Asshole Fuckface Roundup #93
Asshole Fuckface Roundup log.
Friday, April 17th, 2009. Have been searching for days. Losing sleep, energy and sexual stamina. Located several candidates. List narrowed. Asshole Fuckfaces selected. Feel dirty. Begged for death to take me. Bore down. Got through it. Will now present AFR. Feels like giving birth.
First up, some amazing Texas style Asshole Fuckfacery.
Texas, I have a quick question: What in the fuck is wrong with you? Do you ever elect governors who are not complete and total idiots? This week, Texas governor Rick Perry decided his state should back out of this whole US of A experiment.
"No longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas."
Weird you didnt do that when Bush was using The Constitution as toilet paper. These people are so transparent and moronic it is amazing. He literally said Texas is under the threat of tyrants. Actually, I think it's under the threat of asshats. I believe we should show Rick what it is like to live under a tyrant. Lets throw Rick in prison, kill his family and burn down his house. Hell, lets use mustard gas and kill his entire hometown. Also, we should build a 100 foot gold statue of Lord Barack Obama in his anus. Or, we could lower taxes for people making under $250,000 a year, because that's what "tyrant Obama" is doing.
Yesterday, he took it even further and hinted at secession.
But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."
While he made that statement, the crowd chanted, "Secede, secede, secede." Yeah, so, thats illegal. But, I would have no problem with Texas going its own way.
Grow up, morons. You look really, really fucking stupid using this kind of language and making these kind of bills. On the other hand, congrats on being so wrapped up in your own party and ideology that you dont see the vast majority of Americans will think you are bat shit crazy. Consider your national career hopes over.
Next up, can Asshole Fuckfaces become worse? Yes, they can.
You may recall two weeks ago, in Asshole Fuckface Roundup #91, when I wrote of the Afghanistan governments new law that legalized the rape of women and girls. This week, those horrible humans took it up a notch. One hundred brave women gathered in Kabul to protest the new rape law this week. Naturally, that didnt go over well with the pro-rape group. (Pro-rape groups tend to be sort of rigid.)
Women's rights activists scheduled a protest today attended by mostly young women. But the group was swamped by counter-protesters -- both men and women -- who shouted down the women's chants.
Some picked up gravel and stones and threw them at the women, while others shouted "Death to the slaves of the Christians!" Female police held hands around the group to create a protective barrier.
So, thats working out well. Obviously, Afghanistan has a super bright future. Thats all I can take away from this incident in which women against being raped were stoned and threatened with death by the pro-rape folks.
Next up, some Congressional Asshole Fuckfacery.
Its really great when a Democrat and a Republican come together to propose something horrible. This week it was revealed perennial Asshole Fuckface Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe have authored the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. Its a really great bill that will allow the federal government to shut down the Internet during times of declared emergency. Taking away peoples best source of information and a main communication tool is always the best way to not cause a panic during an emergency.
The bill's draft states that "the president may order a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic" and would give the government ongoing access to "all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access."
Sounds great. I feel safer already. Also, could you turn off my phones, shut down my television and stop my radio from babbling?
"People say this is a military or intelligence concern," says Rockefeller, "but it is a lot more than that. It suddenly gets into the realm of traffic lights and rail networks and water and electricity."
Hmmm. I guess I was overreacting. Up until you said, traffic lights I thought you were out of your mind. I was actually hoping you guys had some sort of security system set up for the water and electricity stuff, but I guess the idea is to just flip a switch and freak America out, causing riots and madness in the streets. Good call.
Finally, some trees are Asshole Fuckfaces. You read that right.
Not many men have the balls to take on trees for their Asshole Fuckface behavior. Im probably going to get into trouble with the Tree Guild, but I dont give a shit. This is a story people need to know about.
Artyom Sidorkin, a 28-year-old Russian, went to the hospital this week because he was having horrible chest pain and spitting up blood. (Why do I think thats how long most Russians wait to go to the hospital?) Doctors gave Artyom an x-ray and found a tumor in his lungs. Bummer. They quickly scheduled a biopsy. Thats when it turned into an episode of the X-Files.
When they cut the tissue, they were amazed to see green needles in the cut.
I blinked three times, and thought I was seeing things. Then I called the assistant to have a look, says Vladimir Kamashev, doctor at the Udmurtian Cancer Center.
The five-centimeter branch was removed from the patients body.
This is the last fucking thing we need. With all the shit going on in the world, we dont need trees to start growing inside of us -- especially in our lungs.
It is obvious that a five-centimeter branch is too large to be inhaled or swallowed, doctors say. They suggest that the patient might have inhaled a small bud, which then started to grow inside his body.
We are all going to die. Or end up as Ents.
Fuck.
FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper
Barack Obama and the Dirtiest Oil on Earth
President Obama will visit Ottawa on Thursday. On the agenda are talks regarding the tanking economy, Canadas withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011, energy securtiy and Albertas oilsands. You can bet Arctic sovereignty will receive at least passing mention, though how far either Obama or Prime Minister Harper are willing to run with it is another question. No real news, there.
State-side, Obama very recently signed off on an almost $800 billion dollar bailout package, while the Federal government here has been busy dolling out the money from our own $40 billion deficit spending spree.
Bruce Campbell, not the actor of B-movie fame but the director of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-wing think tank, recently released a report condemning the Harper government for piggybacking on the American stimulus package while failing to offer any genuine leadership or initiative to combat the failing economy at home. "Rather than talking about the virtues of free trade with the American president, the Conservative government should be implementing its own 'Buy Canada' policy in order to create jobs here in Canada," Campbell told the CBC.
Indeed, the NDP party was quick to champion a buy Canadian amendment to the federal budget, a suggestion that was dismissed with contempt by the Conservatives and, of course, not included in the final budget. Obama, for his part, told Canadians they shouldnt be too concerned with Buy American provisions when he talked to CBC news on Tuesday, February 17, 2009.
In a conversation with Chris Hedges, political philosopher Sheldon S. Wolin spoke of the many troubles facing the Obama administration in the months to come:
My greatest fear is that the Obama administration will achieve relatively little in terms of structural change They may at best keep the system going. But there is a growing pessimism. Every day we hear how much longer the recession will continue. They are already talking about beyond next year. The economic difficulties are more profound than we had guessed and because of globalization more difficult to deal with. I wish the political establishment, the parties and leadership, would become more aware of the depths of the problem. They cant keep throwing money at this. They have to begin structural changes that involve a very different approach from a market economy. I dont think this will happen.
As if the shitty economy wasnt enough, the unraveling situation in Afghanistan refuses to go away too, and Canada is ready to get the hell out when our commitment ends in 2011. To date, over one hundred Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, and with very little that any politician can show for it. For his part, Obama has angered many of those of the anti-war persuasion by committing to raise troop levels in Afghanistan by over 50% in the coming months, something that amounts to approximately 17,000 troops being sent to the area if the New York Times is to be believed.
With such doom and gloom on all major fronts, it is easy to see how Obama and Harper will be unwilling to talk in depth about the dirty oil problem facing North Americas energy security. Its just too goddamn sticky.
However, the pesky issue that many would rather was swept under the carpet is being thrust into the limelight by affected Micisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations and the environmental group Forest Ethics, who placed a full page advertisement in USA Today urging the President to consider the implications of using the diritiest oil on Earth.
Alberta, for their part, denounced the whole ad as nothing but special interest groups raising disproportionately loud voices, citing their recent 20 Year Plan for Greening the Oilsands as proof of their commitment to the sustainability of oil sands development. The 50-page document published by the provincial government, however, offers no insight into how this will be accomplished.
Like a true optimist, Obama told CBCs The National that technology will solve the filthy problems created by stripping the oil out of Albertas bitumen deposits. The issue has long been on the people''s agenda for Obama's trip. As a president who made Change his trademark, pulling America from the teat of cheap oil has got to be among his top priorities. He is undoubtedly going to lean on Canada, in some way, to take one for the team, or so he would have Peter Mansbridge believe.
I have no illusions that the grip Canada or America has on the teat will lessen voluntary any time soon, but better we let up now and save ourselves the trauma of a violent separation later.
Speaking of violent separation, Harper has also said he would not even consider bringing up the case of Omar Khadr with the visiting president. All three opposition parties have publicly called upon the Prime Minister to appeal on behalf of Khadr, who was arrested as a minor in Afghanistan in 2002, and who has been held, since, in Guantanamo Bay. Thats shitty, hey?
So, when Obama and Harper are hanging out Thursday, enjoying Ottawas finest beef on the publics tab, we can all rest assured they will be talking about issues that matter. Our respective media establishments have assured us that it is so, and thus we can go on with our dreary, doom filled day with no fear: Americas president and his semi-elected Canadian counterpart are on the case. Hell, Obamas friends with Spider-Man, right? Shit, no problem! They got this shit on lock-down, right? Right?!?
Dean Jensen lives in Winnipeg, MB, where he writes for The Manitoban.
Afghanistan: Where Do We Go From Here?
There's a few articles floating around this week that don't paint a pretty picture for the ongoing war in Afghanistan, weeks from a new President being sworn in who promised to shift the military's focus away from Iraq and to the war there.
From The Associated Press:
Army Gen. David Petraeus, who became a household name overseeing the war in Iraq, now oversees the older, smaller and less promising fight in Afghanistan as well. He predicted a long war in Afghanistan, without quantifying it.
Petraeus told a Washington audience that a winning strategy in Afghanistan will look different from the one in Iraq. He offered few specifics as the incoming Obama administration assess its options in the 7-year-old Afghanistan war that has gone much worse than anticipated, just as U.S. fortunes have improved in Iraq. He also suggested the United States and its partners may one day have common purpose with Iran, another Afghanistan neighbor, in stabilizing and remaking that country.
Afghanistan is something of a forgotten war, compared to the causalities of the Iraq war, the causalities of Afghanistan have been relatively light, 561 members of the U.S. military have died. Of that number, 408 have been the victims of enemy action. However, over a quarter of all deaths came last year, there were a 151 deaths in 2008, marking the worst year for military deaths in the seven-year conflict.
Even less encouraging is the release of a new independent study showing that the U.S. had "unrealistic goals" in the Afghan conflict.
The United States and its partners have shortchanged Afghanistan by focusing on short-term goals pursued without a cohesive strategy or a clear understanding of the way the poor, decentralized country works, an independent study concludes.
Without editorializing too much its not a major surprise that the Bush administration ran headlong into something without a cohesive plan, an exit strategy, or a well-articulated end goal. The report stresses something most of us have probably not really considered in these terms:
The Bush administration has had all but eight months of its entire tenure to stabilize Afghanistan...
Which doesn't speak volumes for the two-term Bush Administration, and leaves quite a bit for President Obama to clean up.
It isn't just a matter of increasing violence, the tactics of the Taliban are changing as well, according to the Seattle Times:
Taliban fighters increasingly are deploying precision marksmen to fire on U.S. troops at greater distances throughout opium-producing southern Afghanistan, according to the top two commanders for the southern region.
The increased use of marksmen is the latest Taliban shift to asymmetrical warfare and away from confronting U.S. troops in conventional fights, commanders said.
The expanded use of precision marksmen comes as the fighting shifts from eastern Afghanistan to the south, where the Taliban are trying to protect opium production, which is reputed to be its economic base.
The number of coalition troops killed in southern Afghanistan has increased sharply in the past two months.
Tactics are changing on the ground in Afghanistan, Admr. Michael Mullen, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says:
I think the level of violence in 2008 surprised us all. The sophistication of the tactics of the insurgency surprised us all.
None of which bodes particularly well for the incoming Obama Administration, and the ongoing conflict in Gaza isn't helping much either:
Hundreds of people in southern Afghanistan have burned Israeli flags and shouted anti-Israel and anti-American slogans to protest Israel's military action in Gaza, according to eyewitness accounts from a CNN stringer.
According to to the CIA World Fact Book Afghanistan has a population of about 34 million people, so hundreds of them protesting might not sound like a major issue, but if we're being at all realistic, we have to recognize that Israeli's actions and our continued support of them –– right or wrong –– are stoking a fire in the Muslim world and the eventual backlash could be a terrifying sight to see.
Worse still, it's long been a recognized problem that Al-Qaeda members have been slipping across the border into northern Pakistan, retreating to regroup and rearm before returning to Afghanistan to fight American forces. And the situation there has not been improving as Pakistan fires their national security adviser for arguing that Indian and Pakistan should have closer ties and for allegedly being too "pro-American."
Pakistan's decision to fire its national security adviser has exposed cracks within the shaky, civilian government as it faces growing U.S. and Indian pressure to punish the alleged plotters of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
...
Political analyst Talat Masood said Durrani's national security appointment was controversial from the start because some considered him too pro-American — so the government may have been looking for a pretext to get rid of him.
In addition to Gen. Petraeus' comments regarding the ongoing battle he adds:
Petraeus linked Afghanistan's fortunes directly to Pakistan's, where a U.S.-backed civilian government is struggling and the country's ability to control militants along its border with Afghanistan is in doubt.
Tensions have risen considerably between India and Pakistan in the wake of the recent attacks in Mumbai. If conflict comes about, one wonders what effect it could have on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan as the U.S. prepares to step up its efforts there. Pakistan has already moved troops from its Afghan border to its Indian border.
The reported movement of troops toward Pakistan's border with India on Friday raised the threat of war between the two nuclear-armed rivals and will distract Pakistan from fighting Taliban-led militants, security analysts said.
The end result of all this is a more porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, while the population may begin to turn against U.S. forces and the insurgents change tactics to become more effective.
If that were not enough, there's also the big question of where all Afghanistan's heroin is going and how much all this is going to cost.
The future of Afghanistan looks bleak right now, and I offer this as news and not commentary since I have no answers, just a long, ugly list of observations and questions as to where we go from here.
Feel The Pride, America!
The treatment of Omar Khadr is an example of the monsters we have become in our War on Terror. Born in 1988 in Toronto, Khadr was raised by two, insane Muslim parents. They spent every moment preparing him for Jihad, telling him suicide bombers were the bestest of the best.
Omar's father always said he did not want to die in bed. He wanted to be killed. When his children were very young, he told them, "If you love me, pray that I will get martyred." Three times he asked Omar's older brother Abdurahman to become a suicide bomber. It would bring honor to the family, he said. Abdurahman declined. Later, when Ahmed sensed that Abdurahman's faith was weakening, he told him, "If you ever betray Islam, I will be the one to kill you."
Sounds like my old man -- except he made me play baseball.
When Omar was two, the family moved to Pakistan. In 1992, the family moved back to Canada for three years because Dad stepped on a land mine and needed to recover. Shit happens during a Jihad, yo. Omar's father raised money for Al Qaeda and sent Khadr to get formal military training before he was 12. He spent most of his formative years in Al Qaeda camps and even spent time with Osama bin Laden in Jalalabad.
When the US attacked Afghanistan, Omar was fighting with the Taliban. Well, sort of fighting. At 14, his job was to wash clothes and cook for the actual fighters. On July 27, 2002, Khadr was sent to the village of Ab Khail to translate for Taliban fighters at a gathering. American forces arrived and a firefight broke out.
Khadr was captured and charged with throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer. The Pentagon said that Khadr was the only one who could have killed Speer, because he was the only person alive at that point. Of course, the Pentagon was lying.
However, a classified document, inadvertently released to reporters at the military prison by a Pentagon official Monday, provides a different eyewitness account of the events.
A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.
The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.
Khadr was 15 on that day. Check him out in all his glory.
The shooting left him blind in one eye. And Khadrs fucked up life was only about to become a lot worse. Raised by animals, who filled his mind with poison and attempted to turn him into a killing machine, Khadr saw one way out.
"Kill me," he murmured, in fluent English. "Please, just kill me."
No can do. We have to torture you and make you go crazy. Khadr was patched up and sent to Guantanamo for some civilized American treatment.
In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.
How about a little more detail?
Many hours had passed since Omar had been taken from his cell. He urinated on himself and on the floor. The MPs returned, mocked him for a while and then poured pine-oil solvent all over his body. Without altering his chains, they began dragging him by his feet through the mixture of urine and pine oil. Because his body had been so tightened, the new motion racked it. The MPs swung him around and around, the piss and solvent washing up into his face. The idea was to use him as a human mop. When the MPs felt they'd successfully pretended to soak up the liquid with his body, they uncuffed him and carried him back to his cell. He was not allowed a change of clothes for two days.
In 2004, the U.S. called him an enemy combatant in a Summary of Evidence memo that was prepared for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. A judge tossed the case out last year.
A judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruled June 4 that Omar Khadr's case could not go forward because a military tribunal had merely determined he was an "enemy combatant" and because the judge believed he could not make such a determination of "unlawful" status.
The new Court of Military Commission Review has ordered a military judge to reopen the terrorism case against a 20-year-old Canadian accused of killing a U.S. serviceman in Afghanistan, ruling that the judge's decision earlier this year to dismiss the case was in error.
In a 25-page opinion issued last night, a three-member panel of the court decided that judges in military commissions can determine whether terror suspects are "unlawful enemy combatants" and are therefore subject to trial
But just to make sure there are no further problems, Khadr is now an "unprivileged belligerent." Unprivileged belligerents apparently don't have the right to wage war.
I am constantly amazed at our retardation and incredible lack of humanity. I am, however, no longer amazed by our constant defying of our own laws and treaties.
In December 2002, the United States ratified a treaty that establishes 18 as the minimum age for any compulsory recruitment or participation in armed conflict. This treaty "the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Children" obliges governments to assist in the demobilization and rehabilitation of former child soldiers, with a particular responsibility to rehabilitate child soldiers within its jurisdiction.
But hes 20 now, so I wouldnt expect any sympathy from anyone. Hes a product of child abuse, raised by an insane family that tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. He is the reason many countries came together to create child soldier laws. But rather than being civilized, we have gone the other way. We have justified every lie Omars parents ever told him. We have erased any doubt he may have had that America must be destroyed. And we have given up any right to condemn another country when they torture our soldiers during war. We are no different than the supposed enemy we fight.
Omar Khadr will have another hearing next week. Maybe we should ask him if he wants to continue to live like a rat, or if he would rather die. But, then, that would show a glimmer of humanity.
Asshole Fuckface Roundup #30
Asshole Fuckfacery has been around for hundreds of years. The very first Asshole Fuckface was a man named Thug Behram, who was a member of the Indian Thugee Cult during the early 1800s. Thug is considered the most prolific serial killer of all time, having murdered 931 victims with his cult. Most of the victims were travelers and all were strangled with a ceremonial cloth. Eventually, the British came into the picture and Thug was executed. Since Asshole Fuckface was not a catchy name for the punks on London streets, the name Thug was adopted. But make no mistake about it; Thug Behram was the first Asshole Fuckface in history. Since his death, my people have searched the Earth for Asshole Fuckfaces to point at and yell. Today, I scour the weekly news to find the worst of the worst and present them to you to judge and mock. So, put on your body latex, this is going to be ugly.
You really find out whom the Asshole Fuckfaces are when a young actor dies.
Certainly no one can be surprised when Asshole Fuckface Hall of Famers, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, pop up on a roundup. After Health Ledger's death, the fanatical attention whores released a statement that has no comparison in its Asshole Fuckface message.
Are there not enough actual gays to picket? Now you kids actually have to picket actors who just pretended to be gay for a couple of months? I dont want to tell you guys where to focus, but you seem to be a bit off gay hate track.
Sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit
Look, I respect a hateful attack as much as anyone, but this comes across as a bit Mad-Libby. If one is going to use the words slime and vomit, I suggest losing tacky from the same sentence. I dont even know what a tacky bucket is, to be honest. Ive seen slimy buckets, and I can picture a bucket of vomit, but not a tacky bucket. To me, a tacky bucket is bedazzled with a sparkly, gold handle and fake tulips around the edge. Even if the bucket reference was appropriate, for instance, if there were two gays guys fucking in a bucket, and one was offended, it would not be tacky. It would be hideous.
A hideous bucket of slime seasoned with vomit.
But all of that is pointless, because every member of the Westboro Baptist Cult is an Asshole Fuckface. Unfortunately, they arent the only ones.
Fox News anchor John Gibson decided to get in on the act of making fun of Ledgers death. Listen here.
Ha, ha. Hilarious. I havent laughed that hard since I got hit in the head with a pipe and received 10 stitches. Gibsons comedic delivery is impeccable and his wit unparalleled.
Gibber: Youre 28 years old and you're thinking about death?
Lady: Maybe hes a deep thinker.
Gibber: Maybe he was a weirdo!
Weee. How can you not love this guy? Gibson is so deep and thoughtful. People in their 20s should not be thinking about death, no matter what is or has occurred in their life, or if their body is chemically predisposed to depression, or if they are emotionally and physically exhausted, or if their marriage has recently ended. No one in their 20s should be thinking about death. Ever. That is how Asshole Fuckfaces look at the world. Hopefully, The Gibber has to think about death soon.
Next up, it turns out some Asshole Fuckfaces were actually so impressed with the disaster known as the Iraq War, that they want to take things up a notch.
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new NATO by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Oh, good. A pre-emptive nuclear attack would really improve the current state of the world. I dont see how this plan could go wrong. Imagine how great it would have been if we had just nuked Iraq, instead of invading and occupying. That way, there would never have been a lack of proof of WMDs, because the entire country would be a smoldering ruin. We would have actually attacked Iraq for a reason! Its a win-win!
The Asshole Fuckfaces who have come up with this beautiful strategy are former armed force chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands. And they are really, really smart.
A "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
Indeed. As a matter of fact, we should drop a nuke on any country that has a nuclear weapon, because if we dont someone might use a nuclear weapon. Im joking, of course, but they are not.
The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Ugh. Sometimes I think were all going to be Asshole Fuckfaced. NATO will discuss the proposal at a summit in April. Hopefully they are not as retarded as those five idiots.
Next up, our new Asshole Fuckface friends in Afghanistan.
Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who I will henceforth call The Kaamer, made the horrible mistake of downloading an article from the Internet about womens rights and Islam. The article questioned why men can have four wives, but women cant. He then passed the article out to his fellow journalism students at Balkh University. He may as well have stuck in ice pick into Allahs back.
An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam.
The trial was held in secret and The Kaamers family did not even know it was underway, until the verdict was released. The Kaamer also made a tragic error of acting as his own attorney, which is amazing, considering how many times a day Law & Order runs. All he had to do was watch a couple of episodes and he'd know you should never defend yourself. The case now will be heard by two appeals courts.
Finally, sometimes a news story comes along that details how fucking Asshole Fuckfacery Americans can be.
A few women in Springfield, Missouri stepped into the Asshole Fuckface hall of fame this week, when they got tattoos from a door-to-door tattoo salesman. Holy fucking shit. How stupid can Americans get?
Friday night, a man knocked on doors holding a tattoo gun and offering his services. Tamra Eason described the tool as homemade, but still agreed to pay for a tattoo. So did two other women in her apartment complex.
Why wouldnt you? Clearly, its a great deal and think of all the money you can save!
"It was wrapped with black tape, had a pin underneath it, had fishing wire going through it, you could tell it was a homemade gun," Eason said.
What a great time to stop and say, Hey, Im going to pass. I mean, black tape and a fishing line, what could possibly go wrong?
The next day, Linda Falls passed out and had to be hospitalized.
All the women have an infection in the tattoo area and have been told to get tested for HIV and hepatitis.
Oh, right. HIV. I aint thought bout no AIDS when the fellas stickin that dirty needle in me fat.
The health department said it's always worth the extra money to get a tattoo from a licensed professional with the right equipment and sterilization procedures.
Really? That is something we actually have to be told? Because I would have thought when a random guy showed up with a homemade tattoo gun, any human would immediately think bad idea. Apparently, I was wrong. It really opens up a future for entrepreneurs.
Do yall need a mole removed?
Howdy, Ima here to offer a face lift.
Yous interested in a homey lipo?
Good day, maam. Im Mr. Pussy fixer. Is offerin the latest in door-to-door varginal rejuvenation.
But the ladies just wanted something sexy for their bodies.
"We just wanted tattoos, and now we're paying for it," Eason said.
No, youre paying for being a retarded Asshole Fuckface.
Congrats to this week's Asshole Fuckfaces! You all get to watch a sketch from a Fox pilot FearTheReaper wrote on this summer.
Screw Poland; Don't Forget Afghanistan
Remember how we were going to war in Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden, to overturn the Taliban, and to ensure women's rights?
Well, bin Laden's still free, the Taliban are still around, and women's rights in Afghanistan are pretty much as shitty as they ever were. For instance, Afghanistan has the second highest rate of death in childbirth in the world (first is Sierra Leone, which is still recovering from ten years of civil war).
Most of these deaths are preventable, the product of unsanitary conditions, poorly maintained roads, limited access to health care, forced marriages, lack of education, poor nutrition and sanitation, and a fundamentalist religious regime that, even in the post-Taliban era, prohibits women from seeing a male doctor or health care practitioner and limits them largely to the home.
....
But the tide may be turning. In 2005, Afghan midwives banded together to form the Afghan Midwives Association; by 2006, the organization had been admitted to the International Confederation of Midwives, and had helped to triple the number of trained midwives in Afghanistan.
Training midwives is one of the top priorities of the World Health Organization right now. But of course, the Bush administration has been holding WHO funding hostage for years now because of right-wing anti-abortion assholes--and the U.S. is the biggest contributor to the WHO, so our assholery makes a real difference.
When George Bush took office in January 2001, he reinstated the Mexico City Policy, also called the global gag rule, which prohibits U.S. aid to foreign nongovernmental organizations that provide any abortion-related information or services, even if those services are funded with other money.
"Local NGOs have lost crucial money, technical assistance and access to contraceptive supplies as a result," said Wendy Turnbull, a policy and research associate with the Washington-based Population Action International.
At WHO, the United States has also delayed the approval of lists of essential medicines because some of the medicines could be used to induce abortion. These lists serve as guidelines for what drugs countries should have available for their populations.
....
U.S. interference with WHO came under scrutiny in January 2006 when the organization's top official in Thailand, Dr. William Aldis, was demoted after arguing in an editorial that a U.S.-Thai free trade agreement would undermine Thai access to cheap AIDS drugs.
Each year since 2001, the White House has requested higher levels of bilateral aid for HIV-AIDS while seeking to cut funding for maternal and child health. The fiscal 2008 budget request submitted to Congress by the White House on Feb. 5 proposes $5.4 billion for HIV-AIDS and $345.6 million for maternal and child health. The White House is also asking for a 25 percent funding cut for family planning programs.
So much for our commitment to Afghan women. Luckily, along with the Afghan Midwives Association, there are a few other international or private organizations that have stepped up: Johns Hopkins for one, Sweden for another, and International Midwife Assistance for a third. And of course the Afghan Women's Mission, which seems to be closely allied with RAWA (The Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan), which was around long before Laura Bush had ever heard of Afghanistan, and will doubtless be around long after her husband's reign is only a bad memory.
The situation of Afghan women wlll be a central concern at the upcoming international conference Women Deliver in London.
Even money says it won't get covered in the mainstream U.S. media.
Bitch_PhD is tempted to go, even though the conference falls on her kid's birthday. Hmmm.
Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.
Don't Believe the Hype
As I implied in the the tagline to a recent post, y'all know that Cheney's pushing to get us in a war with Iran now.
Or maybe you don't--because the story ISN'T IN ANY OF THE BIG AMERICAN NEWS ORGANS. According to the Guardian, though,
Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
I guaran-fucking-tee that there will be a lot more "news" about how awful women's rights are in Iran, as the pro-Iran-war propaganda mill gets going. Care about the issue, but don't buy the bullshit: women's rights in Iraq are worse now than they were before we decided to "help the Iraqi people" by replacing a stable totalitarian dictatorship with utter chaos, and while some things have improved in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan?), the overall picture is grim, not least because chaos and insecurity affect women--who after all, have children to worry about and don't have guns--more than men. (If you truly give a shit about the status of women in Afghanistan, start here and then bookmark RAWA, who was working for change before we knew Afghanistan existed and is still doing so now that we've almost forgotten again.)
Not to mention the situation of our own women soldiers in Iraq, many of whom have died in what are apparently listed as "non-hostile" situations--some of which actually mean "of dehydration, because the women were so afraid of being raped by their own fellow soldiers that they didn't drink enough water so that they wouldn't have to go out at night to pee." (Video at the first link in this paragraph includes interviews with women soldiers on this subject.)
Read that again. Women soldiers in Iraq died because they were so afraid of being raped by their comrades-in-arms that they don't drink enough water, so they can avoid having to go to the latrine.
Oh, the Army's got a nice li'l sexual assault prevention and response web site; but of course, commanders can reject reports they decide "aren't credible," and there's not a whole lot in the way of protecting women who report assault by their peers or superiors. Given that the military tried to cover up these deaths, I kinda doubt women soldiers feel like the bosses have their backs.
For all we know, soldiers are still dying because other soldiers will rape them if they have to go pee. It's difficult to find out, because there's no recent news on this issue, which came to light in January, 2006.
So if you hear the powers that be wringing their hands all of a sudden about how awful things are for Iranian women, ask yourself: if they don't care enough about American women in American uniforms to put that shit in the papers, why are they suddenly so agitated about women's rights in Iran?
Bitch_PhD couldn't fit it into the post, but she wants to point out that a report on sexual assault in the military "found that low sociocultural power (i.e., age, education, race/ethnicity, marital status) and low organizational power (i.e., pay grade and years of active duty service) were associated with an increased likelihood of both sexual assault and sexual harassment." Duh.
Iran Should Support The Insurgents
The Bush administration has been saying for quite a while now that Iran has been arming the insurgents in Iraq. The Pentagon went so far as to invite reporters for a little show and tell session during which the military displayed all the Iranian weapons they had confiscated. Last week it was reported that NATO officials caught Iranians shipping explosives to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The coalition analysis says munitions recovered in two Iranian convoys, on April 11 and May 3, had "clear indications that they originated in Iran. Some were identical to Iranian supplied goods previously discovered in Iraq."
"It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.
For a long time Iran and the Taliban were bitter enemies. Now they are working together in a policy shift that the US should know all too well: My enemys enemy is my friend. It is an alliance that does not bode well for the US.
The Taliban receives larger supplies of weapons through profits from opium dealing, officials say, but the Iranian presence could be significant.
"It means the insurgency in Afghanistan is likely to be prolonged," said Jones. "It would be a much more potent force."
Bush and company are demanding Iran mind its business. This is what his lapdog, Joe Lieberman, said this weekend:
"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."
"If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."
The rules? Did you submit the rules of the invasion to your enemy before you went in? I am amused at the arrogance of the Bush administration and its lapdgs that Iran should stay out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Really? Let me give you a scenario and tell me if the US should stay out of it.
Years from now, China has become the worlds super power. The US economy collapsed after being over-stretched militarily and due to massive dept. China has its eyes on Mexicos oil fields, which have been dormant for years due to a lack of funding for its oil infrastructure. China invades Mexico due to some trumped up accusations about Mexico being involved in terrorism. China is also forced to invade Canada due to their massive coal deposits, oh, and also they had something to do with terrorism. So, now, our enemy China has occupying forces in the countries on our north and south border. Do we allow our enemy to do what ever the fuck they want? Do we not do anything while their army completely surrounds us, all the while talking about how we are not following their rules that they set up and that they could bomb us? No, we fuck with them as much as we can. We try to hurt them militarily while avoiding a direct conflict, just as Iran is and should be doing. It is an obvious defensive move.
Iran is apparently our enemy and they have every right to be involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be stupid of them not to be involved. They should be shipping every explosive and weapon they can get their hands on to insurgents in Iraq, as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan. A threatening army now stands on their east and west borders and Iran should defend itself just as America has done by invading the two countries. You cant illegally invade another country, threaten their neighbor, then get all pissy when they get involved in your occupation. Well, you can, but you'd be the Bush administration.
What comes around goes around.
Karzai: How About a Surge in Afghanistan?
George W. Bush's iconoclastic strategy for military success in Iraq (even more of the same!) garnered more than its fair share of media attention over the past month and a half, eventually resulting in the recent deployment of more troops in Iraq and the public realization that "surge" is far more popular as a euphemism for "desperate military escalation" than it ever was as a carbonated beverage. But once again, lost amongst the Iraq shuffle, is poor old Afghanistan, the neglected front in the "war on terror," where "defeated" Talbani fighters are gearing up for a major 2007 offensive. During her trip to Afghanistan to survey the situation there, Nancy Pelosi encountered a startlingly obvious, but hitherto unasked question from beleaguered Afghani president Hamid Karzai: Where is our troop surge?
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives that his security forces need strengthening, as the two discussed possible U.S. troop increases, an Afghan official said.
Karzai stressed his desire for increased training and equipment for Afghanistan's fledgling army and police forces, the Afghan official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information publicly.
[...]
The Pentagon last week said a brigade of U.S. soldiers would stay in Afghanistan four months longer than planned an effective troop increase of 3,200 soldiers. That announcement came only days after a visit here by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Pelosi, meanwhile, has led a drive in Congress against President George W. Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq as part of a new security crackdown in Baghdad.
What's really sad about the situation in Afghanistan is that if Bush had decided to exclusively focus on rebuilding the country there and actually defeating the Taliban (Mullah Omar still remains at large) rather than venturing off into Iraq for no particular reason, he almost certainly would have kept much of the international support for the "war on terror" that the US had after 9/11, his approval rating very likely wouldn't be at its lowest point ever and by all rights the Republicans may very well have kept control of both houses of Congress. Live and learn. Unfortunately the Afghanis cannot afford to be quite so glib about the situation, being the focal point of a wave of Taliban inspired violence threatening the existence of Karzai's shaky government.
And while Iraq, which by all accounts remains a clusterfuck, is getting an additional twenty-one thousand troops, Afghanistan, where they would more likely be happily greeted and are clearly also necessary, is only getting a very slight boost in troop deployment and a minor fraction of the financial support. Seems like a fair enough question, president Karzai. So how about it? Where's the Afghanistan surge?
Canadian Troops Battle Stoner Warfare
The war-torn battlefields of yesteryear are long since forgotten in the ever-progressing evolution in modern warfare. The news brings tales of modern super-weapons, soldier tactics, and the ever-popular WMDs.
Canadian troops, however, are battling a haze of war that has yet to be encountered. In Afghanistan, the Canadian troops are fighting Taliban militants through a forest of 10-foot tall marijuana plants. As a preview of the many Canadian jokes to come, the army has retaliated by attacking with at least one armored car... camouflaged with marijuana plants in hopes of breaking through the Taliban's creative cover.
Now comes the bigger question: What's the obvious method of combating this cover? Yes. Burn Them. Chief of the Canadian Defense Staff, Rick Hillier had this to comment:
We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them,"
Not all hope was lost. A select few of the dry, brown plants along the edges of the forests did successfully incinerate, but a select few of the soldiers that happened to be in the smoke's path reported 'ill effects".
"Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
Muppets The Latest Victims of Terrorism
Those hilarious puppets created by Jim Henson are no longer just being used to entertain children on Sesame Street, the Muppet Show, or the Muppet movies. They are leaving their comfortable Hollywood studios and homes for the dangerous war torn country of Afghanistan. And they are losing legs.
The children in Afghanistan for centuries have been exposed to a very rudimentary type of puppet. They have been used to teach children religious stories, how to count and the alphabet. But they have never seen anything like these hard ass Muppets.
"The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," is a movie that stars a puppet named Chuche Qhalinis. It is being shown in the most remote regions of Afghanistan to children. Children watch shocked as Chuche steps on a land mine and loses a leg. Throughout the movie, Cuche loses an arm and both legs in three separate unfortunate accidents with land mines. Eventually he learns his lesson and stops playing with land mines. The children watching also learn that if they step on a land mine they will lose a fake leg.
The founder of the group explains why they chose to use puppets in the effort to teach children about the dangers of land mines.
"It's hard to get a crowd of children to listen to an adult, but the minute you bring a puppet out, kids just light up," says Johnie McGlade.
After the children light up, you then terrify them with the horrible scene of the puppet having parts blown off. Oh, to be a child again. Unlike real kids who have their arms and legs blown off by land mines, Cuche is granted a wish and gets his limbs back.
Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan!
You can't win a war without a party, right? Apparently that's what Republicans were thinking when they added a provision to a military spending bill that allocated $20 million this year for "commemorations of success in Iraq and Afghanistan" in Washington DC. Maybe they were just a tad premature?
Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nations capital for commemoration of success in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.
Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.
The original legislation empowered the president to designate a day of celebration to commemorate the success of the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
The celebration would honor the soldiers, sailors, air crews and marines who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it would be held in Washington, with the $20 million to cover the costs of military participation.
I'm all for giving members of the military credit where its due, and thanking them for serving. But Mission Accomplished banners and plans for tickertape parades and V-I day celebrations are just another indication that the people at the highest levels of government advocating these military conflicts don't understand them. On the one hand Bush administration officials have made half-hearted attempts to rename the "war on terror" to "The Long War," suggesting at least some understanding that the conflicts the US is currently engaged in will not end quickly, nor will they have neat and clean ends to them by signing a treaty. It's part of the problem of fighting wars that aren't directed against governments or even distinct groups of individuals, but instead loosely affiliated groups with shadowy memberships and overlapping ideologies. These types of groups don't have much in the way of official representation, and without figureheads it's tough for anyone to surrender. Without concrete goals in Iraq or Afghanistan it's also tough to say the mission has been completed.
But for years now Bush and other administration mouthpieces have also been couching the current conflict in terms designed to evoke imagery of the second world war, a conflict with specific goals and a definitive ending. Both types of characterization serve speecific political purposes; using phrases like "The Long War" are supposed to show other politicians that Bush understands the true nature of the war and how it will be prosecuted, while "Mission Accomplished" ceremonies are there to placate the armchair generals who voted Bush into office and make it seem as if everything is OK.
One would hope that there is enough military expertise between the White House, Pentagon and Congress that the people making the calls really do understand the serious problems in Iraq and the nature of the wars we're fighting, but the fact that they've been quietly setting aside money for gaudy victory parties points to a simplistic, childish view of what's been happening, and perhaps why we were so unprepared for what's been going on in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.
Bush Wants Leaders To Stop Quarreling So They Can Kill
President Bush met with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday, hoping to get them to stop bickering so they can kill terrorists together. President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have been verbally sparring for months. This greatly jeopardizes the war on terror because killing terrorists requires that everyone is getting along.
Karzai and Musharraf have been criticizing each other's efforts to fight terrorists along their border. The Afghans claim Pakistan lets the Taliban launch attacks then seek refuge back across the border. Musharraf says he has deployed 80,000 troops along the border. Karzai also alleges Musharraf allows extremism to breed at Islamic schools in Pakistan. Sadly, both seem a long way off from agreeing to kill together.
Both Musharraf and Karzai are Muslims, so they had sat down and shared a meal with a Crusader consisting of soup, sea bass and salad. The meal was an iftar, which is a meal that breaks the daytime fast during Ramadan.
Both leaders appeared very stiff during a brief photo op before lunch. Musharraf was expressionless while Karzai nodded as Bush spoke. Bush told the press that these two men are personal friends of mine, as if anyone gives a shit. Great line if you are introducing them to your frat brothers, but meaningless if you are the President of the US.
The result of their bickering is the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The extremists have regrouped and are launching attacks across the country. The White House has had enough and Bush is drawing the line. The killing starts now.
"The president has made it clear that they've got a shared interest, and the shared interest is combating terrorism," White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters. "He will remind them of the fact, and I think both men understand that."
Hopefully they got the message. Killing people is hard enough without people being mean to each other.
Why Americans Are Ignorant, Vol. 1
The worlds best media is at it again, this time Newsweek takes the lead as most embarrassing news source. Newsweek has a different cover for each region of the world they publish in. Take a look to see if you can find a difference, its pretty subtle.
War With The Taliban Over!
At last the long fought war with the Taliban is over, at least for Pakistan. Taliban militants and the Pakistani government signed a peace deal on Tuesday. As if signing an agreement with an enemy of America was not bad enough, Pakistan decided to rub it in deeper by signing the ceasefire on a soccer field in Miranshah.
The militants agreed to stop attacks in Pakistan and not cross the Afghan border and the Pakistani government agreed to stop air and ground operations and dismantle check posts in the Waziristan region. Prisoners will be released and weapons will be returned in a great fuck you to America.
After the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 many Al Qaeda and Taliban members fled to Waziristan. The Pakistani government then attempted to take control of the tribal run area with little success. The peace agreement also states that tribes will no longer be able to move freely between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Movement of tribal members will be easy to control in the mountainous region. If a tribal member steps across the border their traveling buddy will remind them that it is a big no-no. The tribal/Al Qaeda member will then shrug, wink slyly, shoulder their weapon and head back into Pakistan.
Just fucking kiss already
Totally fucked up update from ABC news:
If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."
Super.
What Is The Point In Having a Country Without Hooch and Whores?
Foreign troops and visitors are ruining Afghanistan, according to religious officials. They have brought in prostitution and alcohol but now the government is fighting back. Afghans are lining up for jobs in a new department of vice. The new department staff will monitor people for "correct" Islamic behavior.
President Karzai is one of the leaders of the new vice movement. According to the Washington Post, Karzai is being pressured by religious groups and is attempting to upstage the Taliban who are still active in the south.
The Taliban used to have a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Discouragement of Vice. It was their brutal branch of government known for whipping women for wearing socks that were not sufficiently opaque, showing skin or for not being accompanied by a close male relative on the streets. They stopped women from educating girls in home-based schools, working, and even begging. They also beat men for trimming their beards.
But government officials insist that any crackdown will not involve beating people or taking away their rights, but would be "educational" in nature. So far the police have destroyed thousands of bottles of alcohol. Under current laws, restaurants may only serve alcohol to foreigners, but not to locals. Police have also detained a number of suspected prostitutes, some of whom were deported back to China.
Recently the government sent 1,200 South Korean Christians back to South Korea, fearing their presence would offend Muslims. In March, a man who converted to Christianity was threatened with the death penalty but was allowed to flee to Italy after international protest. And in May, angry mobs vandalized several Chinese brothels.
More democracy in action.
Deja Vu All Over Again
Afghanistan, the abandoned front in the war on terror. Remember when Afghanistan was our number one enemy, the place where training camps spawned terrorists who hatched a plan to destroy the Pentagon and the World Trade Center? Remember when the war in Afghanistan was over, and we could start focusing on more pressing issues, like Saddam Hussein's imminent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that were threatening mushroom clouds over American cities? Well apparently that all... never happened. That's right, because Donald Rumsfeld has just declared that we will defeat the Taliban....er, again.
The Taliban will be defeated in Afghanistan although cross-border movement of militants is continuing, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.
Rumsfeld also called on Europe to provide a master plan to Afghanistan to help curb its massive drug trade, which has seen heroin flood Europe and Russia.
At a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Rumsfeld said militants dont want to see a country like Afghanistan have a successful democracy. They wont succeed.
Groups of Taliban have infiltrated large parts of the Afghan south and east this year and unleashed their most bloody wave of bombings, ambushes and raids.
The violence, nearly five years after the Taliban were ousted, has taken the government and its Western backers by surprise and raised concern for the NATO peacekeeping mission that is due to take over in the south.
Haven't we been here before? Didn't we already beat the Taliban? One would think that had we not been distracted by Iraq, lost the international goodwill that followed the 9/11 attacks, and made a concerted effort to finish off the Taliban and rebuild Afghanistan in a way that could actually support an economy that didn't involved heroin that this problem might have been avoided in the first place.
Hi, My Names George And Im a Failure
George Bush is nearly halfway through his second term as president of the United States, which makes it a great time to look at all of the foreign policy disasters during his time in office. From Iraq to North Korea it is a cornucopia of failure!
On 9/11 we were attacked and the man we held responsible, Osama Bin Laden still runs free. He releases the occasional audio or videotape to rally the troops. Bush allowed him to escape when he was cornered in the mountains of Afghanistan and last year the CIA broke up the office whose job it was to find Bin Laden.
The insurgency in Afghanistan is growing stronger everyday. From creating a centralized government in this tribal country, to giving women equal rights, to trying to crush the opium trade, nearly every major step the US has made caused anger amongst the population, and especially in those who control the countryside. They, in turn, lend their support to insurgents.
But the Afghanistan debacle is ignored because the situation in Iraq is so much worse. It turns out we were not greeted with flowers as liberators, but with bombs as occupiers. The idea that Iraqi oil would pay for the rebuilding costs was so ignorant it seems the hopeful rambling of a first grader. Going against the wishes of military experts, Bush decided to use to few troops and the results were predictable. And most sadly, the total lack of understanding of the potential for religious and ethnic fighting has led to the inevitable: civil war.
Two of the three countries in the Biblically named Axis of Evil are doing whatever they hell want. Bushs rhetoric on Iran is pushing the country closer to trading their oil in Euros instead of dollars. Such action would be a financial disaster for the US. For all the blustering both Iran and North Korea have made progress in their nuclear ambitions during this presidents watch. The progress is largely due to the administrations refusal to engage in negotiations. North Korea is now testing long-range missiles, while Bush says he wont meet with Kim because Kim would just love that. His reasoning is pathetic and should be reserved fratboy disagreements, not nuclear conflicts between countries.
Israel and Palestine are settling into a nice war, while our president does what? Anybody? Bush says nothing to his buddies the Saudis, as they continue financing Wahhabist terror. Anti-American leftist regimes are popping up all over South America, including one in oil rich Venezuela, who has threatened to stop sending its oil to the US. The leader of China was greeted with a plethora of insults on his first visit to the White House. Cheney took a moment during his visit to Lithuania to talk some hypocritical smack about Putin. Meanwhile, terrorist attacks have increased every year Bush has been in office, going up fourfold in 2005.
Watching this president work his foreign policy magic is like watching a midget attempt the high jump but the results are not as amusing.