2
POPSHitler of Asia is Ruling Burma today Military Junta refused to allow anything foreign to help its own starving, homeless citizens after a hurricane hit the nation. The Gods have to strike the Junta to set free the people of this once peaceful nation.
6
POPSIsrael Behind Georgia's Invasion of S. Ossettia This in Israeli press, but not in the U.S. MSM. Of course it was a Hezbollah leader who has exposed this truth and of course will be denounced. But the facts remain true and easily verified. Israel (and the neocons, Cheney had a man in Georgia prior to the war) were behind Georgia's invasion (and murder of civilians) of South Ossetia who declared independence from Georgia over a decade ago. What the Hezbollah leader says (mocking Israel) is true, they stopped Israel's (unjust) war against Lebanon (bombing 70 percent of the country's infrastructure in a "disproportionate response") which was part of a neocon-Israeli plan for a "new middle east". Russia stopped the neocon-Israeli plans for the recapture of Ossetia.
8
POPSEastern Europe Can Defend Itself
The small number of interceptors are designed to shoot down an equally small number of Iranian missiles -- not the overwhelming numbers that Russia deploys. Poland and other states should be under no illusion they can count on the U.S. in a crisis. In the past we left Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the lurch. More recently we haven't done much to help Georgia. We have already seen how the tiny Georgian armed forces -- with fewer than 30,000 men -- were routed by the Russian invaders. According to the CIA's World Factbook, Georgia has over 900,000 men between the ages of 16 and 49. It could easily create a larger military force than it has, but that would require spending more on defense. By the CIA's estimate, its defense budget was just 0.59% of GDP in 2005. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, one country in Eastern Europe spends more than 2% of GDP on defense. Bulgaria at 2.2%. Romania is in second place at 1.9%, followed by Poland at 1.8%.
2
POPSInternational Criminal Court and Russia No teeth... like everything else the UN sponsors. Cont... (Russia apparently will help ethnic Russian citizens of Georgia file claims with the ICC. Russia itself has no power to ask the ICC to act, but Georgians do. Sneaky!) Meanwhile, here’s a question for the weekend. Suppose Georgia had been a member of NATO when Russia invaded its territory earlier this month. Would NATO military forces have honored the treaty obligation and launched a military response even though no one in the west thinks that Georgia is worth World War III? If not, would NATO have been revealed as a meaningless institution? Or should we assume that Russia would not have attacked Georgia in the first place for fear of provoking a military response from NATO?
9
POPSKremlin Unleashes "Mafia-on-Steroids" Style Chechen Thugs ........continued........ to disband the unit. The generals refused. At the time, their stubborn support for the outlaw Yamadaev Brothers seemed baffling - a quiet Chechnya was a longstanding Russian goal. But last week, it all made sense: Putin's military, which had been planning the invasion of Georgia for many months, intended to unleash the worst criminals in uniform it had on the Georgian people. Why? Two reasons: First, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Georgians to suffer - to really suffer. And Chechens are the world's subject-matter experts in atrocities. Second, this gives the Russian army itself a veil of deniability: When Putin's spokesmen insist that the Russian military isn't involved in the worst savagery in Georgia, they're technically telling the truth (if we don't count air attacks and artillery bombardments), since the Chechen thugs on their payroll are on the job.
7
POPSMcCain's Elitist Response to Military Donor Story But aside from the fact that the McCain campaign lied is confused, does anyone catch a whiff of elitism here? Is support from within the ranks somehow more credible if it comes in the form of a general officer or an admiral? If so, that would be strange. . .since flag officers aren't the ones fighting the insurgencies in Iraq or Afghanistan. This comes as no surprise--and it reinforces the message: It's clear that McCain values the opinions of flashier, high-ranking, inside-the-wire types over the views of the grunts, the medics, and the lieutenants who wade waist-deep through the muck and blood and shrapnel of insurgency, day in and day out. And while he may easily dismiss the actual combatants of these wars in a moment of political self-defense, those same troops will not so easily forget his bellicosity, his foreign policy ignorance, and his general lack of respect for them when it comes time to vote in November.
5
POPSPolitical Interference of the Surgeon General (No way!) Surely they are lying! There is no way they controlled free speech! I am astonished that they would even suggest such things! Like this: On the increasing politicization of the Surgeon General's position: -Previous Surgeon Generals agreed that: "never had they seen Washington, D.C. so partisan or a new Surgeon General so politically challenged and marginalized as during my tenure." -" he reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas. Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried." - "Politicians in the late 1960s decided that the Office of the Surgeon General should be disempowered and its authorities placed within offices of Department of Health and Human Services political appointees."
3
POPSUS Weighs Stepped-Up Military Forays Into Pakistan Why don't we just hand over all the decisions to the Generals and Admirals and get it over with? We might as well save money on elections an other such futile circuses. Just call it The Disunuted States of the Pentagon. just cut out "the people" As middlemen and go directly to the profiteering Korporations and ask them what they need to bring in more obscene $$$$$$. Why fuck around voting?
4
POPSOfficial: U.N. Lost $10M In Burma for additional funds for Burma. An economic professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, Sean Turnell, said yesterday that the figure of $10 million in Burma losses is "not inconsistent" with his own estimate. "But why is the U.N. handing any foreign currency to the Burmese regime anyway?" the economist, who was one of the first to expose the loss, said, adding that such handouts only strengthen the ruling junta. "Presumably the government is benefitting somehow" from the exchange rate, Mr. Holmes said yesterday, though he acknowledged that he could not calculate how much of the $10 million that had already been lost went directly to top generals or their associates. A similar foreign exchange plan led to losses of U.N. funds in North Korea. The Bush administration has spent $47.2 million so far on assistance to Burma, according to government documents.
1
POPSDon't Look Now--but the Surge is About to Backfire as Iraq poised to Explode
The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk, where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq’s Arabs are resisting. The second is in the west, and Anbar, where the US-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa (”Awakening”) movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) The final crisis-to-be is the Sadr vs. Badr one. The Times today suggests that Sadr is weakening: The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq. Don’t believe it. Sadr’s rivals, ISCI, don’t have anything like the popular base that Sadr has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood, local and regional militias, mosques, and econom
1
POPSLet em eat cake!!! So the world tour consists of photo ops with dignitaries, stage set speeches in front of 200K socialists and pretend listening sessions with generals. As for those who he wants to follow him as either commander in chief or as citizens he will represent... nada, zip, crickets chirping.... as Marie Antoinette famously said, "Let them eat cake." If they could only afford the flour with which to make it in Obamaland....
1
POPSMaliki's Bet Mr. Obama, he is also placing one on Mr. McCain, which is that in the event the Republican is elected, he will place principle and the national interest over politics and petty vindictiveness. For our part we see the emergence of an Iraq making its own choices in these matters rather than having them dictated by the American ambassador or American generals as yet another sign of victory in the Battle of Iraq. The Iraqis want America as their friends whether Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain is president. For all the talk by critics of how the Iraq War supposedly alienated America from the world, here is an administration in Baghdad maneuvering for a friend in the White House.
1
POPSAmber Light for Israel- Followed by GREEN Drilling for Dollars, war on drugs, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, war on crime, war on terrorism, everywhere you look, there is war. What a great Nation we have become in such short time. Given these folks like Bush/Cheney or McCain, there is more to come. Perhaps they don't mind World War III ? Perhaps in its confusion and world wide disasters, America will have the chance to really become No 1, before the Third Reich and those types before.
5
POPSAlexander The Great he began to organize the territory into a realm such as he envisioned. His early death brought an end to his plans. Alexander was born in Pella, capital of Macedonia. His father was Philip II of Macedon, who had conquered Greece; his mother was Olympias, a princess from Epirus. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor, and the literature of Greece was his inspiration. The handsome youth took Achilles of Homer's Iliad, a reputed ancestor, as his hero. Alexander's teachers in military science were his father's generals. When he was only 16, he commanded forces in military actions against hill tribes.
7
POPSSenate OKs promotions of Iraqi generals Petraeus certainly deserves the promotion but I hope it's not too soon for him to leave his post. Everyone has a propensity to change things around once they start to go well.
0
POPSWait Until Convention It's doubtful this will happen, but the possibility of Obama waiting to announce his running mate until the convention brings visions of a very intriguing night of TV. One major problem, of course, will be the selection leaking out before it's announced, all but sucking the wind right out of the big decision
5
POPSHow George Washington's Savvy Won The Day Fighting force. Washington's vision was vindicated in the winter of 1776-77, as his Army, often working with militias, scored quick-hitting successes at Trenton, Princeton, and other parts of New Jersey. Washington even made the best of a painful setback after the British conquest of the nation's capital, Philadelphia. Settling in for a hard winter at Valley Forge, Pa., Washington built a distinctively American fighting force even while exercising political skills that allowed him to overcome insubordinate rivals in the Army and to mollify critics in the Continental Congress. Just as important, he had won the lasting support of America's civilian authorities, to whom he returned all power at war's end. Hearing of that gesture, Britain's King George III said that Washington would be the greatest man in history if it was true.
6
POPSThe Bush Paradox Even the defiled NY Times publishes the fact that the surge decision was correct and, against all odds, produced victory. No other man could have had the courage and foresight to stay the course and pick the right military leaders to defeat the enemy and bring safety and prosperity to a suffering people. God bless George W. Bush.
2
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update