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Congress Members have received thousands of phone calls, and some of them are committing to voting no on Iraq funding. The vote won't happen until next week, so keep the calls coming: Call your Congress Member now at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote No on the war funding.

More Detail:

Pelosi does not have the votes to pass the Rule, a procedural vote that must pass prior to votes on each of the three amendments (1. war money, 2. a nonbinding "timeline goal," re-banning of torture and permanent bases, redundantly banning a Bush-Maliki treaty without consent of Senate or both houses of Congress, and forcing Iraqis to pay for the reconstruction, 3. other spending including military spending and veterans spending).

"I want you to feel that Iraqi life is precious," he told them.

Well, that's not going to happen. Here, at the level of basic humanity, the occupation of Iraq -- indeed, the entire Bush administration -- begins to unravel. We can see this with excruciating clarity as requests for an apology waylay the smooth, legal cover-up (one in a series) of the latest spasm of panic and target practice by Blackwater thugs, which left 17 Iraqis dead in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September.

Even the embedded media, so valiant in their attempts to cast the American presence as well-intentioned and, you know, doing the best it can (under the circumstances), couldn't help but convey, as they reported on the investigation of the Blackwater killings, the humanity of the grieving Iraqis. In so doing, the coverage hinted, unavoidably, at the truth about the occupation: that we are, to put it mildly, the bad guys, that what we're doing there is barbaric, racist, insane.

A Mickey Mouse war policy begets Mickey Mouse results. On that note, the perfect coda to the 5-year-old disaster that is John McCain's favorite war just arrived: The company that built Disneyland, Los Angeles-based C3, is now designing a multi-million dollar entertainment complex on a 50-acre lot adjacent to the Green Zone in Baghdad. That lot, conveniently, became available when, as a result of the invasion of Iraq, the once world-class Baghdad Zoo was looted and destroyed, the animals scattered among the rubble that was operations Shock and Awe and Enduring Freedom. In the wake of the bungled invasion, the zoo was left without power and then abandoned. The animals, many rare, were killed and eaten, or stolen and sold on the black market. Of the 700 animals in the zoo, only 35 survived.

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

I am one American that is ashamed of what this nation has become. I am sick to death of watching my country invade other nations for their oil. I am ashamed of the people we wantonly attack in the “name of democracy”. I cringe when I see police officers kill citizens with impunity and beat people as if they the police were nothing but state sponsored gangs. I am disgusted with this so-called Presidential race where you can’t tell one candidate but for their gender or race and the citizens of this country fall for the same old tired rhetoric that there will be “change”.

There will be no change, no matter who is elected. We can’t even count on the election process, Votes are not counted and voting machines are rigged. It’s laughable that any of these candidates will bring this nation back to where it once was a pillar of light in a dark world. We have become what we hate. We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us. We are not even contemplating stopping a war that we started, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iraqis and Afghanistan’s while the American voter does and says nothing to stop it.

Preoccupied with the fighting in Sadr City, it may have escaped President Bush's notice that millions of  African-Americans live in blighted neighborhoods, some of which, like Sadr City, also appear to have been ravaged by bloodshed and violence.

"The physical landscape of such neighborhoods often consists of abandoned buildings, poor-quality housing stock, unclean streets, and a low quality of municipal services -- particularly schools and recreational facilities," urban affairs experts James Carr and Nandinee Kutty write in their new book, "Segregation: The Rising Costs For America"(Routledge). "High levels of crime, violence, and drug trafficking created extreme social disorder in America's jobless ghettos," write Kutty, an urban housing consultant and Carr, Chief Operating Officer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

As three months of news reports of escalating violence in Iraq undercut widespread American propaganda about the "surge's" success, increasing numbers of Americans, once again, are reaching the conclusion that the Bush administration's illegal, immoral and incompetent invasion and occupation of Iraq is a war that never should have been fought. According to the results of CNN/Opinion Research Poll reported on 1 May 2008, 68 percent of Americans now oppose George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

These Americans have (belatedly) gotten it right. Moreover, five years after viewing the sick "Mission Accomplished" propaganda, it's now becoming clear that the "surge" and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy detailed in General Petraeus' Counterinsurgency Field Manual were last-ditch and largely propaganda gimmicks chosen by Bush to avoid admitting his stark defeat in Iraq. Thus, Bush and Cheney are sacrificing lives while playing for time -- time to escape office without being impeached and convicted, time to assert that the war was not lost during their watch.

As Congress considers President Bush's request for another $100 billion for Iraq, 68% of Americans want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6 months, according to a Democrats.com telephone poll of 628 adults conducted from May 1-4, 2008 by ICR (http://www.icrsurvey.com).

The poll marks a 14% increase from 54% in September. Most of that increase (11%) came from those who want Congress to require Bush to use existing funds to bring our troops safely home, bringing that total to 51% - a majority of Americans.

Broken down by party, 85% of Democrats want our troops home within 6 months, as do 78% of Independents. By contrast, only 32% of Republicans want our troops home soon.

— from TomDispatch

The last war won't end, but in the Pentagon they're already arguing about the next one.

Let's start with that "last war" and see if we can get things straight. Just over five years ago, American troops entered Baghdad in battle mode, felling the Sunni-dominated government of dictator Saddam Hussein and declaring Iraq "liberated." In the wake of the city's fall, after widespread looting, the new American administrators dismantled the remains of Saddam's government in its hollowed out, trashed ministries; disassembled the Sunni-dominated Baathist Party which had ruled Iraq since the 1960s, sending its members home with news that there was no coming back; dismantled Saddam's 400,000 man army; and began to denationalize the economy. Soon, an insurgency of outraged Sunnis was raging against the American occupation.

— from TomDispatch

It's like old times in the Persian Gulf. As of this week, a second aircraft carrier battle task force is being sent in -- not long after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen highlighted planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran; just as the Bush administration's catechism of charges against the Iranians in Iraq reaches something like a fever pitch; at the moment when rumors of, leaks about, and denials of Pentagon back-to-the-drawing-board planning for new ways to attack Iran are zipping around ("Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq…"); and only days before the U.S. military in Iraq is supposed to conduct its latest media dog-and-pony show on Iranian support for Iraqi Shi'ite militias ("…including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate…"). On the dispatching of that second aircraft carrier, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates offered the following comment: "I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."

In the last few days, both the Israeli military and the US military have fired missiles into homes, in an effort to target what they said were terrorists, in the process killing many innocent civilians.

But what a contrast we see in both the reporting on these events, and in the response within the two countries!

In the Israeli case, the IDF fired a missile into a family home in Gaza, killing a mother and her four young children, who were eating breakfast at the time. The children were aged 6 through 15 months. While the IDF and the Israeli government blamed the tragedy on Hamas, saying it operates in proximity of civilians and is thus responsible for their deaths, an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, has caqlled for a criminal investigation into the killings, saying that Israel and the IDF have violated internation law by firing the missile in a densely populated area where civilian casualties would be likely. A spokesman for the group, Sarit Michaeli, says that Israeli claims that it is not responsible for such deaths are incorrect, and adds that under international law, “Even if you attack a legitimate military target, the anticipated damage has to be in proportion to the anticipated gain.”

Washington - On the 5th anniversary of President Bush's heroic landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln and speech before the Mission Accomplished banner, the White House has admitted that the banner could have been "more specific." To mark the anniversary, spokesperson Dana Perino announced that the White House will be holding a contest for families and friends of the over 4,000 soldiers who have perished, and the more than 50,000 who have been maimed since the original Mission Accomplished banner was unfurled, asking them to come up with a more specific banner.

"President Bush has always been a lemons into lemonade guy," said spokesperson Dana Perino. "He sees the contest as a way to comfort those in the military who might have thought the banner meant their lives would be safe and they would be returning to their families whole."

In the fall of 2002, week after week, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq in debates televised on MSNBC. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers - no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.

In my 2006 book Cable News Confidential, I explained why I lost my airtime:

There was no room for me after MSNBC launched Countdown: Iraq - a daily one-hour show that seemed more keen on glamorizing a potential war than scrutinizing or debating it. Countdown: Iraq featured retired colonels and generals, sometimes resembling boys with war toys as they used props, maps and glitzy graphics to spin invasion scenarios. They reminded me of pumped-up ex-football players doing pre-game analysis and diagramming plays. It was excruciating to be sidelined at MSNBC, watching so many non-debates in which myth and misinformation were served up unchallenged.

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon.

As much as I like presidential primary pie fights, quite a few strange things have been happening of late that have nothing to do with supposed sniper fire, Rev. Wright and filched food preparation. A lot of these items have slipped under the radar. So, while Obama remembers to duck and cover, Clinton remembers Pearl Harbor and McCain remembers to zip up his fly, let's examine our nation as it circles the drain.

— from TomDispatch

You simply can't pile up enough adjectives when it comes to the general, who, at a relatively young age, was already a runner-up for Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2007. His record is stellar. His tactical sense extraordinary. His strategic ability, when it comes to mounting a campaign, beyond compare.

I'm speaking, of course, of General David Petraeus, the President's surge commander in Iraq and, as of last week, the newly nominated head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) for all of the Middle East and beyond -- "King David" to those of his peers who haven't exactly taken a shine to his reportedly "high self-regard." And the campaign I have in mind has been his years' long wooing and winning of the American media, in the process of which he sold himself as a true American hero, a Caesar of celebrity.