...Bush continued to entice Saakashvili with weapons, training, and talk of entry into NATO. Of course the Georgians believed that if they got into a firefight with Russia, the Americans would bail them out... [*]

Especially when you think of the trouble we went to ousting the previous pro-Russian regime in 2003. The image I'm reminded of is this:

If you don't think we do this all the time, remember George's dad with the Kurds in 1991...

... The conflict in South Ossetia is complex and nearly every observer of the situation blames both Georgia and Russia for escalating the long-simmering tensions there. As Ben Smith notes, Barack Obama issued a statement condeming the violence and urging both Georgia and Russia to end the conflict and avoid further escalation. It was similar to the line taken by the Bush administration and virtually all other western nations, all of whom recognize that there's plenty of blame to spread around and little advantage to wade in immediately scoring points against one of the parties to the war.

Not John McCain, however. His statement was frankly confrontational toward Russia, which he blames exclusively for the fighting. McCain also calls for NATO to be inserted into the conflict, though Georgia is not a NATO member. McCain also dusted off his bizarre call for Russia to be kicked out of The G-8. And [his top advisor] Randy Scheunemann immediately tried to politicize the conflict - without however mentioning that he was a lobbyist for Georgia.... [*]

As I have noted before, the Georgian government was bought and paid for by the CIA which installed them in order to have a pipeline for oil - the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline - oil that would otherwise have gone to Russia [*]. When the US supported Kosovan independence this year, as it warned beforehand, Russia amped up its support for separatist Ossetia [*]. Then Georgia decided to invade.

Gotta have that oil!

In a statement John McCain would have appreciated, the US ambassador promised in 2004 to keep American troops in Georgia "forever" [*].

McCain however, either sees the fact that American troops are in the same country that is being attacked as being tantamount to a declaration of war, much like during the Cold War (He should remember though, that we do have bases in more than 150 countries [*], or he is having fit about the poor pipeline.

Or maybe he's under the influence of a paid agent of a foreign government (his advisor).

Whatever the case, his intemperate response bodes poorly for world peace if he is elected.

-- Russia, McCain drinks your milkshake! He drinks it up!

Crap, why don't they suspect me? I can take the heat. BTW my co-conspirator was O.J. Simpson....

Executives at the nation's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, are all-but urging their employees to vote Republican this November, fearing that a Barack Obama presidency combined with Democratic gains in the Senate could spell doom for their anti-union business model.

The Wall Street Journal reports Friday that company executives are forcing store managers and department heads into mandatory meetings where they are warned that Democratic victories would make it easier for unions to organize in their stores....

... While the company insists it is not telling employees how to vote, some who attended scoff at the notion.

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri told the paper. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.... [*]

Hmmm... OK then, I'm not telling you to blow up WalMart stores, but if they are still standing, the money they make will be used to do this kind of thing.

...prosecutor Timothy Stone told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane it would've hit the dome," Stone, a Navy officer, said in his opening remarks, repeating Bin Laden's deputy's claim.... [*]

This was the PROSECUTOR, mind you, not the defense whom you might expect to bring up any claim no matter how implausible. Even though it is hearsay, that's a can of worms not to be opened, I'd think.

So why oh why do so many officials keep alluding to the shoot down, including Rumsfeld and former ambassador Celluci [*]

Just a coincidence I guess. And by the way, don't tell the FAA but for the last 6 1/2 years, I've been periodically trying to get my cell phone to work in flight.... AND IT DOESN'T WORK!!! [*]

So he never paid taxes on his winnings [*].... Either he's never won, or like most rich folks, he feels a little tax cheating is patriotic.

So he cheated on his former wife with his current one and filed for marriage while still hooked up with her [*].... A little adultery and bigamy can be just what the doctor ordered.

None of that is indicative of his character. No, the real problem is that John McCain is not a true conservative ™. That is where character counts....!

.... The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to as, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.” Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and ... it would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if he/she got out of line... [*]

Conflicting reports indicate that the Forest Service apparently fired the bullets when a large number of people responding to a rumor of "fire" rapidly approached a group of officers arresting a woman for drugs. Many of the people were shot in the back by the Forest Service as they turned to head off those still approaching. Contrary to published reports, several witnesses claim that no sticks or rocks were thrown at the Forest Service. The Jackson paper:

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses.

"They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident.

"People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show."... [*]

The confrontation, which occurred just before dinner time at the children's camp followed days of harassment by Forest Service special units, numbering 15-20 armed officers which penetrated deep into the National Forest to give citations for such things as failure to signal and obscured license plates on the single lane dirt roads.

The annual Rainbow Gathering espouses a philosophy of non-violence and ecological awareness, but is seen as drug-using hippies by the Forest Service. The ACLU announced today it is planning an investigation [*].

According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, close to 70 percent say that if the signers of the Declaration of Independence could see America today they would be disappointed, while just under 30 percent say the founding founders would be happy with the country 232 years later.

Americans didn't always feel that way — in 2001, 54 percent thought that the signers would be pleased with the state of the country today; now that figure is down to just 29 percent... [*]

Clearly, they hate America.

photo: www.thewe.cc

Curiously, another failed state also has its independence Day today: Rwanda [*].

photo: www.thewe.cc

(Previously posted 07/4/07)

Meanwhile Tom Tommorrow notes that:

military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class... on a chart that had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners... [*]

I think it is time for Mr McCain to reject and repudiate both Mr Linder and torturers, no?

... former CIA officer Ray McGovern states that he believes "a perfect storm seems to be gathering in late summer or early fall," when the Bush administration and allies in Israel will launch attacks against Iran.

"This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy," writes McGovern. "Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details."... [*]

Well, how about a terror attack? That might work better according to a Fortune magazine interview with McCain strategist Charlie Black:

“Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue” that McCain would also be helped by “another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. ‘Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,’ says Black.”... [*]

So which will it be? I guess we need to see which tests better in Charlie's focus groups.

Case I: Busho Nostra crime family kingmaker Fat Tony Scalia on the 5-4 SCOTUS decision giving constitutional rights to Gitmo "detainees": calling it a

“self-invited incursion into military affairs” that would “almost certainly” kill Americans.... [*]

Well, Tony, La Busho Nostra had the choice in 2001 of defining these fellows as POWs so they could held them till the end of hostilities, but couldn't question them OR defining them as criminal suspects who could be questioned, but who had constitutional rights. In one of their first attempts to redefine reality, they chose none of the above, calling them "illegal combatants", allowing them to have all of the "benefits" and none of the "costs". Only problem was, it was something completely unconstitutional and unprecendented, and certain to be legally challenged. Now like it or lump it.

Meanwhile, Case II: back on the ground in Afghanistan:

Taliban militants staged a brazen bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan late Friday, blowing down the gate and helping hundreds of suspected insurgents flee, officials said. Many police officers were reported killed... Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai who is president of Kandahar's provincial council, said the prison held about 350 suspected Taliban fighters.

He said "all" the prisoners escaped, but also had no specific number. "There is no one left," he said...[*]

Well, that's more terrorists than are left at Guantanamo. Guess La Busho Nostra should have thought of that when they moved all the troops to Iraq.

I couldn't send this to anyone else I know... It's really a disgusting portrayal of war and specifically this war in Iraq. I didn't feel anyone else could read this and not hate me for exposing the horror and grossness of what's been going on. [*]

Meanwhile Canadian Iguana reader Alco 430 sends in this, explaining the conflict between the US and Iraqi governments over 58 permanent bases in the security agreement :

"Do you know what you call a country in that part of the world with no real air force or army?" asks John Pike, a military expert with globalsecurity.org. "You call it a protectorate.

"Americans are the Republican Guard now,"... [*]

As Chalmers Johnson said in the movie "Why We Fight..."

"When war becomes this profitable, you are going to have more of it [*].