Say No to Sycophantism

I've been following closely events in the Middle East during the past week, and it is difficult to reach any conclusion other than this: there's going to be a major war involving Israel, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and the United States. The war will not achieve much of anything except more loss of innocent civilian life and destruction of cities. The war could be prevented if we had a half-competent administration which hadn't completely severed ties with the democratically elected government of Palestine, thereby giving up all leverage it had upon the situation. Mr. Bush has turned the United States State Department into the Israeli Foreign Ministry, mimicking all actions the Israelis perform. As we will see, that does not help any party involved, least of all the Israelis, who count on U.S. leverage with parties that they themselves ostensibly do not negotiate with to pull them out of self-destructive spiraling situations such as these. Juan Cole covers events in the Middle East like no other entity, online or off. He is a must read in these times.

I'm watching Colbert trash Joe Lieberman on his show. Good stuff. I'll post it as soon as I get a hold of it.

"In the last few years, I have gone from lionizing this president's courage and fortitude to being dismayed at his incompetence and now to being resigned to mistrusting every word he speaks. I have never hated him. But now I can see, at least, that he is a liar on some of the gravest issues before the country. He doesn't trust us with the truth. Some lies, to be sure, are inevitable - even necessary - in wartime. But when you're lying not to keep the enemy off-balance, but to maximize your own political fortunes at home, you forfeit the respect of people who would otherwise support you - and the important battle you have been tasked to wage."

yeah whatever, all this shows is that Andy can accept fact sooner or later, but doesn't change the fact that he is an idiot who has been had

and still supports the war in Iraq. Money quote:

"As someone who backed the resolution and analysis of this president in the run-up to war against Saddam, and who still hopes for the best in Iraq, I can only say I feel somewhat conned."

All I can do is LOL, and even that is difficult because of the seriousness of the issue involved. More than 2500 US personnel have lost their lives in Iraq, in adddition to thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children who have lost their lives for nothing (the precise number is unknown because the US Army stopped doing body counts after Vietnam due to possible negative ramifications that such counts could bring about). We're in Iraq because of people like Andy Sullivan who refused to see the Administration's manipulative and destructive nature before the War and have recently began an attempt to jump out of the sinking ship onto a lifeboat.