The Paperboy No Cometh No More

Written Sep 13, 2011

I have read the New York Times for many years. Editors, critics, and reporters come and go, but the newspaper has held onto the best writers for the simple reason that they help circulation. Among that upper echelon is op-ed commentator Paul Krugman. The 2008 Nobel Prize winner has exhibited an uncanny insight into the international influence of wealth on politics and equality. The economist had long defended his liberalism with fierce attacks on the neo-conservatives of America and a recent blog about the lost decade following 9/11 has outraged a principal architect of the Iraq quagmire to the point of canceling his NY Times subscription. The article called THE YEARS OF SHAME attacked a host of Bush era heroes for polluting the memory of 9/11.

The Years of Shame.

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don't think it's me, and it's not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Donald Rumsfeld found fault in the viciousness of Krugman's blog and announced his wrath to the yawns of many.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
Donald Rumsfeld
@RumsfeldOffice
After reading Krugman's repugnant piece on 9/11, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times this AM.

The current cost of a 3-month subscription is $70.

The former Defense Secretary must be feeling the pinch of the eight years of voodoo economics and seized on this moment to liberate his wallet from the cost of reading 'all the news that is fit to print' so that he can buy new underwear.

ps bravo Paul Krugman

$55 Billion All In For The Eternal War

In a 2003 White House presss meeting GW Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about the cost of the proposed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"$55 billion."

When asked how he had conjured up that number and he explained that sum was for three months.

$20 billion per month or twice as much as the federal government pays for Food Stamps, but after 9/11 this country was in the mood for revenge no matter how much or whom. There were no Afghanis or Iraqis on the planes of 9/11. Not even as passengers. Nineteen of the hijackers were Saudis. None of them pilots. The USA did not attack the Oil Kingdom and the Eternal War has cost about $20 trillion without making anywhere safer.

As much as I hated Donald Rumsfeld, I had to admire his balls for saying, "$55 Billion."

For the most part the White House press corp accepted the figure without too many questions and America has been impoverished by this rush to judgment. No universal health care, high-speed trains, free education, or even improvements in the infrastructure. The only people benefitting from this War are the rich and the dictators we support around the world like the Saudis, USSR, and Qatar. Donald Trump was in awe of the Oil Kings' wealth. Our wealth was wasted on war. Lots of wars all over the globe

One more thing the war has cost about $23 trillion so far with no end in slight.

And that is a known unknown.

What is known is that the world was ruined by this $55 billion.

And remember peace costs nothing.

And also no one I have met has answered a simple question.

Why were we attacked on 9/11?

If it was, because they hate us, then why?

They don't like hot dogs.

ps Donald Rumsfeld is dead. He knows the unknowns now.

Cheapskate Torture School

Back in the early 2000s the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shook the moral consciousness of America until the Bush administration described the systematic abuse as an isolated incident. More and more photos revealed that the routine abuse of detainees was practiced throughout every Iraqi prison by the US Military and pointed out that the Pentagon had greenlighted torture as a method of extracting information from the innocent as well as the guilty.

"Requiring prisoners to stand 8-10 hours is not torture." Donald Rumsfeld actually believed these words, however by 2004 he admitted before Congress that detainees had suffered "grievous and brutal cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces."

Compensation was suggested by the Defense Secretary.

To date not a single dollar has been paid to the hundreds of former prisoners seeking redress for their time at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon has defended its dishonor by fighting all allegations in court. Easy work since there are more lawyers in the USA than the US Military has soldiers in the Army.

1,128,729 lawyers in suits and 540,000 men in uniform.

No way an Arab has a chance in a US court against those odds.

Even if the prison guards at Abu Ghraib stand accused of beating a man in front if his sisters so badly that he died from internal injuries or electrocuted prisoners on a regular basis or used attack dogs to bite detainees. Choking, suffocation, sensory deprivation, beatings, waterboarding, and a host of other techniques were SOP or standard operating procedure at Abu Ghraib no matter what they lawyers in suits say before the Supreme Court. Guilty or innocent. All prisoners got the same treatment and this is the truth as is the fact that the Pentagon will appeal any ruling to protect its good name.

Remember. And no one is talking about sending Donald Rumsfeld to prison for violating human rights. Not if they know what's good for them and their careers.

ps the brown liquid dried on this naked prisoner was not chocolate pudding.