Clipmarks | BobbyRutan's 'war' clips

McCain "Death of Iraqis due to war? In the Hundreds of Thousands"

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:16:11 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Either McCain has no clue what he's talking about. Which is a very distinct possibility if anyone's been following his gaffes on what's actually taking place in the Mid-East ...... or ......

much of what the lunatic rightwing holds onto, as ridiculously low numbers of Iraqi deaths due to Bush's reckless war based on lies, is propaganda

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

During the last two minutes or so of his interview with David Letterman Tuesday night, John McCain got asked some tough questions, including one about the grotesque number of Iraqis killed or displaced because of ~~his~~ Bush’s War.

Letterman: 4,000 American men and women soldiers dead since we went into Iraq. Another 30,000 wounded. Untold Iraqis dead. We rarely hear that number. What would that number be? A quarter of a million? Half a million?

McCain: It’s hard to make these estimates, but it’s in the hundreds of thousands, obviously.

Estimating the number of Iraqi casualties, as horrific as that sounds, is extremely difficult to pinpoint given the chaotic nature of the country. The Iraq Body Count website puts the number at anywhere between 82,625 and 90,149. Other estimates, including one conducted by prestigious medical journal The Lancet in 2006, puts the number at around 600,000. Still others estimate as high as 1,194,935.

And of course we can’t discount the 2 million refugees.

Tags: mccain, fool? or exposing rightwing lies?

Ex-Governor Cuomo - Hillary supported illegal war

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:08:12 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Re-emphasis:

The Iraq War, for example, is ``illegal,''

``The law is that the Congress has to declare war. It didn't in Vietnam and it didn't here,'' he said.

Clip Source: www.bloomberg.com

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo said the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could be ``ruinous'' for the Democratic Party if the contest isn't resolved before the August nominating convention.

Candidates should be grilled on their Iraq war positions and how they would improve the economy, said Cuomo, 75.

The Iraq War, for example, is ``illegal,'' and candidates should be questioned on it in depth as a measure of whether they're ready to be commander-in-chief, Cuomo said.

``The law is that the Congress has to declare war. It didn't in Vietnam and it didn't here,'' he said.

``It's relevant because the next president might feel like starting a war against Iran,'' Cuomo said.

Cuomo said he disagreed with former New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro's comment that if Obama were white he wouldn't be a serious candidate.

Tags: hillary wrong on iraq, ferraro wrong on racial remarks

John McCain's #1 Billboard Hit "Bomb Iran", free download

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:45:23 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: If you loved Iraq, you will love Iran.

Vote War. Vote McCain.

Clip Source: mccainsings.com

[Video]

He has served his country in the military, the Congress, and the Senate. Now he serves America in song.

DOWNLOAD THE SONG FOR FREE!

Tags: war is a many spendered thing, i love the smell of napalm in the morning

Oklahoma Republican admits, "Iraq Probably a Mistake"

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:24:30 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Coburn at one point in the campaign reportedly said the war in Iraq was "absolutely not" a mistake.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a vocal defender of the war, came to Tulsa to cam paign and raise money for Coburn.

During that visit, Cheney criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for flip-flopping on the war by voting in the Senate to go to war but voting against adequate funding for the troops.

Still, his comments at the town hall meeting may be the first time he has ever suggested the war was a mistake.

Coburn's comment came less than a week after he returned from his second trip to Iraq since entering the Senate.

Clip Source: www.tulsaworld.com

Coburn declines to elaborate on Iraq War statement

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's comment that going to war in Iraq was "probably a mistake" represents a significant departure from where the Oklahoma Republican started out on the 5-year-old conflict.

Coburn's comment came at the beginning of remarks at a weekend town hall meeting in Muskogee

"I will tell you personally that I think it was probably a mistake going to Iraq,"

MUM

Tom Coburn: No comment on earlier “probably a mistake” remark.

What was unclear was when exactly Coburn changed his position on the controversial war, what led to that change and why he chose to reveal it at a town hall meeting back in the state as opposed to in front of a wider audience.

Coburn, who previously served six years in the U.S. House, ran for the Senate in 2004.

During both the primary and the general election campaigns that year, he repeatedly expressed support for President Bush's decision to take the country to war

in Iraq.

Tags: repbulican flip-floppers, the most heinous type of flip flopper

GOP Senator Chafee: New Book is tough on Pro-War Democrats, Bush, and Republicans

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:23:31 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The most startling revelation: Chafee must be the only senator in U.S. political history who says his defeat was the result of voters acting logically.

“The system works best when power remains in the hands of the voters,” writes Chafee. “I was a casualty of the system working in 2006, and while defeat is never easy, I give the voters credit: They made the connection between electing even popular Republicans at the cost of leaving the Senate in the hands of a leadership they had learned to mistrust.”

“I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president,” writes Chafee.

“They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”

Clip Source: www.projo.com

Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s new political memoir is remarkable for its candor, its delicious window into life in America’s most exclusive club, and its condemnation of President Bush and the combination of right-wing Republicans and Democratic enablers who plunged the nation into an ill-fated war without end in Iraq

The book, titled Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, is due in bookstores April 1

The book excoriates Mr. Bush and his GOP allies who repeatedly fanned such wedge issues as changing the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, abortion and flag-burning

he saves some of his harshest words for Democrats who paved the way for Mr. Bush to use the U.S. military to invade Iraq. That includes New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom Chafee says put her presidential ambitions above standing up to Mr. Bush and the rush to war in Iraq

Being wrong about sending Americans to kill and be killed

is not like making a punctuation mistake in a highway bill

Tags: shirking constitutional duty

Romney's: 5 Strapping Sons - None in Iraq! Hypocrisy

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:14:39 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Of more interest to his combat readiness, David was arrested in April of 2007 for trying to board a plane in Little Rock with a loaded Glock pistol in his carry on bag. So we know that the boy can shoot. Why isn't he on the front lines of the war his father so ardently supports in the name of Christ?

(By the way, the reaction of Dad Huckabee to David's gun arrest is notable. "It's one of those stupid things," Mike Huckabee said. "He knows better." Ah, yes, nothing like a forgiving preacher. Do you feel safer now knowing that a gun toting animal abuser's father might be president? Clear the squirrels from the White House lawn now.)

Huckabee says the war in Iraq is part of a "World War III' against Islamic fascism

Clip Source: www.buzzflash.com

Here is Mitt Romney's position on the Iraq War from the Pew (Charitable Trusts) Forum on Religion and Politics:

Romney supports President Bush's policy in Iraq, including his January 2007 decision to increase the number of troops in Iraq. He has criticized the planning and management of the Iraq conflict, but says keeping the U.S. in Iraq is the best option for minimizing casualties, securing the country and maintaining a democratic government there

Romney is a steadfast supporter of Bush and the war in Iraq, but the closest his five army ready boys have come to armed conflict are fraternity food fights:

Of course, there is the unflappable, smooth-as-a-lambskin-Bible-cover Mike Huckabee. He has two military ready sons, John Mark and David, neither of whom has served in the armed forces.

David, seen below, has become notorious for hanging a dog while serving as a Boy Scout counselor in 1998:

Not ONE Member of the Bush Extended Family Has Served in Iraq! Not One! Take a Look":

Tags: republican chickenhawks, using the rural and the poor to fight their wars

Britain Drops Label "War on Terror"

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:45:57 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: And to think that those of us who suggested that describing this ideological battle as a war only aided fanatics were labeled as unpatriotic traitors. What a deference 6 years makes.

Clip Source: www.military.com

The words "war on terror" will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country's chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched.

Officials were concerned it could act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, which is determined to manufacture a battle between Islam and the West.

The term "Islamic terrorist" will also no longer be used. Officials believe it is unhelpful because it appears to directly link the religion to terrorist atrocities.

Tags: "war on terror" is not a strategy, it is only a political tool

Former CIA: Evidence Abounds for Impeachment of Bush & Cheney

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:59:56 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: The recent report detailing Iran's stopping its nuclear weapons program four years ago, is an example of how the administration knows it can no longer hide such "incontrovertible evidence" from the American people in the fallout from the misinformation they received on the Iraq War, McGovern said. He added that he had almost given up believing their were people still working at the top with a conscious and enough people at the top willing to let analysts do their job and accept independent analysis.

McGovern also addressed the reasoning he believes is behind the threat of war with Iran. He believes Israel thinks they have a pledge from the White House to deal with Iran before Bush leaves office and relayed the story of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked by the Israelis in 1967 and covered up by the U.S. Thirty-four U.S soldiers were killed and about 170 were seriously injured.

"On June 8, 1967 Israel realized it could literally get away with murder," McGovern said.

Clip Source: www.fosters.com

The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library

McGovern, who provided daily briefings for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as other high ranking officials during his 27 year CIA career, said he has witnessed a "prostitution of his profession" as the Bush administration lied to the American people about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

"Don't let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence ... they knew," McGovern said

For the next 40 minutes, he relayed a series of events leading up to 9/11 which illustrate the President's desire to go to war with Iraq well before 9-11, that reliable CIA evidence showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was presented to the administration and the "facts were fixed" in order to legitimize the invasion

Veteran CIA

Tags: to a republican a bj is the only impeachable offen

Myths about Multilingual Societies

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:20:12 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Myth: If everyone agreed to speak only one language, we wouldn't have so much war and interethnic conflict.

Reality: Of course people need a common language to understand one another. But that doesn't require eliminating minority languages; it only requires bilingualism. Switzerland has four official languages and has never had a war. Finland has three (Finnish, Swedish, and Lapp). Hawai'i has had two co-official state languages since 1978 -- English and Hawaiian -- and no civil strife has resulted. On the other hand, much of the conflict in the world has erupted in places where there is only one language. For example, in the U.S.'s own Civil War, both sides spoke English. Khmer-speaking Cambodians under Pol Pot killed millions of other Khmer-speaking Cambodians.

Thus language is not the "glue" that binds us together. What really binds us as a nation is a common belief in freedom, including the freedom to speak any language we please.

Clip Source: ccat.sas.upenn.edu

Myth: It costs taxpayers too much money to provide government services in languages other than English.

Reality: The use of a language other than English can make it easier and more expedient to serve taxpayers. For example, in Arizona recently, a bilingual state employee found it easier, quicker, and less expensive to collect medical malpractice information from claimants who were more comfortable conversing in Spanish. Communicating in a language one is not proficient in takes more time and may result in dangerous miscommunication, especially in life threatening situations

a recent survey found that out of 400,000 documents, only 265 were translated into languages other than English.

For the little that it costs

a great benefit is gained: The right of Americans to communicate with their government and to receive public services that are guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act for all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or national origin.

Tags: why are so many people to lazy to learn another la

GOP Illegal Immigrant Hypocrite/Chickenhawk, Tom Tancredo (also Pres. Candidate barf)

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:42:06 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo "doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor," one of the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. "It's just not right."

Only days before the Post's story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States.

What kind of people actually vote for subhumans like Tancredo?

Clip Source: gophypocrites.com

Recently BuzzFlash wrote on how pro-war zealot Congressman Tom Tancredo was a rabid supporter of the Vietnam War during college, but then claimed that he had a mental illness to avoid being drafted

Cowardice in regards to combat appears to be a common strain among Republicans elected to high office

In fact -- with the exception of John McCain -- GOP Busheviks tend to be macho in support of wars in direct proportion to their fear of fighting in them

the yellow-belly Tancredo is such a hypocrite that he reportedly regularly invites kindred phony war hawks over to his Colorado mansion to watch John Wayne war movies

Tancredo is also a mega-hypocite (in a Mitt Romney sort of way) for employing illegal immigrants to build his mansion's war-film screening room

Since Tancredo is pretty much a one issue guy -- virulently anti-Mexican workers (as in coded racism) -- that is some hypocrisy to have illegal workers renovating your house so you can save a few bucks

Tags: don't do as i do, do as i preach - typical repub

Bush's "Firsthand" Experience With War

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:08:23 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Seems like we are getting a rerun of Ronnie Raygun, at least the reminiscing of their accounts of being involved in warfare.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

President Bush, who claimed earlier this week that he understands the consequences of war "firsthand," shot at insurgents on the streets of Baghdad yesterday

But only in virtual reality

Bush tried his hand at a computer game designed for recovering soldiers during a visit to a private Texas facility for grievously wounded veterans -- a visit that he sandwiched between two big-donor Republican fundraisers

according to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, he "helped to shoot the bad guys" in a Baghdad neighborhood

In an interview on Wednesday with German television networks, Bush asserted: "I've committed our troops into harm's way twice, and it's not a pleasant experience because I understand the consequences firsthand

Bush, of course, has no combat experience

sometimes he gives the impression that he doesn't appreciate how removed he is from the horrors of war, and how different his situation is from those who bear the burden of his decisions

This would appear to be another such example

Tags: lies, damned lies, and damned liars

What can the budget for the Iraq War buy?

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:07:04 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Doesn't clip as well as I hoped so visit the website:

Remarkable, that it is admitted these days (by generals, former administration appointees, and neocon architects of the war) that the war in Iraq is about controlling oil resources, and look what you could do with the money that we've spent on that fiasco.

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road
With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

What can $611 billion buy?

Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Nearly 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard

Clip Source: www.boston.com

A real war on poverty

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Nearly 4,000 Newton North High Schools

Tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts, at $154.6 million, the construction design for the new Newton North High School could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent

Tags: bush, cheney, conservatives, liars, terror, oil, politics of fear

Baghdad Children "armed" to teeth

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:54:28 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Trade Minister Abed Falah al-Sudani considered banning the toys because they look so realistic. However, given the seeming impossibility of the task, he shelved the idea

10-year-old Haider, has another reason to play with his toy gun

"I love it. I like holding it and going outside to kill evildoers. I like to go outside at night like my uncle (a member of the Mahdi Army)," said the boy wearing a ragged T-shirt.

In Sadr City, in the vast ghetto where Sadr is considered a hero and his militia calls the shots, children in their war games reflect the bitter sectarian divides -- one side gets to be Shiite militiamen, the other Sunni insurgents.

In other neighbourhoods, it's police versus "terrorists", or army versus Al-Qaeda, according to local news

Another vendor, Hassan, 27, runs a stall in Bab al-Sharji in the centre of Baghdad. He confirmed that guns are the all-time favourites with children, male or female.

"Children prefer guns to trains, balls or radios," he

Clip Source: afp.google.com

Try as he might, Baghdad businessman Ibrahim Georges can't persuade his 11-year-old daughter Sandy to lay down her arms in favour of something less hostile, such as a doll

She loves her gun," Georges said as Sandy, short-haired and dressed in long trousers and T-shirt, proudly displayed a menacing GC toy automatic rifle that, according to a bold stamp on the side, was made in China

She never plays with dolls," added Georges ruefully

Children's make-believe war games, which often reflect the sectarian conflict raging across Iraq, have alarmed some parents and educators, and the government has expressed concern at the flood of toy weapons on the streets

The only psychological study carried out in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 was on children by the Association of Psychologists of Iraq (API) early last year

the violence was profoundly affecting them

The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the US occupation," said API spokesman Marwan Abdullah

Tags: child psychology, development, iraq, war, environment, bush, conservatives, politics, oil

Laos: U.S. war remains still killing 30 years after Vietnam War

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:50:11 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The State Department has requested $1.4 million to fund efforts to clear unexploded ordnance in Laos in 2008, less than half the amount Washington provided this year. A U.S. diplomat in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, said he was told to expect only $900,000 next year

U.S. B-52 bombers and other warplanes flew more than half a million missions over Laos and dropped between 2 million and 3 million tons of ordnance

Nong lost his 18-year-old wife, Mee, in 1986 when the couple gathered with other villagers around a fire one night to chat about the day's big news, an attack by a wild pig. As they usually did for important gatherings, the women built a fire to warm a pot of rice wine. Problem was, one of the legs in the tripod was an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade, which blew up.

As Nong, 50, recalled the day, several neighbors took seats on logs and stones in his dirt yard to show missing fingers, scarred legs and arms, and talk of the curse all around them.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Unexploded ordnance from U.S. carpet bombings lurk in the ground, killing and wounding people decades after the war's end

While Americans debate whether to keep troops in Iraq, Laos wishes Washington would do more to clean up the mess from its covert conflict in this country, a deadly detritus that has killed 13,000 people since communist guerrillas seized power here in 1975

Paul Watson / Los Angeles Times

VICTIM: Lia sits with his son, To, 7

U.S. warplanes carried out as many as 500 airstrikes a day on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

bitterness of the war lingers for thousands of Laotians living with its lethal legacy

They are suffering from this problem today because of Americans, so they are still angry toward the Americans

massive airstrikes blanketed parts of Laos with cluster bombs

one of every three bomblets failed to explode, and they still litter the Laotian countryside, where they lie camouflaged by decades of leaves, sticks and shifting soil, waiting to injure or kill anyone who happens by

Tags: war, what is it good for?, absolutely nothing

The People vs. The War Profiteers- "Soldier is that guts in your ice?"

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:04:59 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More (8 pages more, read the article): U.S.-military regulations state that once a trailer has been used to store corpses it can never again be loaded with food or drink intended for human consumption

The diseases that may be communicated include aids,hepatitis, tuberculosis, septicemia, meningitis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow.

Bud Conyers next caught sight of trailer R-89, about a month later, packed not with human casualties but with bags of ice—ice that was going into drinks served to American troops.

You could still see a little bit of matter from the bodies, stuff that looked kind of pearly, and blood from the stomachs. It hadn't even been hosed down

Conyers and Logsdon say that R-89 was not the only truck that was loaded with ice after being used as a mortuary.

in 2006 alone, according to Forbes, Halliburton C.E.O. David Lesar collected nearly $30 million in compensation. Halliburton's stock price rose fourfold from $10 to $40.

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on?

The army's Tina Ballard (far left) is sworn in with five contracting executives

Over the past 16 years, Grayson has litigated dozens of cases of contractor fraud.

So help them, God: Anti-fraud crusader Alan Grayson.

in cases that involve the Iraq war, the D.O.J. has taken extraordinary steps to stand in his way. Behind its machinations, he believes, is a scandal of epic proportions—one that may come to haunt the legacy of the Bush administration long after it is gone.

Consider the case of Grayson's client Bud Conyers

Conyers was summoned to fix a broken refrigerated truck

The trailer, unit number R-89, had been lying idle for two weeks, Conyers says, in temperatures that daily reached 120 degrees. "Inside, there were 15 human bodies

The goo started seeping toward us.

Tags: criminals, war profiteers, treason, halliburton, kbr, bush, cheney, war, republicans, conservatives