The Foundation of Democracy

 This next entry was supposed to delve into the issue of the Keystone pipeline and whether it should or should not be built.  However, another hot-button issue has jumped out into the forefront:  The prevalence of voter suppression bills that have been passed by Republican state legislatures all around the country.  This is a huge issue facing this country and one that should not just offend, but deeply piss off, any person who truly calls himself an American.

The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy.  it is a right that most of us take for granted and one that defines America as a democracy.  It is the standard by which we judge other countries and it is a right guaranteed in the Constitution.

Look at this picture.

These are Iraqi police showing their ink stained fingers - proof that they voted in Iraq's first free election in 2005.  In 2010, despite mortar attacks, bombings and grenades that claimed 36 lives, Iraqis turned out in droves to vote.  This is what democracy is all about.  It was the foundation for George W. Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East.  Remember that? 

And yet, here, in America, the country that gave birth to Democracy, Republican legislatures all across the country have been passing new restrictive voting laws that in the end will suppress the voting rights for millions of Americans - the majority of whom are elderly, poor or minorities. All of whom generally vote Democratic.

The Republican Party.  The party that wraps itself in the American flag.  The party that came up with the Patriot Act.  The party who for generations has claimed the mantle of Protector of America.  I don't have the space here to report on all of the voter suppression efforts but you can click here to read all about them for yourself.  I encourage you to do so. 

I can hardly contain my anger about this subject.  I am pissed.  I mean really really pissed.  There are posting going around now that say "If you have to prevent people from voting, then your ideas suck!".  Funny.  Yes.  True.  Also yes.  But it is so much more than that.  There is something incredibly... profane about denying American citizens their fundamental right to vote.

I am pissed.  You should be too.    

Summer Vacation?

The Iraqi parliament has adjourned for a month long vacation without taking action on any of the benchmarks designed to show political progress.

News item: On Thursday, 8/2, the largest coalition of Sunni Muslim political parties withdrew from the government.

News item: 35 Iraqis were killed in a suicide attact today; 15 of them children.

... and American soldiers fighting to provide safety and security to allow time to achieve a politcal consensus continue to die at the rate of 2 a day.

What is wrong with this picture?

Just plain wrong....

Just because a statement is repeated dozens of times does not make it true. In the run up to the war in Iraq President Bush repeated literally dozens of times statements linking the 9/11 hijackers to Iraq and Saddam Hussein until fully 78% of Americans polled believed there was a link. This despite the total lack of evidence to back this up and the 9/11 Commission verified the non-link in their report covering the attack. And yet here we are, 6 years after 9/11 and a recent Newsweek Poll still shows that:

"Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein's regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right -- and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq." (Emphasis is mine)

How can this be? Why are the American people still so woefully out of touch with the reality of this situation? And there was Bush at yesterday's news conference still defending his failed Iraq policies by saying that the people we are fighting over there are the same people that attacked us on 9/11. NO. This is NOT true. The groups we are fighting are either Sunnis or Shias involved in factional fighting or they are members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq which is loosely affiliated with Al-Qaeda in name only. They are NOT the same people who attacked us on 9/11 and no matter how many times Bush repeats it it will never be true.

Snippets

News Item: 21-year retired Army 1st Sgt. Jerry Massey assigned to train Iraqi Army recruits reports that, "We can't leave here for another five years, minimum." Iraqi Army commander Col. Abbas Fadhil says, "We need time for training.... We need at least seven years. Even better, 50 years."

Five years? Seven? Fifty? Just when will these people step up to defend their country?

News Item: As the surge continues to build, the Iraqi parliament prepares to take a 2 month summer recess. "For the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates also said that he pressed for the recess to be canceled. Sen. John Warner (R-VA) said a two-month recess is "not acceptable."

Maybe they could be encouraged to cancel this insane idea if we link their vacation plans to the new war funding bill; i.e. no parliament, no money.

News Item: "Iraq may demand timetable for U.S. to get out"

Hmmmmm... An interesting thought but will Bush listen to them just because it is their county?