The last U.S. crate shipped out of Iraq

Just in time for Christmas, the USA has now pulled out all of its troops from Iraq, ending the long war.  A photographer caught the last crate to be shipped out, back to the USA.

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Barack Obama's Facebook Message on Pearl Harbor Day (with counterpoint)

click to enlarge

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Editorial: The Double Secret stimulus package

By Pablo Fanque

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

If President Obama learned anything from his study of history (and believe me, he did), he knows that for all the talk of the "First Hundred Days" and The New Deal, nothing FDR did fully turned the economy around until after that moment December 7, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

From December 8th onward, boys flooded recruiting offices, a recalcitrant and isolationist Congress voted to spend massive $$$ on the war, and the U.S. cranked into full wartime production mode. Shuttered factories were re-opened, under-utilized plants went into 24/7 production mode, and virtually every single person in the country--save the feeble, lame, crazy, and elderly (and even some of them)--went to work, planted victory gardens, and bought into commodity, fuel, and tire rationing.

In the midst of a moribund war in Iraq, President Obama has ordered his first major deployment of U.S. combat troops. He has okayed 17,000 additional soldiers and Marines for Afghanistan in what he described as "an urgent bid to stabilize a deteriorating and neglected country. "

Is war the real, double secret Stimulus Package for which we have all been waiting? Already, the far left is screaming. I'm not quite sure why. Obama was clearly against the War in Iraq from the get-go. And yet, in general, he has behaved, more or less, like a Scoop Jackson or JFK "defense Democrat." And with the lure of kick-starting a sluggish economy, one has to wonder if 17,000 troops aren't just a drop in the bucket, and how long will it be before we see 100,000 troops in Afghanistan? Is Obama getting a fantastic twofer here: priming the pump AND keeping the world safe for democracy?

It's something to think about.

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Amazing video and story-->> Iraqi newspaperman hucks his shoes at President Bush's head: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog!"

An Iraqi journalist hucked his shoes and hurled the truth lobbed a dog-bomb told The President what most people were actually thinking and insulted President Bush at a press conference in Baghdad yesterday.



As the two leaders met in Nuri al-Maliki's private office, a journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," and threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush.

Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who ducked and was not hit. We never get to see this in the States--the President ducking as foreign objects hurtle toward his head. [Ed's note: If you can throw two shoes at the President, surrounded by the best security force in the world, we hope Obama limits his public appearances].

Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. In Moslem countries you do not face your shoe bottoms toward anyone.

The journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi from the Al-Baghdadia channel in Cairo, was taken from the room by security forces.

The President later said "I don't know what the guy's cause is... I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."
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Jesse Ventura to run against Al Franken for Senate

Jesse Ventura, the guy you'd want beside you in a dark alley

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura told NPR's David Welna today that he will run for the Senate, against Sen. Norm Coleman (whom Ventura beat in a race for governor in 1998). He will also be running against Al Franken.

Ventura said the main reason he's running is because of Coleman's support for the war in Iraq. "That's the reason I run," he says. "I run because it angers me...All you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide: if you were in a dark alley which one of the three of us would you want with you?

Saddam Hussein paid for my Congressman—Jim McDermott—to visit Iraq

Saddam Paid for Lawmakers' Iraq Trip -

That's my congressman on the right

Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly footed the bill for a trip to Iraq for three congressmen during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California were not named in the indictment, but the trio did ineeed travel to Iraq in 2002.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators "have no information whatsoever" any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam. One investigator said McDermott was invited to go to Iraq by a Seattle church group and was unaware of any other funding for the trip. I mean even a pinko like McDermott would have turned down that funding!

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Four Thousand - 4,000 - MMMM dead and counting in Iraq "War"/Country Joe McDonald Performs Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag (with lyrics)

Country Joe McDonald performs "Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag




I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXIN' TO DIE
by Country Joe McDonald

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds —
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Huh!
Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
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