Short Stories, Long Odds

Oh boy, the debates are 12 minutes away, and anything (within a carefully regimented set of rules) could happen. Here are some pictures from the last few days that I thought were politically charged. Tell me I’m wrong.

Stay tuned for up to the minute analysis. Unless things start to go south, in which case I’ll just get hammered and lament it tomorrow.

The debate, not getting hammered.

10:52
Okay, here’s my initial reaction:

Kerry: Did very well. Had a couple of excellent turns of phrase, most importantly, didn’t screw up. And he didn’t smirk. He did leave Poland out, but hey.

Bush: He didn’t screw up as bad as I wanted him to – his was more of a wide-area misstep. He made a few smaller mistakes which Kerry caipitalized on, like Bush saying we were attacked by Iraq. Kerry nailed him to it.

Kerry could have been more clear in his comment about “Weapons of Mass Destruction crossing the border [of Iraq] every day.” This will confuse most people, but we know he was referring to suicide bombers. Its a metaphor he’s used before.

Bush also appeared highly agitated throughout most of the debate. He sighed, smirked, and generally did everything Gore did to lose the townhall against him in 2000.

So, I’m initially calling it a victory for Kerry. A part of me wishes he’d been more aggressive and went for the kill, but that could have easily backfired. Both Bush and Kerry are highly experienced debaters, so its surprising Bush did so badly.

I’m saying it though, and its early, but here we go: both had perfect records coming into tonight and Bush just got his first loss.

10:18
Kerry is so fucking on this. This is going about as well as I allowed myself to hope.

8:55 PM
What the hell, Lehrer appointed the wives as audience monitors? This could either be totally annoying or we could see Laura Bush or Teresa Kerry break down and eat infants.

Infants!

Last night was a success. I’ll have more pictures from it as soon as I make them smaller and less unruly. Lest you think we’re totally departing from the usual rigors of geopolitical analysis, you should pay attention to the fact that Irie Powell says that things are getting worse in Iraq.

Also, a chief US military leader in Iraq feels that the elections in Iraq, if they happen, will be seriously flawed. And Congress is all in a tizzy about how the Cabinet and the White House keep pushing a “phoney optimism.”

Also, if you want an idea about the other side of what we’re doing in Iraq and wonder where all the information is besides what the White House is telling you, it doesn’t exist. That’s because the Iraq Health Department was ordered to stop keeping track of the civilian body count in December. Currently, no official count exists but the estimate range puts the number at 10,000 at least and 37,000 at most since the beginning of the invasion.

Spread the word and whatnot.

4:03 AM: CONCORD STREET – TOTALLY NOT ROBBING PEOPLE

1:30 AM: Holy shit. DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN DRINK JIM BEAM OUT OF WIZARD HET?

Oh man. Tonight is the night we get totally hammered.

In wizard hats.

Check cowboymonkey for updates at 11:30.

Okay, so I’ve been really busy, but I haven’t meant to ignore you, log on the interweb.

My friends are in town for the weekend, so I’m going to hang out with them and perhaps even attempt to forget about how fucked up things are. There are some things I direct you to do while I am gone, in that independant study is sometimes far more effective than lecture.

Seek out information about these things:

• The plan I told you about concerning Fallujah and the hammer attack immediately after the election here in the US appears to be true. More media has been reporting about it, and I have confirmation that this idea is at least being discussed seriously, and its starting to look more and more like a reality. A contact of mine in the Democratic Party made what I believed to be a rather short sighted comment that “Fallujah assault after Nov. 2 helps no one.” See what you can find about these plans.
• I believe the comment above to be short sighted because there is already voter tomfoolery and disenfranchisement going on, and not just in Florida. The weasels are up to their old tricks again, and lord knows what Congress or the Supreme Court would say if an election went to them and we were facing the immediate repercussions of either a massive victory or a terrifying defeat in Fallujah. Look up some information about voter fraud, election problems, and further note that 30% of the country will vote on electronic voting machines that are roundly untested and have no paper record if something goes wrong.
• This isn’t really something for you to look up, but rather something for you to take note of: my sources are telling me that John Kerry has taken personal control of his campaign’s tone and message. This accounts for the sudden shift from the usual Democrat weeenie approach to Kerry coming out and telling the truth about Iraq, the war authority vote, and everything else. This is his doing and if he keeps it up he still has a chance.

Two final statements:

1) No one wants to say that Iraq has devolved into civil war. Everyone says that the worst case scenario is that it might turn into a civil war. I have news for you: it is a civil war whether you want to call it that or not. The country has several factions, religious and political, that are actively warring with and killing each other. They are divided ideologically and geographically. Iraq is embroiled in a civil war just like Vietnam was, and for some reason, our presence makes people loathe to call it a civil war. Don’t be fooled.

2) The media, the GOP, and several other factions in our geopolitical sphere set up rules that more or less dictate how you can discuss the Iraq War. One of these rules is the unspoken (yet prime directive weight) rule that you can never ever say that we are losing the war in Iraq. They make it out like you hate our soldiers and want them to die or that you want to give encouragement to our enemies by saying that we might be losing, or are losing. That’s bullshit.

Our soldiers are in hell, their enemies are increasing in manpower exponentially, and the management of the war thus far has allowed a once loosely organized guerilla force to solidify and create tactical strongholds the size of cities.

You should all prepare yourselves for the very real possibility that we are losing this war. You should also prepare yourself for the idea that no help is coming from the international community, without which the situation grows more hopeless by the minute. A vote in Iraq may not happen in the next 20 years, let alone in January. Democracy will probably not take root in Iraq in the next fifty years. It is possible we will pull our people out of Iraq (and soon, it is to be hoped) without any definitive “victory”. You will be told that the war was successful and that we achieved victory: the real victory will be that our troops will be out of a ridiculous situation.

This isn’t pessimism. This is the truth.

From the Guardian UK:

Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale.

‘Bring them on!” President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon.

General Hoare believes from the information he has received that “a decision has been made” to attack Fallujah “after the first Tuesday in November. That’s the cynical part of it – after the election. The signs are all there.”

You should really go read that, and then look around at all the information about how we’re gonna invade Iran and Syria this Christmas. See if you can find it on your own. Then report back here.