Monday, September 6, 2010

Who Won in Iraq?

UPDATE: In any case, it is clear that truth was the loser in Iraq, and still is.

Read The New York Times, Freedom’s Just Another Word, which argues that "President Obama’s bloodless speech on the “end” of the Iraq war showed how the whitewashing of our recent past is well under way."


"From shock and awe to a slow exit: It is still far too early to fill out the scorecard in Iraq." But some says the winners were the military-industrial complex, including "Halliburton, KBR, CACI, Xe, Unocal, BP, Standard Oil, Boeing."

Read The New York Times, Winning, Losing and War.

A Bittersweet Labor Day

"All but forgotten is the fact that our nation's extraordinary prosperity from the end of World War II to the 1970s was in significant part the result of union contracts that, in words the right wing hated Barack Obama for saying in 2008, "spread the wealth around." A broad middle class with spending power to keep the economy moving created a virtuous cycle of low joblessness and high wages.

Between 1966 and 1970, as Gerald Seib pointed out last week in the Wall Street Journal, the United States enjoyed an astonishing 48 straight months in which the unemployment rate was at or below 4 percent. No, the unions didn't do all this by themselves. But they were important co-authors of a social contract that made our country fairer, richer and more productive."

Read the Washington Post, When unions mattered, prosperity was shared.

WWOBLD?

UPDATE V: Bush's former chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006 outs the CONristian hypocrites:

"Christianity, as an Abrahamic faith, sets out another vision -- an assertion of human worth and dignity that transcends tribe and nation. . . In light of this belief, the purpose of social influence for Christians is not to favor their own faith; it is to serve a view of universal rights and dignity taught by their faith. It is not to advance their own creed; it is to apply that creed in pursuit of the common good. This is what turns religion into a positive social force -- a determination to defend everyone's dignity.

Freedom of religious worship and expression is essential to human dignity -- which makes blocking the construction of a mosque for religious reasons a violation of Christian belief. And laws preventing the building of churches in Mecca or Riyadh do not make this principle less important here."

Read the Washington Post, In mosque controversies, some Christians undermine their own faith.


UPDATE IV: Three Al Qaeda cheers for those binLadi-cans (formerly known as the Republi-cons). Read The New York Times, U.S. Anti-Islam Protest Seen as Lift for Extremists and U.S. News & World Report, Why Are Palin, Gingrich, and Fox News Doing Bin Laden's Work?


UPDATE III: From This Modern World, A mosque near ground zero? I'm offended even thinking about it! On earth and parallel earth alike, the wingnuts escalate the crazy:



And to understand why the mosque must be built, read the Washington Post, No compromise on religious freedom and The right-wing, blinded by its own hysteria.


UPDATE II: U.S. politics has a long history of religious bigotry. Read the Huffington Post, Obama a Muslim! Lincoln a Catholic! FDR a Jew! Why Americans Don't Like Their President's God


UPDATE: "Opposition to the proposed Islamic center near ground zero is one topic on which Sarah Palin and Osama bin Laden apparently agree." Read The New York Times, Taking Bin Laden’s Side.

And "[t]he rage over the “ground zero mosque” is not motivated by a serious desire to protect America, but by a desire for an election-season payoff." Read The New York Times, How Fox Betrayed Petraeus.

"President Obama’s Clintonesque casuistry is making a bad situation worse." Read The New York Times, Our Mosque Madness.

OBL must be proud of the Republi-cons.