MetaFilter posts tagged with iraqwar and politics

Impeachment Day

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:52:05 -0800

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.

muckster — Tue, 29 May 2007 09:10:36 -0800

"Good Riddance Attention Whore" Cindy Sheehan is done protesting. CNN Story [via]

Klingons in the Whitehouse

alms — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:20:09 -0800

There are Klingons in the Whitehouse! Er, make that faux Klingons.

Iraq? Turkey? Ah, who cares, they're all Ay-rabs anyway...

kgasmart — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:54:55 -0800

Baghdad is calm, except it's neither. So this guy Howard Kaloogian is running for Congress in California, and he supports the troops. Thinks they're making all sorts of progress that simply isn't reported by the evil lib'rul mainstream media, so he went to see Baghdad for himself, and posted a picture of a calm Baghdad street - See? No terrorists here! Except that certain sleuthing types found something awfully fishy about that photo...

Prone to Violence

Postroad — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 04:38:15 -0800

Prone to Violence FROM THE French Revolution to contemporary Iraq, the beginning phase of democratization in unsettled circumstances has often spurred a rise in militant nationalism. Democracy means rule by the people, but when territorial control and popular loyalties are in flux, a prior question has to be settled: Which people will form the nation? Nationalist politicians vie for popular support to answer that question in a way that suits their purposes. When groups are at loggerheads and the rules guiding domestic politics are unclear, the answer is more often based on a test of force and political manipulation than on democratic procedures.

Bush and Blair slated by Pinter

Postroad — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 10:40:11 -0800

Bush and Blair slated by Pinter George W Bush and Tony Blair must be held to account for feeding the public "a vast tapestry of lies" about the Iraq war, writer Harold Pinter said. [Postroad: but then, what do artists know about politics?]

Pro-War Protesters?

DougieZero1982 — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:54:14 -0800

Are the counter protests today pro-war or something else? Photos coming into the news wires show a mixture of devout Bush loyalty, people erecting giant Ten Commandments and traitor paranoia... and not to forget.. supporting the troops. So is this just a misfire of people who simply hate protestors or do they believe in something besides waving the flag?

Laying it out on the table.

deusdiabolus — Fri, 27 May 2005 03:47:46 -0800

A new Harper's article by Jeff Sharlet , author of the also-must-read Jesus Plus Nothing. To win a war, you must have an elaborate strategy...

Is Iraq really Cuba?

Elim — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:02:56 -0800

Freedom's Defenders or Politicians' Pawns? No pretense of protecting Americans’ freedom went into the decision to enter into the Spanish-American War. It was out-and-out imperialism and nothing more. Veterans of that war may have helped to liberate Cuba , Guam , Puerto Rico , and the Philippines from Spanish rule; but those same veterans then turned around and rammed the jackboot of the U. S. military into the faces of those they had just liberated. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, who had thought they were being freed only to find out they had merely exchanged one colonial master for another, were killed in their own independence-from-Uncle-Sam movements. When they finally did throw off direct U. S. rule, they were then saddled with dictators of Uncle Sam’s choosing. No credit for the defense of Americans’ freedom can be granted to veterans of this war. Compare to this: Gunning For Saddam We report, you decide indeed...

Canadian Lawyers Charge Bush with Torture

sunexplodes — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 06:45:39 -0800

LAWs instructions for starting criminal procedures against Bush Today in Vancouver, Lawyers Against the War filed torture charges against George W. Bush under the Canadian Criminal Code. The charges were laid by Gail Davidson, co-chair of Lawyers against the War--LAW, under provisions enacted pursuant to the U.N. Torture Convention, ratified by both Canada and the United States. The charges concern the well known abuses of prisoners held by US Armed Forces in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The charges were accepted by the Justice of the Peace and referred for a hearing to decide whether Bush should be required to appear for trial. The Attorney General of Canada's consent is required within eight days for proceedings to continue, and the question of Bush's diplomatic immunity will have to be resolved by the court.

Roadmap for the Prosecution

acrobat — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:29:50 -0800

Terrorising free speech. Al Lorentz is a reserve Non-Commissioned Officer currently serving in Iraq. His blazingly clear, succinct article on Iraq, titled "Why we cannot win", has raged over the wires (also at MeFi) since it was published on LewRockwell.com. Now, the military chain of command is considering charging Al with violation of Article 134 for making a statement with the intent to promote disloyalty or disaffection toward the U.S. by any member of the Armed forces. The military is also considering charging Al with violation of 1344.10, the conduct of partisan political activity, and violation of Standards of Conduct for unauthorized use of Government assets to create and email stories.

BUSH'S FLIP FLOPS

acrobat — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 05:09:23 -0800

Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq: "A flip and a flop and now just a flop." Delightful Moore (to those who like what he does), and a few links to backup his reasoning for those who don't.

Impeach Tony Blair

iffley — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:15:40 -0800

Impeach Tony Blair. Backed by a large dossier, supported by a handful (so far) of UK members of parliament. Summarised by The Spectator.

More Whitewash, Jeeves?

Blue Stone — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 01:57:00 -0800

As the verdict of Butler Report into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, draws near in Britain, a senior intelligence source reveals that MI6 took the "rare step" of withdrawing the intelligence assessment that underpinned the claim that Saddam had continued to produce WMD (an admission that such information was fundamentally unreliable), however Blair did not tell the public "that the evidence of WMD was crumbling beneath him". [Watch the Panorama programme in question here for 7 days from 11-7-2004] The Dossier that Lord Hutton declared was not sexed-up (leading to senior BBC resignations), Dr Brian Jones (former head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Intelligence Staff) says was sexed-up, and details exactly how.

It turns out it wasn't Joe Klein

sixpack — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 09:40:21 -0800

The anonymous author of Imperial Hubris has been revealed.

Powerful anti-war flash animation from the Kucinich campaign

skallas — Mon, 08 Dec 2003 23:51:24 -0800

Powerful anti-war flash animation from the Kucinich campaign. A bit heavy handed, but when dealing with life and death, literally, its best to just come out and say what one thinks.

Making A Killing - The Business of War

y2karl — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 04:50:16 -0800

A Private Army Grows Around the U.S. Mission in Iraq and Around the World As Report Shows Iraq Contractors Politically Active
--see also Making A Killing - The Business of War, and on the inside...

Lies and the Lying Liars That Wage War

Domain Master 666 — Fri, 17 Oct 2003 07:50:25 -0800

"Never before have so many stories been created to sell a war," says Sam Gardiner, author of a new report {.pdf, here's an html cache} that explains how the world was deceived.

Let's fire Rumsfeld!

skallas — Thu, 18 Sep 2003 01:15:59 -0800

Let's fire Rumsfeld! Moveon wants him fired and so does Truemajority. Considering the White House has been looking for a fall guy for Iraq for some time now, can the constituents help Bush decide? I guess we can debate the effectiveness of petitions but photos like these are just impressive.

Saddam's Plan?

owillis — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 20:59:19 -0800

Did America Walk Into A Trap? In stories reported by Newsweek and Fox News it appears possible that the armed resistance now being encountered by US/British forces was part of Saddam Hussein's plan all along. The documents that have been found essentially say that should Baghdad fall, the Baath party loyalists should fade into society and extract vengeance on the occupying soldiers bit by bit. The nightmare scenario before the war was urban combat, Mogadishu style. But now it appears that Hussein may have upped the ante with this "guerrilla-type campaign".

"War Crimes"

homunculus — Sun, 06 Apr 2003 12:43:50 -0800

"War Crimes" is a powerful Flash video about the war. "Doctor Bushlove" is darkly comic. Both are by Eric Blumrich, and are well-crafted but quite graphic. And in the interests of fairness, Blumrich has given equal time to his critics. [Via BuzzFlash.]

Operation: Cover George's butt?

Gilbert — Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:31:22 -0800

Operation: Cover George's butt? As the backpeddling and fingerpointing over "cakewalk" predictions continues, Talking Points Memo notes a recent article in the Charlotte Observer that quotes "senior administration officials" in saying that "dissenting views [about the war plan]' were not fully or energetically communicated to the president.'" Sounds like someones taking out an insurance policy, don't it?

Richard Perle resigns the Defense Policy Board chairmanship.

insomnia_lj — Fri, 28 Mar 2003 08:20:53 -0800

Richard Perle resigns the Defense Policy Board chairmanship. Richard Perle, after being accused of profiteering and conflict of interest, has resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Was this the real reason he resigned, or is the administration distancing itself from Perle due to his claims the Iraqis would be "dancing in the streets" after a US invasion, his links to an advocate for invading Saudi Arabia, or perhaps his call in the British press to get rid of the UN?
Don't start missing him yet, however. Perle will still remain on the Defense Policy board at Donald Rumsfeld's request.

White House Briefing

Pretty_Generic — Fri, 28 Feb 2003 06:58:23 -0800

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, had a difficult end to his press briefing [Real]. Skip forward to 29 minutes.

US Soldiers At Risk from Chem Attacks

owillis — Thu, 20 Feb 2003 11:19:41 -0800

If Saddam Hussein were to use chemical/biological weapons in an Iraq conflict, how safe would soldiers in the field be? The Department of the Defense says "no problem", but some of the men on the ground seem to believe otherwise. The gear the soldiers will use to protect themselves and their water supply appears to be old, prone to failure while the training received in the usage of these tools looks inadequate. It could be the return of "Gulf War Syndrome" (PDF).