William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

For the past five years, Memorial Day consistently causes many mixed feelings. It is a day to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. And there is no confusion over the fact that the memories of these fallen soldiers are to be honored.

It is our own behavior that Memorial Day shines a light on. And Memorial Day should now be as much a day to apologize as a day to honor. A day for the U.S. citizens, all of us, to apologize for using our military so haphazardly and ineffectively, and treating them with such disrespect. We underfund them, send them into unwinnable situations, and treat the wounded with near malice.

On Memorial Day we honor the fallen. And next year we’ll honor even more that have made the ultimate sacrifice. And we’ll need to apologize again.

Suggested Memorial Day reading:

–WKW

All it will take is one incident. A terrorist attack on a major city. A tornado wiping out some coastline. Just one incident. And we will be living in an entirely different world.

When the documents “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51″ and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20″ were released, it gave President George W. Bush responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government” in the case of catastrophic attack.

“It defines a ‘catastrophic emergency’ as ‘any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function,’ ” wrote Matthew Rothschild for The Progressive.

Among the efforts coordinated by the President would ensuring the capability of the three branches of government to “provide for orderly succession” and “appropriate transition of leadership.”

The document designates a National Continuity Coordinator, who would be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Currently holding that post is Frances Fragos Townsend.

She is required to develop a National Continuity Implementation Plan and submit it within 90 days.

As part of that plan, she is not only to devise procedures for the Executive Branch but also give guidance to “state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure.”

The secretary of Homeland Security is also directed to develop planning guidance for “private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators,” as well as state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.

“I guess the obvious question here is why this directive is necessary if the president doesn’t intend to usurp real power from the other two branches of government, because it certainly sounds like what’s being suggested is a coup that keeps a pretty façade of constitutional government,” wrote Melissa McEwan on the subject.

One incident. Look how the U.S. has changed fundamentally since 9/11. We are a nation that treats the Constitution with scorn, despises rule of law, spies on its citizens, condones torture and denies habeas corpus, among other things.

Our leaders quickly ushered in clamps on civil liberties and geared up the war machine for their own purposes as the dust from 9/11 was still settling. More than five years later, with a failure of historical proportions going on in Iraq, President Bush looked at the American public and again invoked 9/11. And again. And again. After gaining the war funding he wanted from an impotent Congress, the President looked at the nation and told them to be afraid.

And nearly six years after the fact, the Patriot Act still remains. And we’re still being spied on. And they have more plans on deck for the next attack.

Just one incident and it all changes even more. Shout “panic” if you will, but there’s nothing panicky about looking to history as a guide. The U.S. is a fundamentally changed nation since 9/11. And they have plans to change it even more. It will just take one incident.

–WKW

There are still plenty of hardliners left who will tell you — in all seriousness and with a palpable sense of fear — that the U.S. is in a battle for its existence. That the U.S. is fighting a determined enemy that will follow us home if we leave Iraq. And now that President Bush has made it abundantly clear that he will veto any emergency supplemental funding bill for the Iraq occupation that includes any type of wording regarding withdrawal, the time is now.

It’s time to reinstitute the draft. And not just the draft. Because if this is an actual “War of Civilizations” it’s time all Americans joined in the fight.

We need to suspend all sporting events.

We need to sell war bonds and raise taxes.

We need to draft every able bodied American to fight against the enemy.

If Bush is going to veto the bill given to him by the Senate, and he truly believes that the U.S. is fighting for its very existence, then it’s time to implement programs designed for the nation to win.

The war hungry have long been using the insulting refrain that this generation could never deal with what the World War II generation dealt with. But do you think the “Greatest generation” would have sat back and watched the Nazi threat blast through Europe, while having their only responsibility be to shop more? They were asked to make sacrifices, and they did. Thus far, the Bush Administration and its PNAC overlords have refused to ask anything of Americans that aren’t in the military to fight this heinous threat of Islamo-blah-blah.

What could possibly be the reason for that? Well, as Space Cowboy wrote at Shakesville:

“With a draft, there will be simultaneous epiphanies across the land while even (Bill) Kristol might come to admit that the war is lost.”

It’s time someone in Congress introduce a bill for the draft. And that bill had better be embraced by every last member of Congress that voted against the emergency supplemental funding bill.

Because if they are going to continue to use the scare card and endlessly tell us how Islamic fundamentalists want to rule the world and we have to stop them, then it only stands to reason that they’d want every American available to fight against that threat.

So reinstitute the draft.

Or get the fuck out of Iraq.

–WKW

I understand that as I’m getting older, I’m getting more paranoid. But I just can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching me. Just watching over my every move. I just can’t shake it. Somebody’s watching. I can feel it.

Why watch me, I wonder? What’s so interesting about me that requires I be watched? Maybe somebody is watching everybody.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid. How about you? Do you feel like someone is watching?

–WKW

Crossposted at Shakesville

Spending some time looking into what our right-wing brethren have to say, it was amazing to me that as the U.S. cruises through the fifth year of the Glorious Iraqi Occupation, this group has fallen even more and more radically into the abyss of genocidal madness.

The first thing to note is this: that even by reading this You are an enemy of America. Let there be no doubt that the vast majority or writers and readers of TownHall, National Review, the Washington Post Editorial pages, Powerline or about any other Republican-worshipping site consider anyone that disagrees with their philosophy of endless war to be their enemy. And enemies are only good for killing. They despise the majority of Americans and think they are cowardly for not thirsting after a campaign of eternal bloodshed.

Because eternal bloodshed, endless conquests, and non-stop shows of dominance and power is the only answer to them in a world that so obviously terrifies them. Either you endlessly unleash death to all that oppose you, or you surrender the nation to whichever Islamowhatevers come after you. There is no other alternative.

After years of watching everything they’ve want happen, and happen to horrifying results, they are still unable to see the world any differently. In fact, they see things even more clearly now, it seems.

Either you are with us, or you are against us.

What’s even more amazing, is that this fringe group of one-sided thinkers has so captured the mainstream media. From Glenn Greenwald:

This cheap, artificial, mindless Charles Krauthammer/Bill Kristol/Ann Coulter/Dick Cheney chest-beating faux-warrior-against-the-world mentality is now really a distinctly fringe American phenomenon. It does not even exist to any substantial degree in one of America’s closest allies, Britain, the country historically most closely aligned with American political thought.

And yet the crux of our American media is beholden to that group, takes its cues from it, and treats it like it defines the mainstream.

These are people that attack the recently released British Marines for not fighting to the death rather than get captured. And then get Matt Lauer to mimic their talking points.

One look at any of the aforementioned sites shows that they only have passing interest in any other issue whether domestic or foreign, and mainly those interests are inter-related to more war. It is a simplistic view of the both foreign affairs and domestic policy - the economy and all other issues will take care of themselves, provided your nation slaughters and enslaves all that would challenge The State.

Their answer to the horrifying hole the U.S. has dug itself in Iraq: Dig deeper.

Their answer to the killing of Middle Eastern civilians: Kill More.

Their answer to when the Glorious Occupation of Iraq must end: Never.

Rich Lowry sums up the mindset perfectly at the National Review:

It is the Capitulation Caucus.

Its membership consists of most nationally elected Democrats in the United States, much of the American foreign-policy elite, the balance of the U.S. media, most international bureaucrats and nongovernmental organizations, and the European political elite.

They are loosely united around their beliefs that the Iraq War is lost or not worth trying to win, that we have to accommodate ourselves to anti-Western thugs in the Middle East and that the United States today is a reckless, malign influence in the world.

After four-plus years of banging our heads against the wall in Iraq, creating more and more terrorists and setting world opinion against the U.S., they still have absolutely no answer other than to beat our heads against the wall harder and faster. Because in their minds, they’re winning.

They are a fringe group of extremists. And they are the exact same people that are in charge of the United States.

They live in a world sans shades of gray. Existence is black and white. Good versus evil. The U.S. against everyone - forever.

Either … or.

–WKW

Crossposted at Shakesville

Playing a friendly game of cards with a group of Brazilians not long ago, my partner chastised me for not protecting my cards well enough and allowing my opponent to see them. The insinuation being that it was a given my opponents would try to see my cards, and it was my fault, not my opponents lack of card-playing ethics.

My partner’s reasoning was sound for one simple reason - Brazilians are notorious cheaters.

A perfect example of that was displayed in the 2002 World Cup, when Brazil - the eventual champions - was playing a group match against Turkey. Surrendering a corner kick, a player for Turkey booted the ball overly hard at Brazilian striker Rivaldo, hitting him in the thigh.

Rivaldo dramatically fell to the ground clutching his head as if he’d taken a shotgun blast to the face. The Turkish player was expelled.

In Brazil, this type of cheating is to be expected. In a land where 99 percent of those in congress are millionaires - with the vast majority earning their wealth after being elected - doing whatever it takes to succeed is the norm, ethics be damned.

Travel North to the United States in 2007, and it’s no surprise that the man chasing the most cherished record in Major League Baseball - Hank Aaron’s mark of 755 career home runs - is widely regarded as a cheat of proportions rivaling his muscle-bound cranium.

While one must assume innocence until proven guilty, it takes but the slightest bit of common sense to see that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds used illegal drugs in order to advance his baseball career. Evidence both circumstantial and concrete point to Bonds using illegal steroids to bolster his body.

Bonds, of course denies this, however, and will take the field in 2007 with 734 home runs - some 240 of them after the age of 37, and after displaying a completely revamped, muscle-bound body.

Is it any surprise, however, that the outrage over Bonds’ obvious rule breaking has been somewhat muted? In years past, professional athletes have been taken to task for such illegal dalliances. These days, it has become nearly an accepted byproduct of the game, and therefore of society.

Let there be no doubt that this grudging acceptance of cheaters has, like Brazil, come from the top down. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately points out in his Salon article “Lying to Congress has become a Republican principle, literally”, cheating and lying about cheating has become an integral part of the GOP platform, and has been for nearly two eons.

“Illegal behavior — in the form of, among other things, continuous and deliberate deceit of the Congress — is pervasive at the highest levels of the Bush Justice Department and it has plainly become a central part of the Republican ethos,” writes Greenwald.

As much as living in a nation with an out-of-control budget deficit helps create a citizenship of debtors, having the top levels of government so blatantly cheat has helped create a nation of cheaters. Because while trickle-down economics has been a resounding failure, trickle-down dishonesty has taken root, with the sporting world being the perfect example of ethics tossed aside.

Because in the end, this win-at-all-costs, stay-on-top attitude permeates all levels of American society, helping to create citizens who now know that they had better keep their cards well hidden, for fear of who’s peaking.

–WKW

Now that Iran is in full saber-rattling mode and holding British troops it appears that those who predicted a U.S.-Israel attack on Iran by April may well have been correct.

There are, of course, many who will say that Bush is in no position to go to Congress to obtain Congressional authorization, and will need an “event” to undertake a war on Iran, but even that seems fairly unimportant.

Because when all’s said and done, George W. Bush and those like him are trying valiantly to change the U.S., and are succeeding. They despise democracy. They will tell you flat out that the U.S. is the greatest nation in the world, then will decry immigration and homosexuals while spying on their own citizens and discussing reining in free speech. They hate what the U.S. is, and they are working to change it.

So Bush and his PNAC overlords won’t be going to Congress, hat in hand, requesting permission to get us stuck in Iran. They don’t need Congress. Really, do you think this recent talking point by Tony Snow is an accident?

(Congress) does not have constitutional oversight responsibility over the White House, which is why by our reaching out, we’re doing something that we’re not compelled to do by the Constitution, but we think common sense suggests that we ought to get the whole story out, which is what we’re doing.

Now, this may have been spoken in regard to the attorney scandal, but it’s going to go much deeper, And you’ll be hearing it more often, as the Neocon death brigade works overtime to make sure as many Americans as possible believe that the U.S. Congress is impotent and weak, and that the Executive Branch is the only thing that matters.

Is this what the framers of the Constitution believed? No, but they could care less. Bush and the people pulling his strings want to fundamentally change the United States. And they will gladly destroy it, and/or drag the entire world into a Middle Eastern nightmare to do it.

The attack on Iran is coming. There’s no way Bush leaves office without attacking them, and making a final determined effort to obliterate the U.S. Constitution and the American Way once and for all.

–WKW

We’re told anyone can be a success and then watch as a chosen few reap rewards.

We’re told to save for a rainy day as a national debt reaches numbers few can even understand.

We’re told to be humane and then watch as heinous inhumanities are performed in our name.

We’re told we are free and then watch them work to take our freedoms away.

We’re taught to revere those that fight for us and then watch them disrespect our veterans and soldiers.

We’re told our Constitution is one of the great documents in history and then watch many decry it as a nuisance.

We’re told we have privacy even as it becomes crystal clear that they are watching us.

We are taught to be honest while under a deluge of lies.

We are taught to be proud citizens as they show anger that we want to know what they are doing.

We are taught we are the greatest nation on the planet even as the planet looks at us more and more with revulsion.

We are taught to respect the law even though they don’t.

We are American citizens. What is to be expected of us?

–WKW

It’s one thing when political entertaining publicity whore Ann Coulter refers to John Edwards as a “faggot.” Such behavior is expected of someone who views being a political pundit as being equal to being a star on a “Girls Gone Wild” tape.

What hasn’t been expected is how eager many politicos are to emulate Coulter’s sluttish behaviors.

Take U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe at the Conservative Political Action Conference, for example.

“I have been called — my kids are all aware of this — dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun,” said Inhofe. “And I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly.”

Inhofe also added that he was upset that the Bush Administration had listed polar bears as a threatened species.

“They’re overpopulated,” he said. “Don’t worry about it: The polar bear is fine.”

All to rousing applause. Yes, idiocy is given a standing ovation. There was plenty more idiocy for the CPAC, where being a Holocaust-denying, misogynist, gay-bashing science-hater is considered cool.

Let it sink in. Because, we can think of ways to slow and eventually overcome the terrorist threat. We can become less addicted to foreign oil. We can do many things.

Of course, the fact-hating morons in charge and their fans will fight us the whole way. And that will be the biggest challenge, as being ignorant and ill-informed has never been more popular.

–WKW

When a bomb went off in Afghanistan near U.S. Vice-president Dick Cheney, I couldn’t understand the big deal. After all, Abraham Lincoln was murdered.

Sure, 9/11 was bad, but more than 50,000 people died at Gettysburg during the Civil War. Get some perspective.

Think Hurricane Katrina was bad? Stop being such pansies. After all, the Black Death killed 75 million during the 1300s.

Callous? Cruel? Definitely.

But those statements above are the exact equivalent of many of the warmongers who so readily compare the U.S. invasion of Iraq with World War II.

Because you hear it all the time. Like a mantra - “Only 3,000 U.S. troops have been killed, you pansies would never have been able to deal with the Battle of the Bulge. We lost 19,000 troops there.”

Somehow, this argument for nation building is not treated as it is - a callous form of massive disrespect for both Iraq veterans, and World War II veterans.

This is not World War II. And it’s definitely not World War III, unless the PNAC crowd decides that the world will turn a blind eye to the U.S. using any types of nukes in Iran.

So stop it, already. It’s not a valid argument. Tossing numbers of dead U.S. soldiers in the air to make a case for war is not patriotic. It’s evil, and it disrespects every American serving, and that ever served in the military.

–WKW