On a chiefly visceral level, I want us to bring back the guillotine expressly for the subject of dealing with this topic. I want to see the perpetrators of our nation’s war crimes tortured into confession, brought before war crimes trials and I want to see their heads roll. I have this lovely mental image of a seriously bloodied capitol mall and a nation elated at the sight because they’ve been shown truth and are awash in national shame and the benediction of revenge.

But stepping back from my gut, I have a hard time wrapping my head around how far down the food chain it should go. Is the head (and the heads behind it) responsible? Is it the neck? What about the shoulders? The heart?

If GB is guilty (and I believe he is, along with Cheney, Rove, Rice…et al), what about all the rest who were part of it? Did the guard at the gates of Gitmo or Abu Graib believe they had choices any more than the guard at the gates of Auschwitz, who was just doing his job? What about Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Joseph Lieberman? Hillary? Bill? GW1? It’s a bit difficult to figure out where to begin, let alone where to end…

Marat in the courtroom Marat underground

Sometimes the otter and sometimes the hound

Fighting all the gentry and fighting every priest

Businessman the bourgeois the military beast

Marat always ready to stifle every scheme

of the sons of the arse licking dying regime

We've got new generals our leaders are new

They sit and they argue and all that they do

Is sell their own colleagues and ride upon their backs

And jail them and break them and give them all the axe

Screaming in language that no one understands

Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands

When we wiped out the bosses and stormed through the wall

Of the prison they told us would outlast us all

And I truly wonder where Obama needs to be in all of this. I don’t see it as the job of the President to investigate his predecessor’s crimes. That’s the job of the legislative branch. I suppose I hope they’ll do something, but expect they will not.

Sometimes it's all about the effort, not the outcome. That's why everyone wins at the Special Olympics, including our trolls.

...how the Madwoman of Chaillot would handle this?

...falling prices!

But how far down does the tunnel from your basement go? 'Cause I doubt we can get the whole damned bunch to Paris, and of course Danny Kaye is gone now...

What, exactly, is the media's consitutional function?

Let's try a little exercise, shall we?

Close your eyes and imagine you're' 12. Good! Now imagine that you are also a child - let's say 12 just for the ducks of it - who lives in Iraq. Are you there in your happy place? Good. Now imagine that you have no legs or eyes since those US mortars fell on the house and killed your entire family.

Wouldn't YOU want some answers?

And, upon hearing that the man who ordered the troops into your country that bombed your family to death might be investigated by his replacement, wouldn't you really think that was a good idea?

There are any number of people I don't mind getting sticky with, or even just having potstickers with, but there are many, many more to whom I have no wish to stick...

"Like Gleen Greenwald. I bet he is rich."

Well, yeah. Gleen is rich. Unfortunately, Gleen's big in dry goods at his 4 locations in Duluth.

Glenn, though, he's a journalist...

Good point.

It also points to the complicity of legislative democrats in the crimes, and my point earlier of which of the body's parts (bodies parts; body parts) of the body politic we stop at with any investigations that may appear.

But then, I just finished my second Chi-Chi.

Timothy3 - sorry for the slaying! I'll take a nap soon and give your belly a rest!

Um...let's see

how many times can you show that an armed rebellion has done anything other than lead to an even more repressive junta

There was that little thing starting in 1776 in the New World...

...I made it to the end of the second page of the article. That was as far as I could go. The voices started in again...

...is channeling Maldoror?

...that's Elephantman...

Julian sounds fascinating. I shall have to go to Powell's.

Maldoror is particularly...difficult. I confess I have not been able to finish the work after about 3 DOZEN attempts. He was a genius, dead at 24...but One Sick Puppy. By page 3 a reader feels as if they have climbed from a cesspool toward something much more disgusting. But the prose is profound. I highly support anyone trying to get through it, with the caveat to keep vodka and even stronger disinfectants nearby while reading. Sort of like having one of the cenobytes from the Hellraiser movies as your life coach...

examining the innermost reaches of the soul, particularly when it becomes (and when doesn't it?), shall we say, darkly questionable.

And he will make you question your assumptions there. Perhaps you could rent "Le Fils de Requin" first (Sons of the Shark) to get sort of Brady Bunch feel good (which isn't saying much about the true gist of the film) to get an idea. The protaganist relies heavily on a Maldoror quote...it's also a laugh riot at points, 'cause the opening scene on the bus is just a hoot.

But Ducasse really asks some incredible questions of himself, especially the kind most of us would shy from.