ED NOTE:
MUSIC WILL BE -Intro/Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
S9/ Eat Static, Crash and Burn
Exeunt/WildChild, Renegade Master
J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire... I’m Mojo...
S. And I’m Sean, it’s Saturday, May 31, and here’s the news for the week gone-by...
J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988 — Now headlines, from Mojohaus:
S. First this morning, from the We-Hate-Being Right-All-The-Time Department, the Coalition of the Willingly Bought seems to continue having trouble finding the dreaded Weapons of Mass Destruction, leading some in military circles to ask “Dude, where’s my WMD?”
J. Next, from the We-Told-You-So desk, it would appear that with the outbreak of rampant freedom and liberty in Iraq, the untidiness is just all too much for our vaunted fighting forces to deal with. The solution? An even bigger troop buildup in Iraq. That’s sure to have the locals singing our praises; foreshadowing Iranian adventurism, perhaps?
S. This week, Dr. Strychnine brings us further approbations of doom regarding his previous warnings on the behavior of some of our brave American warriors, who have - as they say - gone off the reservation. Massacres, tortures and the like are being reported, and the good Doctor lays down the groove of what happens when the responsible parties are not held to account.
J. Then this from the Hey-This-Sounds-Familiar bureau: with the dust settling from the tax cut cluster-fraggle, it would appear that the Emperor’s budget priorities have played out like the Dickensonian nightmare we thought they would -- tax cuts for corporate owned SUVs, no tax cuts for working poor with children.
S. Finally this morning, we give our weekly update on the Presidential Primary season. This week: The Federal Election Commission and John Ashcroft start shilling for the Bush reelection machine by going after North Carolina Sen. John Edwards -- Democrats threaten wholesale layoffs of African-American staffers in order to resemble GOP -- and finally Dennis Kucinich courts the freak vote with promises of legalized medical pot.
So stand by to stand by, while we get ready to kick this pig...
J.It’s been about two weeks since the department of repetitive repetition here at the Mojowire brought you the news that not a scrap of nerve gas, not an ounce of fissile material, not a single weaponized warrior bacteria is being found in the Iraqi desert. The only thing the soldiers have found are some old mobile homes they claim might have been once used for biowar research, but don’t look like they could have even housed a San Bernardino meth lab.
And now this wretched hangover of truth is sinking into the ranks of generals and other professional fighting men who are now questioning why all their prewar doctrine from the oracles of the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency were warning them they would be swimming to Bagdad through a poisonous soup of VX gas and anthrax, while dodging tactical nuk-u-lear weapons falling in sheets as thick as lead.
This has apparently caused a “come to Jesus” moment for the leader of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, Lt. Gen. James Conway who complained bitterly Thursday about his guys schlepping all that protective gear across the hot desert, living in constant fear of WMD attack only to waltz right into the Red Zone with nary an unconventional shot being fired.
From the Washington Post: Speaking in a teleconference call from Baghdad to reporters in Washington, Conway said he "truly thought," based on intelligence he had been given before the war, that chemical weapons had been distributed to Iraqi Republican Guard units whose commanders had authority to fire them. "It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons..." he said.
S. It wouldn’t be nearly as egregious as it is, were it not for some senior administration officials like Vice President “Dick,” May I call you “Dick” Mr. Vice President, Cheney, and their minions in the neocon opinion pages to start whining that Weapons of Mass Destruction really were not the war’s raison d’etre after all... It was almost surreal watching the Veep say with a straight face that “I can’t recall anyone in this administration saying that we would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
That was a lie that could only be told by someone with no sense of reckoning or a belief in the physicial reality of god or judgment in the hereafter. The fact that his nose didn’t rocket out of the end of his grill like a 12 year old boy getting his first peak at a Penthouse, has dire theological implications.
But word around the campfire inside CIA is that the agency’s ombudsman has received three complaints of external pressure to politicize the final work product of the agency and to spin it in favor of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
The complaints specifically state that administration policy wags were applying pressure as late as early 2002 for analysts to come to the polically correct conclusions about Iraqi weapons. This has spurred CIA Director George Tenet to make a rare public comment, saying that the “integrity of our process was maintained throughout...we call it like we see it.”
He seemed to be implying that he had no control over what happened to intel assessments once they left the vaunted halls of Langley, and were swallowed up by the consensus manufacturing appartchik of both the right wing punditocracy and the and the NSC’s gang of vicious thugs bunkered down in Deep 13 at the White House.
It remains to be seen, now that the war has been revealed for the bald-faced lie that it was, whether this Administration will be held accountable, or if they will take responsibility for the young American and Iraqi lives needlessly wasted. Or will they instread run and hide like the punks and sissies we believe them to be...
J. And while we’re on the subject of Things-We-Already-Knew, it would appear that yet again, the masterful military mind of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been shown to be nothing more than a rehashed Tom Clancy Novel, and not even a cool Jack Ryan novel, but one of those surreal “Rainbow 6” Unconventional Forces manly-man novels.
It would appear that Rummy’s intial plan to use a super secret team of crack operative superheroes, who would fly down in their secret space plane, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and use their super-strong-hong-kong-kung-fu-karate-chop action to mete out justice to the dreaded Dr. Hussein and his gang, was alas, formulated without reckoning on how our masked men would administrate the country afterwards.
Okay...so much for the dispassionate sarcasm, truth time-- Rummy’s gang has been proven wrong on nearly every prewar assumption, especially the number of forces it would take on the ground to deal with what many saw as a guaranteed guerilla campaign against American occupation the moment we declared victory over the devil-worshipping Ba’athists.
Which leaves you with disquieting observation: this foreign policy has no windows and no doors, which leaves you this problem, to find a way out...of course there’s always Nixon’s way out...BWWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA....
And while daily protests are growing in anger and size against further American presence in Iraq, we must now start to engage in a massive force buildup just to maintain our position there, and perhaps make good on our sworn oath to the Iraqi people to help them rebuild their country.
Yeah...the locals should just love this, the site of massive C-5 and C-141 cargo planes in a non-stop parade into L. Paul Bremmer International Airport, ferrying a non-stop convoy of American troops and gear into the country. Yeah, they should love that, because you know, we’re already so well liked there, especially among the Shiite population who, by the way, have never believed a single word the Bush Administration has ever uttered on war in Iraq.
S. We suggest you start your office pools now to guess when the President’s flying monkies at the Pentagon are forced to admit that a large force of American troops will be required to keep order and, to engage in the kind of nation building they cracked all over during their campaign, and have reneged on in Afghanistan.
Of course, from our special Conspiracy editors, there are those saying that disorder may be either exaggerated or encouraged by a smaller-than-needed-force. Either way it would grant a nominal justification for a massive troop increase, just in time to strike eastward across the border and into ...wait for it...Iran. For those keeping score at home, it would appear that Iran may be the next host of the Rummy World Tour 2003.
This is becoming more plausible, especially since we are now officially pimping Iran’s own home grown terrorist organization, the People’s Muhajadeen, once a U.S. blacklisted terror organization, now a group of brave freedom fighters, ready to go to bat for their new paymasters.
As a special aside, we here at the Mojowire would like to give a shoutout to those smug punks at Fox News who have been reporting and deciding that every lie spat out by DICK Cheney and Rummy is the word of the Firey Wrathful Space God of the Old Testement. Just say the words guys, one at time, WE WERE WRONG!!!!
J. That’s right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Bagdad by the Bay…take it away S9…
S9 All hands brace for impact! The flight crew has initiated emergency protocols, and the following message may *not* be appropriate for all audiences. Listeners are advised to take psychological defensive measures. This will not be a fuzzy-bunnies-and-rainbows message.
A couple weeks ago, a human rights lawyer in Belgium named Jan Fermon filed a lawsuit in that country against a collection of high-profile Americans, including the head of the U.S. Army Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, alleging war crimes in Iraq. It was one of those ha-ha only serious moments in world events-- nobody was seriously expecting General Franks to show up in a Belgian court ready to deny everything and demand proof, but until the Belgians threw the case over the wall to the American D.O.J. a few days later, the General was a wanted man.
While the case against Tommy Franks is pretty thin-- it relies on the idea that ordering the use of cluster munitions in Iraq was a violation of the Geneva accords-- there are a lot of reasons for patriotic Americans to think about placing some conditions on the morality of our national Support Our Troops doctrine.
Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Bush aren't going to be brought before military tribunals anytime soon, but there are some other ongoing investigations into the actions of players further down in the ranks that Americans ought to care about.
Consider, for example, the story of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Gus Covarrubias, who is under investigation for allegedly executing Iraqi prisoners after a battle in Baghdad on April 8. Apparently, the sergeant bragged about his two cold-blooded murders to a reporter from his hometown newspaper in Las Vegas, NV, and now the Navy is investigating whether he was telling the truth. Of course, if Gunny Covarrubias isn't charged or he beats the rap, then he hopes to join the Las Vegas PD, where he will no doubt continue building his career in the penal sciences begun in Baghdad.
And there are other stories of similar heroism coming out of Iraq. Embedded journalists report witnessing U.S. troops opening fire on unarmed protest marchers in Fallouja on more than one occasion, and there are multiple stories about atrocities committed at military checkpoints in the ongoing siege of Baghdad.
British troops in southern Iraq are on record saying that they find the heavy-handed response of the Americans toward Iraqi civilians to be shocking to the conscience. That ought to be a red flag right there... when the Royal Irish Guard, the guys who cut their teeth pacifying the Irish in Belfast and Derry, are telling you to ease down on the aboes, it might be time to switch to decaf.
And it isn't just Iraq where Americans have been figuring prominently in tales of anti-heroism. The story of the Shebergan massacre in Northern Afghanistan continues to make the rounds. A new documentary film by Jamie Doran is repeating the often heard story of U.S. special forces facilitating the organized massacre of prisoners who surrendered to Gen. Rashid Dostum at the siege of Konduz. Witnesses say that Americans directed thousands of the survivors of the brutal
containerization process in the transit to Shebergan away into the desert and watched impassively as Dostum's forces shot them and buried the bodies. At least-- that's what the witnesses are saying while they yet live. Two of them have died since the film started making the rounds of Europe and Asia.
But the most alarming development continues to be the homicides at the CIA interrogation center for enemy combatants at the Bagram air base in southern Afghanistan. Two men were apparently killed during their interrogation, and a criminal investigation has been underway for six months.
Now let's get one thing straight. I am not running heinous smack against the U.S. military to disparage the honor of our glorious fighting men and women, our veterans or the institutions of our armed forces. I am simply trying to point out some inconvenient reports that should remind us all that idolizing our military can be dangerous.
While it would be nice to believe that none of these stories have even a shred of truth to them, the fact is they are completely consistent with stories of American misconduct in previous wars going back two centuries. If we willfully pretend that nobody in the military today could possibly be guilty of crimes like these, then we are effectively providing a safe environment for the worst kinds of monsters to live free from accountability for their atrocities. And that's just un-American.
If they aren't held up to a reasonable standard of justice for their conduct on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, then how can we expect them to be held to a reasonable standard of justice for their conduct when they leave the military and go to work as counter-terrorism experts at the Department of Homeland Security? At what point does it no longer matter how shocking to the conscience the reported behavior may be, there are just some people-- by the virtue of who they are-- that are above all reproach under the law?
Put simply: do we really honor those who serve our country in the military by letting the occasional monster in the ranks get away unpunished for committing atrocious crimes? If the answer 'Hell No!' doesn't immediately spring to mind, then don't be surprised when I call you out as the Nazi you are. Strychnine *out*
J. And at the risk of inciting a riot on the Mojowire Copydesk, we are trotting out yet another reset: The Tax Cut. In a move that would have shocked a Charles Dickens villain, the adminsitration’s pimps in the House and Senate have passed a tax bill that could have been written by the master of the Dystopian Urban Nightmare himself.
Let’s start with the basics...If you own a company and feel you just don’t cut it with the country club gang in their Jaguar XJs and BMW Z3s, well, go ahead and buy that Cadillac Escalade Land Dominator. You can now write off your Corporate owned SUV on your taxes. But are your coporate and personal taxes a still too high. That’s okay, just take your phat stacks off shore to any Post Office Etc. PO Box in Bermuda and never have to pay an American soldier’s salary ever again.
However, if you’re a family making between $10,500 to $26,600 per year or need Medicare in a rural setting, then back into the salt mines with ye. You have a nation to support. You got no tax breaks in this package. Remember, this was not about payroll taxes, you know that hefty amount taken out of your bi-weekly check for FICA and Social Security. This was an income tax break, which is mostly what the top five percent of the richest people in America pay.
Those hosed by this tax beatdown were the Wall Street Journal’s Lucky Duckies, the working poor, who according to the drug addled cabal at the Journal’s editorial board, don’t shoulder near enough of the nation’s tax burden. And remember, this is the same tax bracket of the majority of our fighting men and women in uniform. They can catch bullets for this gang of dyspeptic vultures, but they can’t get a little tax cut love? How sick is that! Just what color ribbon do we need to be tying around old oak trees to show our solidarity with servicemembers who could qualify for food stamps for Crissakes...
S. And without the gimmicks and fakey “sunset provisions,” this thing actually buys us an $800 billion tax cut with a $350 billion paint job. This is the tax cut you get when Jar Jar Binks is you Senator. You can almost see the Emperor’s lips moving when he speaks.
Remember this every time the GOP starts busting on the precious few Democrats who bring this stuff up, for engaging in Class Warfare, by trying to stir up the natives against their rightful masters. But this bill is nothing but a war on the working poor in this country.
A war on every person who puts on a hardhat, or an apron or a janitor’s uniform. An unremitting financial war of contempt on every person who works for regular wages and tries to make ends meet at the end of each month.
The Bush people were nominally elected by first telling these people that the Clinton Adminsitration had done them wrong, and that he was there to save them from the economic depridations of high national productivity and low unemployment.
But as far as the Bush people are concerned, the working poor and middle class of this country are nothing more than cattle to herded into the food UFOs and trucked to Beta Reticuli to be ground into Soylent Green Alien Chow Burgers, served at the White House as Long Pork to foreign dignitaries who will swear that it tastes just like chicken except for the indisguisable stench of despair.
No, no... that’s just the secret ingredient...
J. First this week in our Presidential Round Up, the American Conservative Union has filed suit with the Federal Election Commission over questionable contributions made to North Carolina Sen. John Edwards by an Arkansas law firm. And now John Ascroft and the Untouchables are on the case... The only problem is that the story died a quick death in the media after the Edwards camp immediately returned the contribution after it was pointed out that it might be in violation of federal law.
But the ACU and their fearless warriors of the Republic, have decided that the evildoer must still be brought to justice.
No no, this is simply a group of dedicated freedom fighters who will never rest until the nation is safe from Democracy. Memo to RNC operatives... when getting others to do your bidding, it’s better if they didn’t have the glaze-eyed prophets of the carribean look. We start looking for the strings.
S. Next, in an attempt to make the Democratic party look more like the GOP and cause further self-destruction of the belt-way gang at the party’s helm, word leaked out that there were going to be wholsale layoffs of African-American staffers.
This caused many party faithful, including the always incindiary Donna Brazile, to spin out publicly. “I'm just outraged," Brazile had told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "They started reading me the names and I said, 'Oh, oh -- they're all black.' I went through the roof."
From the Washington Post, DNC communications strategist Jim Mulhall said yesterday that no decisions on who might be dismissed and when. He called the number of staffers cited in the reports "inaccurate," but declined to estimate how many might lose their jobs or when the party might make its decisions. "It's a work in progress," he said.
The party has steadily cut its staffing since last year, both in reaction to the new rules on "soft money" and in preparation for next year's election. The party expects to be vastly outspent by the Republicans. Memo to the DNC...the reason you are being outspent by Republicans is *not* because you don’t act enough like them.
J. Next, Pot smokers everywhere, cast a bleary eye and all 2.5 seconds of their short-term memory and attention spans at Ohio Sen. Dennis Kucinich who promised that one of his first acts as President would be to legalize medical marijuana.
So...the freak vote is back. I think this calls for a national movement to bring Hunter Thompson out of political retirement. The time is right that he and the posse ride down from the Eastern Slope of the rockies to dispense a little indiscriminate justice on the straights...
But Kucinich? This was somewhat unsuspected. We had generally tagged him as yet another soft-headed establishment guy, certainly not the Pot-Vote, freak constituent guy. But there it is...peace, love and medicinal ganja for all in the Kucinich-nation.
Now if he can only get the stoners to detach from the Nixon-head bongs long enough to stumble down to the polls to vote...
J. So our patriotic thought for the day: Complaining about the rich-poor gap in American means the Terrorists win... or as John Ashcroft says... “It ain’t terror if it’s made in the USA”
S. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, unless, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.
J. This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...
