How many secret overseas concentration camps does Bush have going? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

How many people has the Bush administration secretly tortured to death? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

How many Americans does the Bush administration have imprisoned in secret concentration camps? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

Saw a preview of a Japanese film about Hiroshima/Nagasaki a few days ago (called Three Minutes to Midnight -- will be out in a few months, quite an amazing film). Afterwards, talked to a young (30 years old) Japanese woman about her feelings about WWII. One thing she said that really hit me -- her grandfather fought at Okinawa and was taken prisoner by the Americans and was in a prison camp for many months. She said the thing he would always say, over and over, with much amazement, was how KIND the Americans were to the prisoners. He just couldn't believe it, and it shaped his granddaughter's view of America 50 years later. That made me so sad.

In the meantime, Huckabee is now calling for an attack against Iran, since the Senate has passed their stupid new law or what ever it is.

How did these awful people end up in control of my country?

Will the Dems be able to kabuki their way through stopping this crew before we attack Iran, or will they be too little too late again?

The Guardian is reporting bad news about likely U.S. action vis a vis Iran.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2127343,00.html

The Lieberman Amendment or whatever it is has certainly paved the way for an easy attack on Iran and not one of our brave Dems had the balls to stand up against it. A few months ago when I called Lautenberg's office on an Iran issue, I was told that the Senator believes Iran is a "serious threat to Israel" and therefore must be confronted. Goddamn it.

How do the sheep square the Lieberman provocation with the news that most of the foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi or Egyptian, and almost none are Iranian or Syrian? Oh, forgot, they don't have to square it. They've conflated all Muslims as a Big Scary Them and Amaddinajad (sp?) is Mean and Yucky. Bomb one you bomb them all. I am in despair.

Hezbollah? Hamas? Even if they are democratically elected, those kind of elections don't count. You have to understand what we mean by democracy, and that ain't it. Now, Saudi Arabia's human rights record is not a problem. Again, you have to understand what we mean by democracy, and human rights ain't it either.

The problem is not that the U.S. is not really supporting democracy. The problem is with you and your "ilk" who don't understand What Democracy Really Is.

Democracy is doing what the U.S. government wants. And being able to go to good malls.

It has nothing to do with free elections, or habeas corpus, or government transparency or any of that crappy human rights stuff. Those kinds of things are something only a brie-eating surrender monkey would consider democracy. Get with the program or get yourself to Gitmo.

Why would you consider your experience with the 20 or so people who live near you to be more reliable than scientifically determined surveys of thousands of representative people?

-- GlennGreenwald

Well, we live in neighborhoods, not surveys. And when our very Red State neighbors who used to have Support Our Troops stickers all over their SUVs now have taken off the stickers, and look upset when the war is mentioned, and get defensive instead of derisive when politics is discussed, and make faces when GWB is mentioned, then you have a feeling something is happening. Anecdotes ain't proof, but they can be good on the ground intelligence.

50 clear words on the positives of an immediate withdrawal.

I'll give you 4.

IT'S NOT OUR COUNTRY.

You know, I read one of these posts by Glenn, so rational, so calm, so logical, so right on the money. Then I read the posts by regulars and newbies, so interesting, so thoughtful. And I think, well, really, the country can't be THAT bad after all, people's eyes are open, they can SEE the insanity and it cannot stand.

And then Shooter (or Elephantman, or one of the others) comes here and posts some errant nonsense that completely misses the point of the post and shows me that our country is NOT all right. That people are not only hopelessly muddled but apparently WANT to be muddled. They like the insanity and want it to continue.

I keep thinking that Shooter and his hero George W. Bush and all the other enablers really can't exist, they really can't be out there. But they are. And they're still running things.

So thanks for the reality check, Shooter. There's still a LOT of work to be done.

BTW, everybody -- the Habeas Restoration Act is coming up for a vote soon. Be sure to call your Senators and urge them to support this important act.

Other Christians need to step up and call these zealots to task. Only along those lines will any ground be made among the public that predominantly thinks of itself as Christian.

They have. The Pope has condemned the war. The Presbyterians came out against it, as did the American Episcopals, the Reformed Church in America and of course the Quakers. Many others may have -- as I recall, ALL the "mainstream" Christian churches have been against the war pretty much from the beginning. They just don't get heard too much. Not much more than the Muslim leaders who have come out against terrorism (see Juan Cole for a list of them).

Sane America is not getting much airtime and hasn't for quite a while, and that includes the churches.