John Lennon's "Freeda People/The Nutopian National Anthem"
The most 'touching' memorial in the world.
The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, District of Columbia,
United States of America.
I couldn't do it at first.
It touched me first.
From about 200 yards away.
Been there.
Done that.
OMG.
From 200 yards or more away what hits you are not the individual names,
as in the photo above.
What hits you from afar is how big it had to be
to contain 58 or 59 thousand names of the American dead.
OMG.
I cried.
And cried.
Then I slowly approached.
I saw others touching the wall, crying and tracing their loved ones' names.
I spoke with a woman who was grieving.
Only then could I touch the wall back.
It's the only wall that touched me first.
THANK YOU TO ALL THE SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN AND CIVILIANS
IN THE INTEL AND OTHER COMMUNITIES
WHO PLACE THEMSELVES IN HARMS' WAY
BELIEVING IN THE DEFENSE OF THEIR LOVED ONES
AND THEIR FRIENDS AND BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
GOD BLESS YOU WHO HAVE FALLEN AND YOUR FAMILIES.
GOD BLESS THOSE IN SERVICE OF A UNIFORMED OR NON-UNIFORMED
VARIETY AND THEIR FAMILIES FOR THEIR SERVICE.
ESPECIALLY THEIR MOMS.
THE MOMS.
YES.
TY
SO
MUCH.
I'm sorry to report that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. 'Sorry?' you may ask! Yes, very sorry. Any premature death or killing is a sad and unsatisfying story to report. Yes, I celebrate the end of his reign of terror. Yes I celebrate the masterstroke of President Obama giving CIA Director Panetta the number one priority of isolating Bin Laden and bringing him to justice. Yes I celebrate the muted response of extremists in these early hours following the revelation of his demise. But reporting on death is not fun. Reporting on the tragic necessity of anybody, including a nation, to defend itself with force is sad, indeed, but a reality that must be reported. Cave-man revenge mentality is not the solution. Evolution and the moral development of the species will change that in time, I have faith. I am not vengeful, and I regret Bin Laden's decisions and the sick, unhappy and tortured mind and hardened ill-heart that he possessed causing him to imagine that slaughtering innocents was something Allah would desire. The poor sick, but unfortunately financially funded, fool. He had inherited a financial fortune and utilized it for his sick ends. That cash is why he became the 'leader' of this twisted and distorted perversion of Islam that was (and I emphasize the past tense here) Al Quaeda. Al Quaeda is done. There are overseas sickos utilizing the brand name now, but Bin Laden's rag-tag band of well-funded thugs is done. The Afghan gang will not have a 10th reunion gala in Kabul this year.
I choose my words carefully, he was an irrelevant sick-minded mentally ill guy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a bank account. Without the bank account he would have been dismissed as a fool. No scholar of the Koran was Bin Laden. Neither a Biblical scholar. Not a clergyman, an Imam, never published and didn't give great speeches to massive audiences. Just a bankroller. A fool as the photograph above accurately characterizes him.
It fell to Commander-In-Chief Barack Obama to end this pathetic man's reign of personal tyranny, since his predecessors allowed the success of "Osama's Big Day With 19 Guys And Plastic Box-Cutters" to occur making him the superstar of violent extremism and terrorism that he became. Enabling the Cheney Administration to declare a worldwide "War on Terror" and sink trillions into killing and reaping huge oil profits as well as causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in irrelevant wars as well.
There he is last evening announcing the heroic and swift action of our defenders outside Islamabad! Harry Truman kept a plaque on his Oval Office desk which said "The Buck Stops Here." Agreed. In this operation, Barack rearranged the CIA's priorities as soon as he took office. Only the Commander-In-Chief could claim credit for coordinating the civilian authorities, the intel and diplomatic personnel and bureaucracies and ultimately the Department of Defense in order to make the demise of Osama Bin Laden happen. So... THANK YOU MR. PRESIDENT!!! This guy IS a keeper. Let's renominate and re-elect the most amazing and accomplished President of my lifetime. On national security alone the President has done wonders. 100,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq. Perhaps a number 1) National security accomplishment might be: The Afghan war being prosecuted far more successfully, and a negotiated agreement likely soon via diplomacy. 2) Perhaps: The utilization of unmanned drones to decimate the Al Quaeda leadership in Pakistan. 3) And how 'bout: That killing of Osama Bin Laden. 4) Possibly on the national security hit parade: The successful negotiation of a Strategic Arms REDUCTION Treaty with President Medvedev of Russia. 5) Maybe you'd consider this not bad: A successful summit meeting and signing of that treaty and 6) getting that same treaty through the U.S. Senate in a not-so-lame lame-duck session of Congress last year. 7) On that list of national security accomplishments for Barack might be: In that same Congressional session he also put an end to codified and organized military discrimination agains gays and lesbians by outlawing such discrimination via legislation finally putting an end to the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy! Wow. We discuss domestic matters elsewhere and this President's massive accomplishments in just 27 months in office. But, WOW! What a dude! Barack Obama!
Barack's done what all the Cheney Administration's horses and all their men could not do.
Cheney was an oil company exec, President and CEO of Haliburton (along with BP, primarily responsible for the Gulf oil spill beginning one year ago) when George W. Bush was approached to name him his VP nominee in 2000 (Bush himself the governor of the most oil-dependent state in the nation, TX and having oil holdings himself).
We should not forget that as in George Orwell's books such as 1984, having an enemy
and an ongoing 'War' to fight can work to a government's advantage.
In addition, the largest sector of the U.S. economy and largest interest group is the
Defense industry. So getting Bin Laden wasn't necessarily a high Cheney/Bush goal.
Bush is NOT a very bright guy. We all know that by now. He honestly did not know how to either spell nor pronounce the word "nuclear" frequently misstating it as "nucular," just for example. And that's one huge example for a so-called "Commander-In-Chief." He was manipulated by Cheney, a former Defense Secretary under Bush's father, the oil industry AND by Bin Laden himself. He allowed Bin Laden to create an atmosphere of domestic fear; remember red, orange, yellow color-coded alert levels? He was tugged by Bin Laden for 7 years and in that time Cheney actually ran the U.S. government primarily, that's well-known and well documented now.
I still get sick feelings in my abdomen when I think back to two-time failed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (his first stint was as Gerald Ford's DOD chief, remember the fall of Saigon?) putting on his grandfatherly pretense in the Defense Department briefing room, beginning Press briefings with talk of being "at War" and the "gravity" of the situation, then giggling and laughing while letters were in the United States Postal Service notifying Moms of dead service men and women. OMG! His incompetency renders Rumsfeld the most incompetent Defense Secretary in U.S. history, despite having the best, the most highly funded and the most technologically sophisticated military in the world, as well as the bravest and most dedicated troops! He couldn't beat rag-tag bands of thugs like Saddam and the thugs following him, the Taliban, and Bin Laden's camel-gang (all of whom possessed not one naval ship, a single military aircraft, or anything really but box-cutters and side-arms at the time of our attacks post-9/11) for 7 too-long years (well, Robert Gates deserves some of that credit, yes--thank God he's finally seen the gate).
General Stanley McChrystal looks tight-lipped in this photo but was anything but tight-lipped
when bar-hopping around Europe when volcanic ash grounded air traffic for a few days
and he and his staff routinely dissed the civilian authorities of our OWN government including his own
Commander-In-Chief Barack Obama
while of all people a Rolling Stone reporter was travelling with him as he had agreed.
President Obama promptly dimissed this guy who also lost wars for years under Cheney/Bush.
General David "Curveball" Petraeus
President Obama made a smooth move just last week putting him into the civilian
CIA role below the radar so as to stifle his political ambitions and to get him
out of the picture militarily. His "counterinsurgency"
payola strategy has been a failure and his personal ambition and political strength within the
uniformed military makes him the most powerful DOD staffer, moreso than Rumsfeld, Gates and
Joint Chiefs' Chairman Mullens combined. His base is now undercut.
He took a demotion when McChrystal had to resign at
Barack's behest! Good job Mr. President!
So the Cheney/Bush national security team included subordinates like Petraeus and McChrystal who disdain civilian rule. Petraeus has a clear desire to run for President and has yet to win a war in a clear manner and can claim no responsibility for any significant military successes. In Iraq, within 5 years, likely sooner, chaos will ensue, unfortunately following our departure and is unavoidable. Petraeus' counterinsurgency 'strategy' was to pay off the heads of the opposition with hard U.S. currency, American taxpayers' tax dollars for Baghdad green-zone bombers claiming to be mullahs, who are already clearly indicating their intent to return. There is no way out following this absurd and deadly 'stategy' of the Cheney security fools like Petraeus and McChrystal. 3000 died on 9/11 and maybe 5000 Americans since. OMG. 8,000 American dead and climbing. Over 100,000 Iraqis by any measure since our misguided attack and occupation following the Bin Laden box cutter day. And tens of thousands of Afghan and Pakistanis. :(
Omg. Dead Afghan kidz.
TY Osama Bin Laden.
TY Dick Cheney,
George W. Bush,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Stanley McChrystal
and
David Petraeus.
:(
Now let's really heighten our efforts at diplomacy world-wide. President Obama has shown his ability on a personal level to let by-gones be by-gones and so has our awesome Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The President's and Secretary Clinton's friendship following their bruising 2008 primary campaign is genuine. Secretary Clinton has masterfully run the State Department in such a manner that the State Department is now ascendant within the National Security bureaucracy. The reality of any Administration is that they Administer huge bureaucracies, and changing them takes time and requires internal changes that don't make headlines. Petraeus demoted and in Intel now. Gates has seen the gate. McChrystal swiftly out as soon as he goofed publicly. Thank you Secretary Clinton!
She's given a relatively free hand to this man to do what's necessary both in terms of allowing the Intel people and the military to do what they need to do in order to facilitate the safest solution with minimal casualties in this post-Cheney mop-up operation. OMG. What Barack walked into. Bin Laden. The Great Recession. Banking out of control. Two failed wars. Unemployment and deregulation of every corporation. But Barack and Hillary have enabled this guy to handle things in a very competent manner and are now supreme to the Defense Department. The guy?
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is making the arrangements necessary for a negotiated settlement to happen in Afghanistan. Mark my words. It'll be announced in the not-so-distant future. The only non-signatory to the treaty will be our own government more than likely because of the Party of Hell-No's lack of loyalty and political opportunism and the unlikely prospect of a treaty to be ratified by Mitch McConnell's U.S. Senate. :(
A truly historic day as far as U.S. history goes. Osama Bin Laden is dead. I won't even publish clown "The Donald" Trump's photo. President Obama rendered him clearly the fool that he is at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner last week. "Birtherism" is nonsense. So is the Tea Party. So is the Tan Man. And McConnell and that whole current brood of 'candidates' in the opposition party for President. That's good. Landslide. Yes. Landslide in 2012. RE-ELECT THIS DUDE! RE-ELECT PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA! YES WE CAN, SIR. YES WE MOST CERTAINLY WILL!!!
John Winston Ono Lennon; Freeda People: "Stop the killing, stop it NOW! Do it, do it, do it NOW!"
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