Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ Category
Will Voters Overlook Shutdown, Sequester, Impeachment and Economic Chaos over ISIS & Ebola fears?
In mid-2004, the BBC ran a three-part miniseries entitled “The Power of Nightmares”. The subject of the documentary was the idea that where we once elected people with the brightest vision of our future (the “sunny optimist”), today we elect the people with the biggest fears, ridiculing their critics as “naive” and “inadequately concerned” of whatever […]
October 27, 2014
Posted in: Election, Partisanship, Politics, Rants, Right-Wing Insanity, Seems Obvious to Me, Terrorism, voting
No Arming Syrian Rebels. Have we learned *nothing* from Iraq?
Two famous proverbs haunted me all last week: “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke, Irish Statesman (1729-1797) “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over, and expecting a different result each time.” – Author Rita Mae Brown (1983) as quoted by […]
September 22, 2014
Posted in: Middle East, National Security, Seems Obvious to Me, Terrorism, War
Sunni Violence Against Americans Is Not New (2006 video)
This past week was packed wall-to-wall with Neocons and former “Bushies” alike criticizing President Obama for the rise of ISIS/ISIL. Senator McCain is still blaming President Obama for “pulling all of our troops out of Iraq in 2011” without leaving any residual forces behind… a claim that frustrates me to no end. The fact no one in the media ever challenges […]
September 15, 2014
Posted in: fake scandals, Middle East, myth busting, National Security, Politics, Terrorism, War
Republicans think “the world changed” on September 11th. No it didn’t. 17 months later it did.
The world did not change on September 11th. Maybe for Republicans it did, but for the rest of us, we were just as concerned about terrorism on September 10th as we were on September 11th. Just because Republicans were suddenly & violently awakened as to just how serious a threat “terrorism” was on “9/11” doesn’t mean […]
September 10, 2014
Posted in: General, Middle East, National Security, Politics, Terrorism, War
This Is Why We Said No to Invading Iraq in 2003. Those who pushed for war, please shut up.
Last June, The Rachel Maddow Show commented on the number of former Bush Administration figures that were suddenly being booked on the Sunday Political Talkshows to pontificate on the rise of ISIS, the Sunni-based terrorist organization: Attention Media: Stop booking Yahoos to advise on Iraq! (4:52) [flv:http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/trms-stop_booking_yahoos_on_iraq-140620.flv http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/trms-stop_booking_yahoos_on_iraq-140620.jpg 512 288] Yesterday on ABC’s ThisWeek, Bill […]
August 25, 2014
Posted in: Middle East, National Security, Politics, rewriting history, Terrorism, War
While President Bush Was Ducking Shoes… you missed the SOFA.
“It was a natural reaction to the killing of a million of my people, the orphaning of 5 million children, the widowing of one million women, resulting in tens of thousands of handicapped persons, tens of thousands of prisoners in American jails in Iraq, and the everyday scandals caused by the American occupation: rape, Abu Ghraib prison, bringing down […]
June 23, 2014
Posted in: fake scandals, Middle East, myth busting, Partisanship, Politics, rewriting history, Terrorism, War
Is ISIS Really a Threat to the U.S.? The argument(s) for staying out of Iraq’s Civil War.
By now, you’ve already heard the “catastrophic”, “world-is-coming-to-an-end” news that a terrorist group “too extreme for alQaeda” (“too extreme” for a group that dive-bombed hijacked planes into buildings? Doubtful.) is slowly taking over Iraq, with Iraqi soldiers so afraid, they’re “stripping off their uniforms and running for their lives”. And… of course… a conga-line of Republicans taking to […]
June 16, 2014
Posted in: Middle East, myth busting, National Security, Terrorism, War
Right Suddenly Outraged By A “Deserter” After Electing One President
First off, let’s get a few facts straight. I am NOT defending Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, nor am I excusing him going AWOL (and let’s be clear, he’s NOT a “deserter”, you’re only AWOL the first 30 days, and he was captured long before then.) Second, it seems that the GOP would now have us put every American POW on trial […]
June 9, 2014
Posted in: National Security, Partisanship, Politics, Rants, Right-Wing Insanity, Scandals, Terrorism, War
These people are dangerous, and they’re costing lives
As I predicted last Monday, this was a bad week. Mom passed away Friday morning as I sat at her hospital bedside, holding her hand for 61 minutes after they switched off the ventilator and I slowly watched my mother’s heart rate fall to zero. It was agonizing, and a trauma I hope none of my readers ever have to […]
April 7, 2014
Posted in: fake scandals, Middle East, myth busting, National Security, Politics, Scandals, Terrorism
If You Want to Help the Syrian People, Help the Syrian People.
“So let me get this straight”, the boy asked his teacher. “Because Syria bombed Syria, we’re going to bomb Syria for bombing Syria?” It seems almost surreal, yet that is the question. And I must admit that my initial reaction to the news that Syria used chemical weapons on “1,500 of its own citizens… including “at […]
September 3, 2013
Posted in: Middle East, Seems Obvious to Me, Terrorism, War
Revealing Surveillance Methods Just Result In More Complex Surveillance
Back in the 1980’s/90’s, the National Security Agency (NSA) was so top secret, the joke around Washington was that “NSA” stood for “No Such Agency”, because no one would even confirm its existence. I can remember when saying that you believe such a super-secret agency even exists made you sound like a conspiracy nut. But in January of […]
June 10, 2013
Posted in: Crime, fake scandals, Politics, Terrorism, Unconstitutional
Republicans Seem Eager to Invade Syria Over WMDs On Ten Year Anniversary of “Mission Accomplished”
In 2006, three years after “Mission Accomplished”, the GOP controlled Congress set aside $20 million dollars in the 2007 Defense Budget for “a victory party” to celebrate the end of the Iraq & Afghanistan wars. (note: the linked story is dated “2009” because it was updated, but I’ve had it bookmarked since October 2006, as the date in the URL confirms.) It […]
April 29, 2013
Posted in: Middle East, Politics, rewriting history, Right-wing Facism, Terrorism, War
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