NO Fly Zone…the first step to past wars.

Wolf Blitzer spent hours pushing for humanitarian intervention yesterday even as reports came that said Gaddafi only controlled a couple of blocks around his palace.

MIC speaks?

But but but, so many progressives also think the U.S. military should intervene. After all, we MUST do something to HELP. /s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marines'_Hymn

“SAVE THE OIL!” Couldn’t be more predictable.

I don’t want to “push one” to start another war.

sadly an anonymous tweeter I subscribe to retweeted such a request. Anonymous anarchists are sometimes as gullible as other lefties. They also republished a state department cable linking Chavez with Gaddifi. As if the state department are objective about Chavez.

Or, to put it more succinctly, the ONLY way to do conflict resolution is to create more conflict.

The edit function is not working:

I do not know what MIC stands for.

Who was it, Hillary or Madeline, who once said: What’s the point of having a military if you don’t use it.

If you are a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

We really need to get out of this militarism. It’s doubly bad because it encourages intervention into foreign and weaker countries and it puts the military in control of an means to oppress and intimidate local protest.

Growing up in NYC and surrounds I never saw US military presence “in the neighborhood”. After 9/11 we see them in the train station with assault rifles which intimidate EVERYONE… especially after seeing a strong show of force by police at anti war demonstrations.

War and militarism is profit… super profit. If these were not the interest in militarism by corporations would wane. You don’t see munitions companies going out of business. And virtually all the munitions are used against local populations unless they get a real border or religious war going between nations and pump in ammo to both sides.

But we are quite violent and so we are addicted to this.

Mods – I have to agree with Tom. To check if my edit was working, I clicked on it at #7, got the edit box and then then clicked cancel. Then the /’s appeared. It’s like magic.

I love the smell of new bipartisany wars in the morning. Does Lybia have Oil? I am guessing if Lybia does have Oil, Wolfowitz will use their oil to pay for the new war.

But there are a few missing neo-con warmongers in this list of Ultimate Losers. Where is Max Boot? And I think Obama wants to join his fellow chickenhawks in this clown carnival. Obama loves his drones.

We can do lots of things… humanitarian ones… send in nurses, doctors, food, hospitals… clothing… and block all weapons from entering the region.

Thankfully Slaughter has gone back to the Woodrow Wilson at Princeton before she could do much damage. Clinton kept her busy on the QQDR, a plan to transform Foggy Bottom into a Pentagon look-alike, so Slaughter didn’t have time to foment more wars.

As for Slaughter’s slaughter in Kosovo, Scott Horton:

Well, the Kosovo war, there were no mass graves. The FBI left after 2 weeks. They found a total of 3,000 bodies, all of them were of fighting age men. There were no men, women and children rounded up and shot and dumped into mass graves. The Clinton administration promised us hundreds of thousands of bodies, and they never found them any better than they found Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. They didn’t exist. It was a lie.

There were large-scale killings after the US intervention.

I always thought it stood for: military/industrial/complex. See Eisenhower’s warning

The fact that Wolfowitz would sign anything and have any credibility is beyond my comprehension.

While I dislike the murder of civilians in Lybia, the US has murdered many more in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, 45,000 will die this year in this country from lack of health care. We need to sweep off our own porch.

Military Industrial Complex.

You have to love McShitforbrains and Joe Lie. Trouble in the middle east or North Africa, go to Isreal. Assholes.

Oh, and if they think we should do something, the right thing to do is the polar opposite.

Thanks Siun and good morning all.

Military Industrial Complex

from president Eisenhower’s farewell speech:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

That would be sooo unamerican…

I was trying to post about music classes in elementary public schools when I was young. We were brainwashed with patriotic songs about war such as the Marine’s Hymn. Very stirring and filling a young lad with misplaced pride. The fact that I later grew up to become a conscientious objector in Vietnam defies years of Gunsmoke, TV, and brainwashing.

WH spokesman on Thurs or Fri refused to take military action on Libya off the table.

How about some Chinese calling for a no-fly zone in their neighboring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Now that would save a lot more lives.

Obama has a large table but a small conscience.

I heard on AJ this past week that the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the U.N. while Saddam Hussein was in power are still in place.

Once the U.N./U.S. does something, it perpetuates itself forever.

I have yet to see any evidence that O has any conscience at all.

You’re a good man. You overcame. Did you pay a price for being a CO? I have an ex who was one and he had to do community service. I know another man who had to serve jail time. The first one ended up working at a Legal Aid office which led him into a job in Consumer Affairs. The second one started a theater group in the prison.

No gooder than thou.

Becoming a CO was punishing for the first 20 years and rewarding for the last 20. I get to see how wonderful our world and lives could be, from here!!

(When I reported violence/torture on the job, I got sidelined. But all in all it has been worth it. )

I admire what they have done in Egypt and in Libya. They are incredibly brave.

The Iran Sanctions Act was originally the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, until Bush-43 became best buddies with Gaddafi.

I’m not sure I take your meaning about linking Gadaffi and Chavez, but:

From English Eluniversal:

“President Chávez takes a stance on Libya
In a message posted on Thursday evening on his Twitter account, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez voiced his support to Libya and said that Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi was facing a civil war.

“Let’s go, Foreign Minister Nicolás (Maduro), give another lesson to the far-right Yankee supporters! Long live Libya and its independence! Gaddafi is facing a civil war!” Chávez wrote at the end of a session at the National Assembly (AN), where some Venezuelan ministers gave an account of their 2010 management, DPA reported.

As appears from this message, Chávez would join Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, the only leaders in the region in support of Gaddafi. The Libyan ruler faces a popular revolt where the death toll reaches hundreds of Libyans.

In September 2009, on the occasion of the Africa-South America Summit held on Margarita Island, Chávez decorated Gaddafi and presented him with a replica of a sword used by Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar.”

The PNAC 9/11 bombers are saber-rattling again.

In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage U.S. intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neoconservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to “immediately” prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.

Courtesy of Operation Mockingbird, this is the only message that the MSM will be airing.

No pitcher box in the house so I can’t say, but have the networks been giving full coverage to the events at the state capitols yesterday? Just checked the front page of the NYT and not a word was mentioned about the protests. Lots of warmongering talk about Libya though.

Just a coincidence that warmongering is back on the news when there is a lot of citizen unrest? I don’t think so.

Agreed that Anonymous is politically gullible and can be easily manipulated. There is no doubt that that has been duly noted by others as well.

Eisenhower gave his warning when he was on his way out the door. Thanks for nothing, Ike. Why didn’t he speak up when he had a chance to do something about it?

Lots of Lybia coverage by major networks. Union events received a mention, but not nearly as much as the Tea Party receives everytime they become gaseous.

There was someone on book-tv this morning who covered that in passing. He excused Ike for catching on late bc Ike was a fighter, not a pol. Bwahahahahaha. House of War, OTOH, points out that Ike was a big contributor to MIC: Korean War as well as other big gifts to it.

Thanks friend, just as I expected. That gives me no incentive to haul the old pitcher box from the cellar.

The neocons change sides.

From Time Magazine, May 16, 2006:

Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice announced that the U.S. was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya and held up the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as “a model” for others to follow.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1194766,00.html

This was in spite of the 2006 US State Department Human Rights Report on Libya, March 6, 2007, which stated in part:

The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is an authoritarian regime with a population of approximately six million, ruled by Colonel Mu’ammar Al Qadhafi since 1969. . .The government’s human rights record remained poor. Citizens did not have the right to change their government. Reported torture, arbitrary arrest, and incommunicado detention remained problems. The government restricted civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. The government did not fully protect the rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. .

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78858.htm

AlJazeera reporting that a call has gone out from the United Nations for humanitarian organizations to prepare to support the Libyan people with food and medicine. This story could have a happy ending after all.

Yup, effing hypocrite.

No U.S. rep has had the nerve to go on AJ to talk about Libya, but someone high up in the U.K. admin has been there. You should hear his belligerence about U.K. arms sales to Libya. I can’t even reproduce his talking points bc they made so little sense to me.

Chavez seems to have a problem with all the profits from Libyan oil going directly to the coffers of BP, Shell, Exxon-Mobil. But he can be excused, he’s not an exceptional American.

Thugs are hunky-dory, as long as they are our thugs.

That can only happen with Moron gone. That may be a hint that he’s gonna be made to be gone, so to speak.

You’re wrong. Gates on Eisenhower:

Thanks to the archives of this [Eisenhower] library, we have first-hand documentary insight into how probing (and ruthless) this five-star general could be when it came to forcing the military establishment to justify its programs and priorities. Consider an account of just one White House meeting in March 1956. Eisenhower sat down with his top defense advisors to discuss the Pentagon budget. The meeting notes show Eisenhower becoming exasperated that [QUOTE] “no one ever comes up to him and says ‘let’s get rid of something.’” He then observed that it took the Army 50 years to get rid of horses. Ike questioned why the new Navy missiles cost so much more than the weapons they replaced and queried why the Army should have a 1500-mile ballistic missile program, since, in his words, “the Army does not have the equipment to see where they are hitting.”

Eisenhower told his senior defense team that he wanted the Pentagon cut down to a [QUOTE] “Spartan basis,” lamenting that “people he had known all his life were asking for more and more.” He went on to say: “I say the patriot today is the fellow who can do the job with less money.”

http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1467

McCain “says on MTP” (I saw it but it may have been a clip) that Obama failed to support Iran protesters last year – forgetting that the protesters asked the US to not take a stand so they were not labeled “tools of the US”.

Just bc it sez that doesn’t make it so.

Ike didn’t see a foreign conflict he didn’t like: military, CIA, whatever it took. Luved him some overthrow of duly elected foreign leaders like Arbenz & Mossedeq. Just like every other admin, Ike’s foreign policy was all about supporting U.S. biz abroad. All excuses to the contrary notwithstanding.

I wouldn’t buy anything that comes out of Gates’ mouth. The MIC took its roots under Ike, and all Gates can yammer about is Ike’s disapproval of horses.

Spit.

The “Defense contractors” are drooling. Promising large contributions and great golf trips. Do you really think 1000 deaths is a big number when we get involved? No money for teachers, but billions for war.

I think he feared the Dulles Brothers – his own brother was far to the right, Hoover knew the secret known to the insiders like Olmstead (a former boss of mine) that Ike had a slush fund – just like Nixon – funded by the casualty insurance companies in his home state and adjacent (folks did not drive during the depression but kept their insurance – so profits flowed – and a long term plan was hatched to have a voice in gov via Ike – Ike gave Olmstead a generalship – for the supplies area as a “quartermaster”, and later made him under sec of commerce – so Ike was gifted with the fund while a General at the end of WW2). I liked Ike ( liked Stevenson more but was OK with Ike) but he feared the independence of the CIA to kill, and Hoover to harm – and waited to the end for protection of being out of office to give his speech. JFK was very brave.

Mossedeq was sold by Dulles as “national security – oil supply protection” – and Ike bought the idea – so no he was not perfect – indeed willing to buy what the Dulles brothers were selling.

The topic was military spending.

We’re talking documents not opinions.

With reference to the fatwa, it just backs up the Security Council resolution, doesn’t it?

The resolution “urges” (in the paragraph where it demands things) the Qaddafi government to “Ensure the safe passage of humanitarian and medical supplies, and humanitarian agencies and workers, into the country;” and it also,

Humanitarian assistance

“26. Calls upon all Member States, working together and acting in cooperation with the Secretary General, to facilitate and support the return of humanitarian agencies and make available humanitarian and related assistance in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and requests the States concerned to keep the Security Council regularly informed on the progress of actions undertaken pursuant to this paragraph, and expresses its readiness to consider taking additional appropriate measures, as necessary, to achieve this;

The reason for the first paragraph is that the ICRC and some other organizations were unable, all yesterday and the day before, to negotiate their own passage into Libya and nobody has been able to negotiate their way into Tripoli.

You have that right.

Lieberliar is, after all, the outgoing senator from Tel Aviv. Anything he wants will, almost by definition, benefit the Israeli government first and anyone else accidentally.

Korean War started in 1950. Ike didn’t become president until 1952 (and didn’t attack North Korea anyway).

“Mountains O’ Things” – Tracy Chapman

Well since McCain and Lieberman are clearly distracted with personal business in Tel Aviv, I can give them the highlights of what happened in the US yesterday to help them focus back on their job of working for the American people. Here are the values and demands (slogans from AlterNet.Org’s slide show linked in “Rally for the American Dream: Huge Gatherings Nationwide in Solidarity with Wisconsin Democratic Uprising“):

Olympia, WA: Tax The Rich

Boston, MA: Jobs With Justice

DC (Du Pont Circle): Down With The Bankers, Up With The People

Indianapolis, IN: All Religions Believe in Justice

Des Moines, IA: Cut A Golden Parachute Before You Cut My Benefits!

St. Paul, MN: Who Elected The Koch Brothers??

Lansing, MI: Stop The Attacks

Boston, MA: Corporations Are Not People

Minneapolis, WI: It’s the Economy Wars Stupid

Healthcare Not Warfare

Portland, OR: We Pay Our Taxes. Why Aren’t You?

Honk If You Pay Taxes

Chop From The Top

Stop Bank of “No” America!

Billions In Profits, Nothing In Taxes!

Be Fair, Pay Your Share

Asheville, NC: News Flash: Latest Dictator In The Middle West On His Way Out!! Gov. Mubarak Walker (R) of Wisconistan

Tallahassee, FL: Manufactured Budget Crisis: Only When Koch Billionaires + Corporations Get Buy Tax Breaks

Denver, CO: Bail Out Workers, Not Banks

Republicans Don’t Think Egypt Can Happen Here But They Are In De-Nile

Salem, OR: Why is a 3% tax increase on the rich “socialism” but a 14% pay cut on the middle class “doing our part”?

If those pinhead NeoCons want to have “military action” in Libya I am all for it… I’ll set up the PayPal account to buy them all M-16s and plenty of rounds so they can be the very first to represent America in-country. I’ll even load Kristol’s weapon before giving it to him and pushing him out the door the C-130 when he jumps in.

Fucking asshats learn nothing. Ever.

The neocons have been utterly wrong in the most spectacular ways imaginable for a decade now. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died as a result. The U.S. military has become overstretched, and our national security has been degraded.

You might think that neocons would no longer be quoted in the media except for purposes of ridicule.

And the Clintons have not seen a drop of oil, they did not like. US dependence on foreign fossil fuels grew exponentially under the Clintons and as well as the US dependence on Saudi Arabia. It seems a bit like business as usual as progressives raise no issues about democracy in Saudi Arabia. Fact is that all of used the Middle East as part of our infrastructure. Did any one of yu see Hillary with Gdalfi’s son at the State Department? More thoughtlessness.

That’s cuz they never have any “skin in the game” (sometimes even the cliche is the appropriate phrase)

Found this at the BBC Live Blog:
1725: Commenting on the cash the regime is handing out to Libyan people, Libyan Dude tweets: “Love it, my aunt says she went, took the 500LYD [Libyan Dinar], and went to buy medicines and food for all the neighbours.. LOL at Gaddafi’s bribe money.”

So I knew Grampy McSame-o-stupid was doing work on the back 20,000 sq. miles of his Sedona Ranch, but I did NOT know that it was for the mass grave he and Lieberwocky want to fill up… I was surprised that Grampy didn’t say something in the media about the up-coming event in the new THUNDER DOME that the above-mentioned work was allegedly where the new parking lot would be… Must have found an alternative site…

Unless Gaddafi’s elite troops have air capabilities, establishing a no-fly zone is irrelevant. Most of the air force seems to have changed to supporting the anti-Gaddafi forces. McCain and Lieberman are grandstanding to position Obama as not tough enough. Just watch.

Kristof in the NY Times has been on the ground in the Mideast for weeks reporting, and showing strong support for all the rebels throughout the period. He supports a no-fly zone. See

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/opinion/24kristof.html

for his whole list of suggestions.

On military spending AKA “defense” or “security” spending:

. . . the Pentagon budget must shrink as part of the effort to reduce the deficit. Gates told them he was “not prepared to concede that” defense had to be part of budget solution. . .On Sept. 10, 2001, the Army had a budget of roughly $68 billion. That has grown to $220 billion, and more than $150 billion of that goes to pay contractors. . .Headquarters have grown enormously over the past few years, with 67,000 thousand senior officers and civilians added to the ranks. They cost an average of $220,000 a year.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/02/25/budget-catastrophe-means-dod-cuts/

Love that Tracy Chaplain; thanks, mzchief, and for the list! ;o)

Of all the current revolts,overthrows and dictatorship refits taking place across Middle East and North Africa this one in Libya presents the USA with most transferable/useable template for application of meddling/attack in/on Iran.

Iran has been/is the nation WashingtonDC/TelAviv Axis of Fascist/Militarist/Corporatist/Imperialist Warmongers/Death Dealers most surely desire what Libya is now seeing to take place. Any Iranian civil war that were to follow would get the same treatment Iraq and Baghdad got from WashingtonDC. Ultimately the Iraq Invasion and Occupation had little to do with improving lives of ordinary Iraqis and everything to do with cementing American hegemony and militarism into Iraq. Afghanistan is getting much the same and surely Pakistan is at great risk of this as well. WashingtonDC is printing $$ to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan garrisons and air space control and this surely has little to do with welfare of Iraqi or Afghan common people. It is pointed at Iran.

Iran and Tehran getting it? WashingtonDC can be counted on doing a Iraq on Iran in order to reduce Iran to the broken,unworkable,unsolvable status of Iraq.

American overlordship of Iraq and Afghanistan was/is driven largely by Pentagon intent to bracket Iran from the west(Iraq) and the east (Afghanistan) with American garrisons on the ground and set in place USAF air control. Attack on Iran when it comes will directly benefit from American ability to use Iraq/Afghanistan as well dug in bases to jump from into Iran. Those American superbases in Iraq/Afghanistan are pointed at Iran. POTUS Obama,the CIA and Pentagon can deny that premise all they want but it is closer to the middle of what attack on Iraq and Afghanistan was and is for. Pakistan may well get Iraq treatment from WashingtonDC as well.

This revolt in Libya presents WashingtonDC and TelAviv with the most potent framing for using on/going into Iran should/when the Iranian people seek to overthrow the current regime in Tehran. POTUS Obama surely is demonstrating where he will be if/when Iran tumbles into a Libyan styled revolt and regime overthrow.

WashingtonDC and TelAviv surely would be very willing to use whatever Libya
revolt/regime overthrow opens doors and removes shackles from for use on Iran.

Obama is a Warmonger/Death Dealer to be sure as he demonstrates daily across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whatever he and SoS Clinton are putting words to regarding Libya is surely intended to be redirected towards Iran to justify American meddling in Iran if/when the moment presents itself.

This Libyan revolt and how WashingtonDC is framing it’s response and desire to resume relations with the new Tripoli regime on favorable terms to US imperial interests is a dress review of what Iran/Tehran can and should expect from WashingtonDC.

Whatever WashingtonDC conjures over Libya will be surely pointed at Iran and Tehran–any pretext/premise to do so will trigger it.

Interesting that we have to act with Qaddafi, but not with any other countries. It’s always the same pecking order – the dictators we like are beyond touch.

As long as the Jews of America, and anywhere else for that matter, allow extremists like Netanyahu, McCain and Lieberman to continually speak out on their behalf with such pro-violence propaganda, Jews everywhere will continue to lose favor and be at risk.

It isn’t everyone else that needs to remember the madness behind the Holocaust – it’s them.

Of course they express neoconservative thinking! They made those statements while meeting with their bosses in Tel Aviv!

I can understand the impulse to do something to help people without second amendment rights fight back against a tyrant, but we do not need to turn Libya into another Iraq. That is why Israel wants us to become involved. They want the US to be the sacrificial lamb in support of their own inhumane agenda.

If we become involved, it will make things worse for both Libya and the US, but it will make the sociopaths in Israel’s government feel better.

Blitzer used to work for AIPAC. Surprised?

These two idiots should be locked up together in a rubber room to rant at each other–they’d both be deliriously happy. It would also spare the rest of us from listening to their bullshit.

Blitzer is terribly biased. As is most of the other hosts. On orders from Larry King no doubt, part owner of CNN, who on almost every show managed to slip in the phrase “Israel is surrounded by enemies”

ICRC is now in to Benghazi, with surgeons, orthopedic specialist and supplies, but finding it difficult to get further than the city.
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2011/libya-news-2011-02-27.htm

UNHCR is looking for donations.
http://www.unhcr.org/emergency/libya/global_landing.html

I seldom watched Larry King, but I don’t recall him leading cheers for Israel. His job is to ask the questions his audience is thinking, and it is a fact that Israel is surrounded by people hostile to it, though most of the heads of state in the region were happy to tolerate Israel.

You might have examples of pro-Israel bias by King that I’ve missed, but I do recall the look of surprise on his face a few years ago when his guest Bill Maher took a very pro-Zionist position.

Can we please put to rest this silly notion that Al-Qaida poses a threat to anybody…anywhere? http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,747653,00.html

It won’t be put to rest as long as there is money to be made by “addressing the threat.” (Body scanners, wars, etc.)

I did watch King when I heard that quote – on numerous occasions. Otherwise I would not have made that comment..and, I more frequently watched Maher who almost always takes the pro-Israeli position.
I too take a pro-Israli position on certain subjects.

I’m talking about a blanket seal of approval on all things Jewish/Israeli.

Aren’t Muslims are surrounded by Jews who are just as hostile to them?? That’s a whole ‘nother discussion but I won’t go there.

Can we please put to rest this silly notion that Al-Qaida poses a threat to anybody…anywhere? http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,747653,00.html

Your link makes the point that al Qaeda is irrelevant for these reasons:

Their original goal — the overthrow of the secular regimes in the Arab world — has been achieved by others, including groups that are among the declared enemies of al-Qaida and its allies: secularists, students with a Western orientation, politically active women, people who support democracy and moderate Islamists. It isn’t al-Qaida that has proven to be a vanguard, but the secular, Internet-savvy youth of the Arab world. And no one on the squares and streets, from Tunis to Benghazi, has called for a Taliban-esque theocracy, al-Qaida’s vision for the Islamic world.

Now consider the following blog post I found linked from antiwar.com:

http://www.frumforum.com/how-the-gop-should-respond-to-egypts-protests#comment-253317

It becomes very clear that neoconservatives don’t know squat about how the world works. Taking their advice will only lead to disaster.

Aren’t Muslims are surrounded by Jews who are just as hostile to them?

In New York?

Well, actually there were plenty of New York Jews who had no problem with the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Don’t let Pamela Gellar fool you about this.