Needlenose

Another reactionary terror attack! At least they only kill Confederates.

Don’t bother sending us any more airplane suicide bombers, Osama Bin Laden, American Reactionaries are just dying to kill us themselves – case in point, an anti-tax wing-nut just Kamikaze’d his private plane into an IRS building in Texas.  You can read his twisted rantings here if you want to go to the trouble – it’s nothing you wouldn’t find on any other stupid wing-nut blog.

One thing I don’t understand – the guy was so anti-tax that he was driven to kill himself and various random bureaucrats – but he had his own private plane for fucks’ sake!  I can’t afford a fucking private plane!  We didn’t tax him enough! Texas doesn’t even have a state income tax for Christ’s sake!

Typical whiny reactionary terrorist putz.  America wake up – the Enemy is Within!

* Update 2-22-10* Like father like daughter?  Joe Stack’s daughter considers her father a hero! Only in the topsy-turvy world of the wing-nuts are people who attack government offices heroes!  Just like a decorated veteran like Kerry gets swift-boated so his draft-dodging, war criminal opponent can get another 4 years, or abortion-doctor killer is aided and abetted and kept out of the hands of justice for several years.

*Update 2 2-22-10* It’s not just the guy’s daughter casting our domestic wing-nut terrorist as a hero – Repug Rep. Steve King calls on fellow reactionaries to implode their local IRS offices!

Several weeks ago I wrote a despairing post about the state of our war in Afghanistan, criticizing Obama for following Shrubya’s tired strategy of fighting a counter-insurgency conflict in Afghanistan while the enemy thrived, unmolested, across the border in Pakistan.

Since then, Pakistan really bumped up their game and has made major gains in fighting the Taliban, Al Qaeda and their sympathizers in the Swat Valley.

I should probably have posted something about that  earlier, but their past claims of ‘victories’ and gains were either gross hyperbole or outright lies.  However, I’m actually heartened by Osama Bin Laden’s latest missive blaming Obama for “ordering” President Zardari to attack the guerrillas.

Check out the speech – it strikes me as the typical ‘tough talk’ a leader has to give when his followers are backed into a corner – kinda like that some of the speeches given by the (now dead) head of the Tamil Tigers as his guerrillas were increasingly trapped by Sri Lankan forces.  The other comforting thought is that Obama could actually ‘order’ President Zardari to do anything!  Don’t you wish that were true?  I guess American Liberals aren’t the only people that believe Obama has magical powers!

It’s much too early to determine if this is a true sea change in the battle – who knows how many Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors donned burkhas and slipped out among the civilian refugees?  And don’t forget that Pakistan is only one of the countries bordering Afghanistan suitable for a base for the guerrillas, and that is a horribly corrupt country at that.

But it’s definitely cause for optimism – let’s hope this reduces some of the strain on President Karzai and the NATO forces in Afghanistan!

*Update 6/4/09* A friend of mine just got back from a couple of weeks in Karachi – he tells me things are really messy there right now – lots of internal divisions between groups such as the Muhajirs and the Pashtuns are boiling up to the surface resulting in pitched street fighting.

Via Steve Benen, here’s our friend Mr. Double-Talk Express at a campaign stop in New Jersey yesterday:

“I will look you in the eye and promise you that I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” McCain said in response to a direct question from one of the 2,000 people in attendance at the college’s Pemberton campus gym.

McCain said the key to ending the long search for bin Laden was to increase the number of human spies abroad.

“We need better human intelligence. We need people who can swim in the water,” McCain said.

Steve thinks this is a statement to make fun of, apparently not grasping McSame’s allusion to the Maoist slogan that guerrillas move among the people like fish in water (hence, to catch them, you need people who can swim in the water).

What McCain is really doing, though, is making the strong-daddy pitch (as in his infamous 2013 ad) that if we elect him, he’s so manly and decisive that unsolved, complicated problems will dissolve in the face of his will. Not to mention appealing to those who think the White House is like a Tom Clancy novel — the president shouts “Dammit, make this happen!’ to the CIA, and the entire bureaucracy suddenly snaps to attention, smoothly implementing his orders to get better sources inside Bin Laden’s inner circle (as if they never thought about it before!) and getting immediate results.

What I think you’ll see Obama do is point out that George Bush made the same blustery promise, but couldn’t follow through. And that was because while the tough talk was moving in one direction, the decisions and resources went in another — specifically, toward Iraq. Where John McCain wants us to remain indefinitely, with 100-140,000 U.S. troops and the logistical and human intelligence resources to support them, and no clear plan for bringing them home. As Obama has long said, he wants to scale back our Iraq commitment in part so we can reinforce our efforts in Afghanistan, which would strengthen our ability to track down Osama.

So while John McCain makes tough-sounding promises, it’s Barack Obama who will make the tough decisions and take the tough actions that might actually turn that promise into a reality.

Heading home for the holidays? Dreading the inevitable collision with that Libertarian uncle or redneck cousin where you both unavoidably launch into a heated, and family-alienating political discussion after he/she taunts you with Bush? Well, this year stay cool and stay on-message with these handy talking points on so-called conservative issues:

Fiscal responsibility:
* $1/2 trillion-dollar budget deficit and climbing, of which:
* $300 billion is pure government welfare pork
* $100-200 billion additional pork pending in the Energy and Prescription Drug bills
- Remind him/her that Clinton balanced the budget

Small government
* 12.5% growth in Federal Government last year
- Remind him/her that Gore, working for Clinton, trimmed 300K federal jobs and reduced Federal spending 3% (as share of GDP)

Fighting Terrorism
* Where’s Osama?
* Why are the Taliban operating out of Pakistan with impunity?
* Why weren’t the CIA/FBI heads and their staffs sacked?
* What happened to the 9/11 investigation?
* Why does Bush withhold information about possible Saudi complicity in 9/11
* Why is Al Qaeda still blowing things up around the world?

The War in Iraq
* War crimes (on the basis of Geneva Conventions) due to U.S. criminal negligence:
# 1,500 civilians killed in uncontrolled looting following the fall of Baghdad; insufficient forces on the ground
# 12,000 unique, priceless artifacts looted from the Iraqi Art Museum
# 1 million unique, priceless historical documents burned in the Iraqi National Library
# 8kg of uranium missing from looted Tuwaitha reactor; enough for several ‘dirty bombs’
# Thousands of Arabs ‘ethnically cleansed’ from Kurdistan
# Dozens killed in ‘reprisal’ slayings and ethnic civil war
# Destruction of houses, farms and other personal property in punative raids
# Hundreds of Iraqis being held without trial or tribunal
# Occupational Authority making significant changes to Iraqi legal system
# Occupational Authority making long term committments of Iraqi resources
*War botched:
# Where’s Hussein?
# Where are the WMD?
# 294 casualties since war ‘ended’
# Soldiers suffering dozens of daily guerilla attacks, the pace is increasing
# Guerillas have easy access to Hussein’s old arsenal
# Large political bloc militias still run free and armed
# No credible Coalition Government has been set up
# Strong-arm tactics appear to be further alienating the civilians
- Remind him/her that Clinton won the war against Serbia without a single U.S. soldier lost

Civil Liberties
* Patriot Act ‘sneak and peak’ provisions clearly unconstitutional
* DeLay used Homeland Security to spy on the movements Texas state legislators
* Why do Bush and war opponents end up on ‘no-fly’ lists?
* The FBI is spying on anti-war protestors
*The Secret Service is selectively enforcing ‘free speech areas’ – America is a free speech area!

I’m under no illusion that I can convince any of my reactionary relations to budge from their simplistic world-view, and I won’t try to persuade you that you will have any better luck. We can, however, potentially discourage them from contributing to Bush Co., and maybe, if they are lazy as well as misguided, discourage them from casting a vote next year. BTW, South Knox Bubba has a more comprehensive list of more general Bush failings that might be useful in political discussions with your non-rabid relations.