Meanwhile in Iraq

In the highest one-day toll since the American invasion, more than 800 people died this morning after rumors of a suicide bomber led to a stampede in a vast procession of Shiite pilgrims as they crossed a bridge on their way to a shrine in northern Baghdad.

Most of the dead were crushed or suffocated, witnesses said, but many also fell or jumped into the Tigris River after the panicking crowd broke through the bridge’s railings.

NYTimes.com

Death. Death everywhere. So much death. When is it going to stop?

 

Somebody Wake the Dead

georgia10 managed to make this stoic latino cry:

There is something about watching a drenched woman guide her husband’s corpse downriver that makes you realize that what’s going on in your life, well, it really pales in comparison.

I come back briefly because, like all of you, my eyes still can’t believe the videos I see, and my ears still can’t believe what I’ve been hearing. Specifically, I can’t stomach the actions of this President. I’ve read RenaRF’s diary, and she says it so eloquently. I’ll be more blunt. The President fucked up. This is My Pet Goat II.

Over the next few weeks, we will see a devastation none of us has ever witnessed in our lifetime. The devastation will look like a thousand Ground Zeroes. When the waters recede, bodies and broken lives will litter the streets. Thousands will be found dead, either crouched in attics or parched dry in the debris. And thousands more will be affected by disease, hunger, poverty.

As one official said, this is our tsunami. I would add it is our Darfur. It is another instance of acting too late, of not appreciating the gravity of the situation. While the President continued with his schedule these past couple days, declaring that he and Laura were having a “fabulous” time, Americans gasped for their last breaths as the water overtook them. They clung to trees. They grasped at debris. They swam with alligators in their streets. They watched as the water inched up their necks and listened as it filled their ears. Fabulous, indeed.

[snip]

But those who are victims of this distaster will know one thing. That, as Commander-in-Chief, he has failed them. That, as the Homeland Security President, he abandoned their homeland when it was the least secure, when they were most in need of immediate assistance. That, at a time when their lives were threatened by real terror, the President acted liked he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

So somebody wake the dead. Someone whisper into their water-clogged ears that we are a nation defenseless, unprepared. Someone make sure their eyes are closed so they don’t have to see the bumbling, clueless officials act like they know what they’re doing. Someone tell them that Mother Nature took their lives, but this administration didn’t put up a fight. Because there are more important things in life than mobilizing your military to defend the defenseless. There are more important things then making sure every helicopter is in flight, that every boat is in the water, that every hand reaching up for help will not clasp empty air. There are more important things to be done during those critical 72 hours. Like playing guitar, or laughing it up, and pretending to be President.

Read the whole thing….

 

The nightmare is just starting…

…so sayeth the Rude Pundit.

The Rude Pundit never lived there, but he knows a lot of people in that damn town, and he knows they got out. But he’s also pretty damn sure that their homes are wrecks or are gone. He’s pretty sure that alligators are swimming in the streets of the subdivisions (and that ain’t hyperbole – there’s a lot of friggin’ alligators there), that a plague of snakes has come out of its isolation in the dessicated swamps. But its the water, the omnipresent water, that we would shake our heads about whenever a hurricane came near.

And as the levees break or are topped in New Orleans, bringing god knows what else to the city, there will be time to rake over the coals those responsible for the callous disregard of environmental degradation, those who neglected to understand that “homeland security” means making sure that people in the homeland are secure. For now, gird yer loins. The nightmare’s just starting.

 

"Bitch in the Ditch"

That’s what the supporters of George W. Bush are calling Cindy Sheehan. Tell me, my Republican friends, do you agree with your brethren?

I am disgusted, when are you going to speak out against this type of shit; and they call liberals unAmerican. Fuck that.
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Failed Leadership

Think Progress shows us pictoral proof of George W. Bush’s failed leadership. Yesterday, while Americans were undergoing a tragedy, he was golfing at a resort in El Mirage, Arizona. He disgusts me.

What Bush saw: At El Pueblo Mirage, the waterfront brushes up against the 12th hole

What Bush missed: In New Orleans, the waterfront brushes up against the front door

There are more pictures at the link.

 

Taking the Reins

I’m hosting the Froggy Bottom Cafe every Tuesday at Booman Tribune, come check us out. I hear an elected official is going to announce his/her candidacy for the Philly area sometime today in our virtual coffee-house. What a cool evolution of online activism. No filters, no middle-men. Just the people and their prospective elected officials.

[Update] I also posted links to the American Red Cross Online Donation Page via the cafe diary. Please consider making a contribution to help them deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The scene in New Orleans is getting exponentially worse today.

 

Impeach and Indict

The L.A. Times has a great round-up of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson scandal:

Underestimating the impact of Wilson’s allegations was one in a series of misjudgments by White House officials.

In the days that followed, they would cast doubt on Wilson’s CIA mission to Africa by suggesting to reporters that his wife was responsible for his trip. In the process, her identity as a covert CIA agent was divulged — possibly illegally.

For the last 20 months, a tough-minded special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has been looking into how the media learned that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative.

Top administration officials, along with several influential journalists, have been questioned by prosecutors.

Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against political opponents and the justification it used for going to war.

Raises questions? I’m sick of the media still holding back their fire from these criminals. The fact is the White House LIED to the American people, are still smearing anyone who tries to expose those LIES, and are directly responsible for the death and destruction that has been unleashed. They deserve to be impeached and indicted–every one of them.

 

Big Red Strikes Again

She has been on a roll since she returned from her hiatus:

For political reasons, the president has a history of silence on America’s war dead. But he finally mentioned them on Monday because it became politically useful to use them as a rationale for war – now that all the other rationales have gone up in smoke.

“We owe them something,” he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion). “We will finish the task that they gave their lives for.”

What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.

Perhaps W. just takes his moral cues from his “Christian” Right leadership team.

 

Trigger-happy Cowboy

For those of you who think I’m over-reacting when I say that George is a trigger-happy cowboy; take a look at his statements made on international television:

President Bush said on Israeli television he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear programme.

“All options are on the table,” Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said in the interview broadcast on Saturday.

Asked if that included the use of force, Bush replied: “As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we’ve used force in the recent past to secure our country.”

And the drums of war continue to echo across the land…

 

Presidential Perspective

Steve Clemons does a side-by-side between Georgie and those whose shoes he will never be able to fill:

It’s hard to know, but I think that Harry Truman would have met Cindy Sheehan. I think that Dwight Eisenhower would have. He knew about military sacrifice — the horror and complexity of it. [snip]

Ronald Reagan would have stopped his car, if for no other reason that to hold Cindy Sheehan for a few moments, to express the regrets of a nation that her son was lost, and to thank her — even though he might not have made her and many of us believers in this war.

Bill Clinton would have had Cindy in to the ranch and made a summit of it.

George Bush drove by. . .on the way to a fundraiser. Shameful.

He should have stopped, made a gesture — even if she stood on the opposite side of his policies.

He-whom-shall-not-admit-a-mistake is unfit to lead our great country. He is a disgrace.