in hindsight, the biggest mistake we made after disbanding the Iraqi military was deposing Hussein. The man can do security like nobody’s business. He knows the ins and outs. He has his finger on the pulse of the country, which, I don’t need to tell you, is kind of weak right now. Also, he has his people dialed; he knows what they’re thinking, he knows what they’re going to do next. And, he has boots on the ground that really stay there right on the ground, whereas ours, sometimes they’re on the ground, sometimes they’re up in the air, sometimes people even take them off. You can’t quell an insurgency that way.”

As part of her own effort to give back to society what she coldly stole, Martha Stewart has offered to come in as an assistant to Mr. Hussein for the first of the two consecutive lifetimes he must serve.

“I may not have a lot of experience gassing people and torturing suspected dissidents, but I can come in handy shaming underlings and making the citizenry as a whole feel inferior, which is essential in running any country,” said Ms. Stewart.

—Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

FRIDAY

From the NY Times with some good news in Iraq:

MOST TRIBES IN ANBAR AGREE TO UNITE AGAINST INSURGENTS

…the tribes wanted weapons, equipment and tactical help from an Iraqi Army brigade. “The terrorists have different kinds of weapons while we have only AK-47’s”…

—A battallion of suicide bombers are on their way.

THURSDAY

Surprising news from the NY Times:

NO CUTBACK LIKELY IN US TROOP LEVELS FOR IRAQ BEFORE SPRING, TOP REGIONAL COMMANDER SAYS

The American complement fell to 127,000 earlier this year but rose again after Baghdad grew increasingly unstable. The force now includes 14 combat brigades and elements of two others, one of which is in the process of leaving Iraq, a military spokesman said.

“If you had asked me six months ago,” General Abizaid said, “I would have said that we would be down a couple of brigades from what we currently have…”

—”But, you didn’t ask, so, surprise! In fact, to my knowledge, the whole issue of troop levels is brand-new. It’s coming right out of left field for me, so, you’re going to have to give me some time to look into it, and then I’ll get back to you. Who exactly is concerned about this, any idea? Just maybe a little clue, get me started in the right direction with my investigation?”

WEDNESDAY

More proof from the NY Times that the Iraq project is coming right along:

IRAQIS PLAN TO RING BAGHDAD WITH TRENCHES

The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

President Bush said at a news conference on Friday that the Iraqis were “building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices, for example.” Military officials said the Iraqis had considered such a project earlier, but decided to go with trenches instead.

The wide cordon to be erected around the city is critical to the new security plan and will be completed within weeks, General Khalaf said. American and Iraqi officials have long said the capital is easily infiltrated because it abuts restive areas such as Anbar Province and the region to the south known as the Triangle of Death.

—Man, I’m getting confused. Bush says it’s a berm, the Iraqis say it’s a trench, I heard from the Jews that it was going to be a wall, Human Rights Watch said they were going to just take all their volunteers and join hands to encircle the city, the Russians said it was going to be a lot of razor wire and depressed soldiers, the English said they were just going to pick up the whole city and move it somewhere else so the insurgents wouldn’t be able to find it at all, the Australians said they were going to have a moat filled with sting rays now that we know those are in fact dangerous…I mean, what’s it going to be? I guess it’s good to keep the enemy guessing, though…not knowing what we’re going to do, it’ll take them, oh, twenty minutes to change tactics, once we make our move.

I have a suggestion though, as long as we’re going all high tech with our methods, why don’t we have some burning oil, too, with our trenches? Though, I guess burning oil isn’t any fun without castles and big walls to pour it from, so we’ll need a few of those…Halliburton can build castles, can’t they? They should be about done building all the new hospitals by now, though, the way people just get hurt all the time over there, seems like you could never have enough hospitals…Oh, oh! I know! Tresbuchets! Man, those things are cool, you can fling like, a refrigerator a hundred yards with one of those, and there should be plenty of refrigerators sitting around, since there’s no electricity anymore…and, and, um…battering rams! Battering rams! Manned by trolls that we find in the Carpathian mountains where they live! Unless Sauron has already turned the trolls to the dark side, we’ll have to see, they used to be nice. Then it’ll be like, the Triangle of Death against the Circle of Hell, in the Ultimate Battle for World Dominion! Yeah!

TUESDAY

From the LA Times about the still-burgeoning civil rights movement:

ARM AGAINST ‘KATRICIANS’, GUN DEALERS TELL HOUSTON

“When the ‘Katricians’ themselves are quoted as saying the crime rate is gonna go up if they don’t get more free rent, then it’s time to get your concealed-handgun license,” warns the radio ad by Jim Pruett, who co-hosts a bombastic talk-radio show and owns Jim Pruett’s Guns & Ammo, a self-styled “anti-terrorist headquarters” that sells knives, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. As Pruett describes the dangers posed by “Katricians,” glass can be heard shattering, and a bell tolling ominously.

Parnell “Herb” Herbert, a spoken-word artist and community organizer from New Orleans who wound up in Houston after the hurricane, said he chafed at being called a Katrina evacuee because he believed the label had taken on a negative connotation in the media and did not describe who he was.

“I am not a Katrina evacuee; I am a New Orleanian living in Houston. I am a father, a grandfather, a Vietnam vet,” Herbert said.

“Now this guy wants to call me a ‘Katrician’ or ‘Katrinanite’ or whatever, which sounds like Martian or something,” he added. “It’s frightening to see what is happening. When we were brought here from Africa, we were dehumanized.”

—Okay, Mr. Negro Spoken Word Artist, in the first place, New Orleans isn’t in Africa, it’s in South America, so trying to make this a slavery issue or something just doesn’t wash. Get your facts straight. Slavery was a free-trade issue, part of the Bermuda Trade Triangle, where Europeans sent gold and silver to Africa in exchange for volunteers to help colonize the New World. The volunteers were brought to the New World, where in exchange for their labor, their forebears would get to live in a free society hundreds of years later, where they could sit on their porches in the Ninth Ward and drink beer from 40 oz. bottles and listen to music, and no one would bother them. Even when a big hurricane came, they were left alone to handle it however they wanted for days. You see? The word ‘free’ is in the word ‘freedom.’ You were free to drown, or leave or do whatever you wanted, and you chose to get on a bus and go to Houston. Now, you are part of a new trade triangle, called the Katrinian Trade Triangle, where New Orleans sends volunteers to Houston, where they help make that uptight city a little less so in exchange for oil and natural gas revenues, that are then taken by three-masted schooner around the Cape of Pretty Good Dope, to Washington D.C., where the energy revenues are given to FEMA, who buys trailers to send to New Orleans, so that any of the Katrina volunteers who would like to stay where they are can have a safe place to live when the next major hurricane hits. You are a part of history, sir, so when the bullets go flying over your head from the red-blooded Americans in Houston protecting their property, try and remember that, and remember that freedom is not free. ‘Kay?

MONDAY

From the La Times on a current firefight in the clash of civilizations:

IRAQ AL-QAIDA SAYS POPE, WEST ARE DOOMED

CAIRO, Egypt — An al-Qaida-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were “doomed,” as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence.

—And, you know, the violent demonstrations worked so well, the Pope has agreed to publicly drop to his knees, snivel and convert to Islam. And, the protests have had the added benefit of changing world opinion of Islam as a violent religion. So much so that Islamists have announced plans to slice off women’s genitalia to protest the perception that Islam is a misogynistic religion. And, to combat the perception that they are a fascistic religion, they have announced plans to burn Jews in ovens after they push Israel into the sea. And to show that they are in fact civilized and not barbaric like they have been portrayed, they’re planning to play football with the heads of the dead civilians they kill with their suicide bombers, throw puppies under tanks, ass-fuck their fathers and piss on their mother’s heads, and eat their own shit.

—Scot Crawford

Dear feminism,

Back in early March, International Women’s Day to be specific, Aviva — Women’s free monthly listing—News, Events, Groups & Resources, announced “with regret”…

…that this March edition is our last. We are immensely proud of this great voluntary work that we have undertaken for the last 10 years. But the time has come for us to move on into other avenues of work – still of course in the area of women’s rights.

And those “other avenues” of womens’ rights, apart from “News, Events, Groups and Resources” would be, what exactly? Hairdos? Blowjobs? Partnerships in lawfirms? Watching the ship sink, vaginal self-exams? DIY lobotomies?

We will miss Aviva’s “great voluntary work”. But, oh well: As the ladies say, “These things are cyclical.”

We are confident that when more important things than the interests of the non-violent, less-extreme, less-promoted and most under-paid segment of the world’s population have been all taken care of — and by “more important ” we mean the ozone, global warming, nanotech, sectarian strife, rigged voting machines, income differentials, atmospheric degradation, “incestuous amplification” (the military’s phrase for beliving your own propaganda) and dependency on foreign oil, loans, imports, labor and approval — women, Aviva-or-not, will rise again, at least for awhile.

So, you go, girl! May The Force be with you.

wake me up when you’re finished.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

WEDNESDAY

From the NY Times about the US government’s official position on irony:

GROUP OF IRAQI SOLDIERS REFUSES TO GO TO BAGHDAD

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — A group of Iraqi soldiers refused to go to Baghdad to participate in the effort to restore order in the Iraqi capital, a senior American military officer said today.

The continuing operation in Baghdad, which is dubbed Together Forward, is intended to break the cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to plunge the country into civil war.

—Man, you guys are making it awfully hard to make jokes. What am I supposed to do with this? Is this some kind of clandestine operation launched by Bush to steal the material of all the satirists and comedians in the country? Are my phones tapped? Are people from Jay Leno’s writing crew being kidnapped and held in detention centers and being forced to come up with the names for American military operations? What am I supposed to do for fun? Become a civil servant? An official writer for the US Air Force? “Operation Pinpoint Accuracy” for the Fallujah battle? Will I be forced to become earnest in order to have different material? See, now I just tried to be earnest to have something to write, and you know what? Nothing. Dead silence in my skull, which is very unusual I have to say. Although, it’s kind of pleasant in a way, like a new anti-anxiety drug. More effective than Paxil. But, it’s disconcerting. Is this a GOP effort to curb freedom of speech by saying everything before anyone else can, so we’re all silenced by gloom and pointlessness? Oh, boy, I’m getting a little nervous. Let me go to the next headline before I have a thought and have to pop a med…la-la-la, look at the little birdies…

TUESDAY

From the NY Times about the Catholic Church’s rocketing into the future:

PROFESSOR-TURNED-POPE LEADS A SEMINAR ON EVOLUTION

There is no way to know immediately, though many church experts believe that the pope has fewer problems with the science of evolution than with its use to wipe God more cleanly from a secular world.

“This evolutionary ethic that inevitably takes as its key concept the model of selectivity, that is, the struggle for survival, the victory of the fittest, successful adaptation, has little comfort to offer,” the Pope wrote. “Even when people try to make it more attractive in various ways, it ultimately remains a bloodthirsty ethic.”

“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution,” the Pope said. “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

—Tell you what, if you’re gonna have a seminar on evolution, who better to lead it than a woman-hating religious freak with his asshole pointed at the future? And evolution isn’t intended to do anything but be accurate, but if it wipes god from the world, good on it. And, I suppose there are some out there who misunderstand evolution so much they think it’s an ethic, but, it’s not. It’s a description of reality that’s more credible than a magician poofing reality into being 6000 years ago, or at any time at all. And evolution isn’t “bloodthirsty”, evolution has no desire at all, never mind for blood, but you know what is bloodthirsty? Why, the Catholic Church! Humanity! And who the hell is trying to make evolution “attractive”? I missed that. What did they do, make it wear a Wonderbra? And why would they try to even compete for attractiveness with images of a man spiked to a cross? We are products of evolution, and being casual and meaningless is your fucking problem to deal with, not the theory’s. And no one is a thought of god, no one is willed except by their folks, no one is loved by god, and no one is necessary unless they want to believe they are real bad, or someone tells them so. I was going to try to be funny but you people are just so depressing. When are you just going to get the fuck out of the way and stop slowing down the evolutionary process, if it can be said that anything can be in the way of evolution, within the tenets of the theory? Jesus fucking Christ.

MONDAY

Some stories about the intricacies of Middle Eastern free trade:

SYRIA TO SUPPLY IRAQ WITH FUEL

Azzaman.com , August 14, 2006

Iraq has signed new contracts with Syria to supply it [Iraq] with oil products in a bid to alleviate the fuel crisis, a senior Oil Ministry official said.

Iraq is now passing through its worst fuel crisis since the U.S. invasion. Lack of gas and kerosene is so severe that many families go now with cooking. [sic]

It is not clear how Syria, a country with hardly enough refining capacity to meet domestic needs, will help. Prior to the U.S. invasion Iraq used to have excess refining capacity which helped it export fuel products to neighboring states, among them Syria.

IRAQ TO SUPPLY JORDAN WITH OIL

Azzaman.com, August 5, 2006

Iraq has agreed to supply Jordan with crude oil from its northern oil fields, an Oil Ministry official said.

The official, refusing to be named, said supplies will start flowing to Jordan once its main refinery in Zarqa is ready to handle Iraqi crude.

The official did not say how much crude Iraq intended to ship to Jordan and under what conditions.

INSURGENTS BLOW UP PIPELINE LINKING TWO MAJOR REFINERIES

Azzaman.com, July 30, 2006

A pipeline linking the northern refineries in Baiji, the largest refining complex in Iraq, and the refinery in Doura in Baghdad was blown up late last week.

Putting out the fire does not mean that oil will flow immediately. Repair of the damage usually takes weeks. And often anti-U.S. fighters who blow up pipelines attack repair teams trying to redo the damage. [sic]

—Ooooh, I’m feeling woozy…okay, gotta rally, gotta get a grip on this…somebody get me a coffee…okay, so! Syria is going to have trouble meeting its agreement to supply Iraq with fuel since it doesn’t even have enough refining capacity for its own needs. Because of the war, Iraq is going to have trouble meeting its agreement to supply Jordan with oil, nor is it clear under what conditions the oil will be shipped…hmmm… Oh! Oh! I know! That one’s easy: The oil will be on fire because of the insurgents! And it will go to Jordan in the form of smoke carried by the prevailing westerly winds, and Russia will supply new technology that refines the oil from smoke back into oil. Unless the insurgents blow up the smoke, in which case the US will supply troops and air power to guard the smoke as it drifts towards Jordan over insurgent-controlled areas. However, this will mean redeploying troops that are currently making Baghdad safe, so, we’ll bomb Baghdad into rubble to get rid of the insurgents there, except for the Green Zone, and then, we’ll get the UN and non-profit aid groups to help reconstruct Baghdad! We’ll get Médecins Sans Frontières to go in and cure all the wounded, and Morticians without Boundaries to inter all the dead, and Surveyors without Borders to lay out a spanking-new Baghdad, and Carpenters without Limits to go in and build it. The UN can break down on the side of the road in their obsolete vehicles and kind of just watch to make sure no one does anything bad.

Now, see, follow me here; once we do all that, which shouldn’t take more than a couple of months, we’ll then have Israel broker a deal to buy some oil being shipped from Venezuela to China, using funds that American oil companies were supposed to pay to Chad in the form of taxes on the oil they extracted from them, and run hoses from the tankers in the Indian Ocean to big reservoirs in Syria built by the Germans, who don’t want to get too involved with the violence part, what with their reputation for not quite keeping themselves in check like the Israelis do. Then, we’ll have Hezbollah set the oil in the reservoirs on fire, and the Saudis can buy giant fans from some international conglomerate, and sell them to the Syrians, who will then set them up to blow the smoke from the burning oil against the wind into Saudi Arabia, because they’re the ones with all the capacity to refine oil into kerosene and gasoline. Now, by then, the Iraqis will have bought the smoke-refining technology from the Jordanians that they got from the Russians, and they’ll sell it to the Saudis, who will then refine the smoke that they got from the Syrians into oil, then the oil into kerosene and gasoline and stuff, and pipe it back to the Syrians, safely because the insurgents aren’t blowing up those pipelines because they’re all busy in Iraq trying to blow up the smoke there. Then the Syrians can pipe the kerosene and stuff into Iraq, under the protection of the US Armed Forces, who will deploy to that area for that purpose. Now, you’ll say that, now, the insurgents trying to blow up the smoke blowing into Jordan are now undeterred by the US Armed Forces, so, here’s what we do; we explain all this to the American people in language they can understand, and show them the importance of this mission to establish capitalism, free trade, and democracy in the Middle East because otherwise they’re going to have Muslim fanatics blowing up their propane tanks on their very own property, and ask them to give us more money and troops and stuff, so we can guard both the pipelines from Syria into Iraq, and the smoke blowing from Iraq into Jordan. See? Everybody wins. It’s all in the can-do attitute, that’s what makes America great…
What?